The photo-sharing site Shutterfly is headed for a sale or IPO, reports the WSJ (the article is behind a pay wall). The deal is targeted at around $400 million to $500 million, and the company's profits are estimated at around $20 million. Shutterfly also has its own manufacturing plant where its cards and photo gifts are made.
Shutterfly, which launched back in December 1999, must be coming under increasing pressure from photo-sharing startups like Photobucket and Flickr. Stats out last week show that it's now the 10th most popular photo-sharing site (see Mashable's Photobucket post), and ranks behind lightweight newcomers like Slide - a slideshow tool that plugs into MySpace. But Shutterfly has something that some of the startups lack: real-world assets and profitability.
