Rex Features will not seek new buyer as Getty deal falls through

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Photo agency Rex Features is not looking for a new buyer, despite an end to its planned acquisition by Getty Images. Rex's sale to Getty, which was announced in April , has been called off following a referral of the deal to the Competition Commission.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it it made the decision for fears that the merger would make Getty too dominant.

Both parties have now "walked away from the deal" and customers and photographers for the agency have welcomed its return to independence, Mike Selby, editorial director at Rex Features, told Journalism.co.uk.

"For our part we felt that the many-months-long investigations by the MMC [Monopolies & Mergers Commission] which would have been involved if the parties were to pursue the matter would have been extremely stressful for our staff and unsettling for our suppliers, customers and agents, and we felt that this could not be justified with no certainty of a positive outcome," he said in an email.

"The reasons given by the OFT for its decision to refer the case are confirmation of Rex's leading position in the market.

"Rex was never actively seeking a buyer, and we are not seeking one now. The offer by Getty was an interesting prospect, but now that it is off we will continue to do what we have been doing all along - give photographers and photo users in the UK and around the world a service which is second to none." In 2007 Getty bought citizen photo agency Scoopt before later shutting down the business in 2009 citing a lack of demand for the images it provided.

Speaking about the OFT's decision on the Rex and Getty merger, Amelia Fletcher, OFT senior director of mergers, says in a release : "This merger would bring together two of the largest and closest competitors for the supply of archive and entertainment images within the UK. A number of publishers, the key customers in this market, are concerned about the potential impact of the acquisition.

"Some of the information available to the OFT in this case was patchy and inconsistent. We have not been able to rule out competition concerns on the basis of this evidence, and so the right course of action is to refer the merger for a fuller investigation by the Competition Commission."