Masterfile sold to Arius3D for $21M

Masterfile, probably the largest stock photography company other than Getty Images and Corbis Images, has been sold for $21 million. The buyer is a small publicly-traded company, Arius3D, also of Canada.

Masterfile, based in Toronto, Canada, has about 100 employees and annual revenues of about $22 million. Masterfile started as a subsidiary of the Toronto Sun newspaper in 1981, and became a separate private company in 1984. Arius3D, based in Ontario, Cananda, has 15 employees and produces interactive three-dimensional images.

“I’m 60 years old. I can’t do this forever.”
— Steve Pigeon, Masterfile CEO and largest shareholder

Source: Will Carleton at AbouttheImage plus MarketWatch via PDN.