Trillium Capital declines to give details on $4 billion Getty Images offer

(Reuters) -Trillium Capital LLC chief executive Scott Murray told Reuters on Monday that his $4 billion bid for Getty Images Holdings Inc was genuine and that he made the offer public after the multimedia agency has ignored the activist investor for weeks.

Trillium, which has no public record of major acquisitions, said earlier in the day that it had offered $10 per Getty share after calling for Getty to sell itself and change its strategy. While that represented a 100% premium to Getty's unaffected stock price, shares rose 34% on the news to $6.80, reflecting investor skepticism over the feasibility of the potential deal.

Murray, who led information technology outsourcing firm Stream Global Services more than a decade ago, told Reuters in a telephone interview that his "deep relationships" in the private equity industry made the offer for Getty possible.

But he declined to detail how the transaction would be funded or disclose the amount of assets that his firm manages. In the statement unveiling its offer, Trillium said its principals owned "hundreds of thousands of shares of common stock and common stock equivalents" of Getty.

Murray declined to detail his exact position in Getty.

He said he made Trillium's offer public because Getty had refused to engage with him. "They have said nothing, nothing, nothing."

Murray added he could allow Getty's large investors - the Getty Family, Koch Industries and Neuberger Berman - to roll some or all their shares into the deal.

Getty and the top shareholders did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Trillium said Murray would become Getty's chairman if the bid succeeds.

Murray, who said he came the United States from Toronto, Canada, and has an office in Boston, has bid for a company before. In 2011, he offered to buy Stream Global Services, a company he founded, back from its private equity owners. Ares Management and Providence Equity Partners sold the company to Convergys Corp instead for $820 million in 2014.

Founded in 1995 by Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein, Getty Images competes with Reuters News and Associated Press to provide photos and videos for editorial use. The company returned to the stock market in 2022 after it was taken private in 2008.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston and Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Tomasz Janowski)