Retna pictures acquired by Photoshot
Photoshot, a picture agency in London has acquired Retna Pictures, a picture agency specialised in music and celebrity photography. We talked to Photoshot MD, Charles Taylor tonight to find out more about the biggest acquisition in its history. Charles Taylor and Stephen Hodgson made the following comments about the acquisition:
Charles said, “The addition of Retna Pictures Limited to our family of collections is another significant milestone in our plan to establish Photoshot as a quality based, full service, international, photo library group. Retna perfectly compliments our existing celebrity, music and portraiture collections, UPPA, Stay Still and Starstock.”
“We are extremely excited at becoming the new custodian of this wonderful collection and will do everything possible to build on the long tradition of service that Retna has provided for many years. “
“We have now bought a total of eleven complementary photo businesses since 2001,” Charles continued, “and service customers from wholly owned offices in New York, London, L.A. and Hamburg. With this growth, we are confident that we can supply a broad range of quality imagery to picture buyers, be the image a live news picture, an archival record, an entertainment event or exclusive celebrity portrait, a travel shot or a wildlife image or a creative shoot. Photoshot is one of only a few agencies that can supply this mixture of live and stock imagery.”
Stephen Hodgson, Managing Director of Retna Pictures Limited says, “I am sure that this change of ownership will be great for Retna. The market has been difficult for all agencies in the last few years, and becoming part of a bigger, more diverse group will enable us to compete more effectively in the future. When looking for a company to build upon the existing strengths of Retna, the previous owners wanted to make sure that they were dealing with a picture business committed to photographers and great photography. Photoshot has admirably demonstrated that it shares this desire with their acquisition of several other leading libraries and the way those businesses have thrived under the Photoshot umbrella.”
We asked a a few more questions to Charles and he shared the following details with Fast Media Magazine. The 11 companies that now make up Photoshot mean the company has 3.100 contributing individuals and 250 agency relations. The company will take on all Retna staff which brings the total number on 30 people. The team will move as soon as possible to the Photoshot offices in Farringdon, east London. The Retna brand will stay intact and sales teams will operate seperately, synergies will be on the back-end only.
Charles also said that Retna’s strength in music is a big bonus while the celebrity portraiture will further add to the Staystill collection that’s already being offered by Photoshot.