Shutterfly in talks to go public through the merger of SPAC

Any deal could be a few weeks away, some people said, and there is no guarantee that the parties will reach an agreement. If it did, it would add Shutterfly to the long list of companies involved in a recent explosion of transactions involving SPACs, raising money in a public offering with plans to later find one or more companies to merge.

The Altimar vehicle went public in February, raising $ 345 million to complete a transaction, which, as is typical, would likely include additional privately raised funds. A previous vehicle, Altimar Acquisition Corp., agreed last year to combine two investment firms and make them public in a $ 12.5 billion deal, which at the time was one of the largest transactions with blank check.

Founded in 1999, the eponymous Shutterfly brand helps consumers print their photos on personalized books and gift items. The company owns Lifetouch, which takes photography at school and operates portrait studios, and also has a digital printing arm for companies. It first went public in 2006. Apollo bought the company in 2019 for about $ 2.6 billion, including debt, then combined it with Snapfish LLC to create a larger player in online photography services.

Prior to the leveraged purchase of Shutterfly, its prospects faded as online photo services became ubiquitous, and competitors with extensive resources, including Google Photos, stole market share. But the demand for photo souvenirs has grown since the pandemic arrived about a year ago and has made people nostalgic for past travels and special occasions, such as weddings and graduations. Shutterfly’s revenue growth, which was roughly stable when Apollo bought it, is now double-digit, said one person.

Potentially adding to the call for a public listing for Shutterfly and its supporters, shares of e-commerce companies such as retailer Chewy Inc.

and the Etsy craft market Inc.

they behaved well during the pandemic. Moonpig Group PLC, the UK equivalent of Shutterfly, went public last month.

SPACs have been an advantage for private equity firms, providing a simplified alternative to an initial public offering for their portfolio companies. A steady stream of privately held companies have agreed to go public through SPAC mergers, since the frenzy of blank checking has grown on Wall Street over the past few years. Carlyle Group Inc.

is pursuing a SPAC agreement for Syniverse Technologies LLC that could return the assets of the decade-old investment, people familiar with the matter said earlier this week.

Write to Cara Lombardo at [email protected] and Miriam Gottfried at [email protected]