Getty Images Goes Public Via SPAC, This Is How Much Shareholders Redeemed And How Much Is Left

Stock photo giant, Getty Images Holdings Inc. GETY went public on Monday, following its merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) CC Neuberger Principal Holdings (CCNB).

On Friday, shares of the new publicly traded company soared more than 150% after it was revealed that 99.4% of the company’s float was redeemed by shareholders at an average price of $10.03 — shares are trading around $26 right now.

Of the 82.8 million shares available, some 82.3 million of them were redeemed by CCNB shareholders — leaving about 508,000 available to the public.

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How did that happen? A feature of the SPAC structure is that shareholders have a week before the SPAC reverse merger transaction closes to choose to redeem their shares.

Investors have the option to redeem their shares prior to the business combination for a pro-rata share of the cash in the trust account because the SPAC itself has no business operations and the target firm is unknown at the time of the IPO.

A shareholder may decide to exchange shares for the roughly $10 per share held in trust from the SPAC's first IPO at the redemption date. Due to interest accrued on the funds kept in trust, the price can be a few cents higher than $10 per share, as it is in this case at $10.03.

At the present share price, the 508,000 shares that are available to the public are worth about $13.8 million.

In 2021, Getty earned just $0.13 per share on revenues of $918 million.

Getty went public with a valuation of $4.8 billion. At current share prices, the company is worth around $2.3 billion.