Istock, Getty images and shutterstock Unfortunately we don't have any information on how profitable these real estate photography businesses that Urbanimmersive has acquired are. We can use a purchase price to sales multiples on similar businesses that have already been acquired or are publicly traded.
Istock is a photography agency that was founded in Canada in 2000 and acquired by Getty images in 2006. it was purchased for US $50 m and had sales of $23 million that year. This gives us a purchase price to sales multiple of ~ 2.17. The following year sales jumped to $70 million after the acquisition!
Getty images was acquired for around US $3.3B in 2018 and had annual sales of around $ 1B for a purchase multiple of 3.3.
Shutterstock which is a publicly traded company has an enterprise value to sales multiple of around
6. This is from stockhouse:
Shutterstock Inc is a U.S.-based company that is primarily engaged in the provision of digital content. The content segment, whose offerings include photographs, illustrations, vector art, video clips, and music tracks, contributes almost all of the company's revenue.
Gross margins are very high at around 60% and cash flow to sales is about 25%
My guess is that a company that provides 3d tours and floor plans would be more profitable than a conventional photography business. Urbanimmersive has acquired these agencies at a purchase price to sales multiple of less than 2 which appears low given the synergy potential from the deal. I'm going to assume the purchase price is the enterprise value of the combined agencies. On top of that if the industry experiences a tailwind then the purchase price to forward sales could be much lower. I'm looking forward to Q3 and Q4 financial results and I think there is much more upside ahead.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2009/06/24/microstock-photography-is-getting-big-istockphoto-projects-200-million-in-revenues/amp/
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.chron.com/business/texas-inc/amp/Getty-Images-struggles-to-frame-a-profitable-14901397.php