Kodak Bankruptcy Implications?

[40oz]

I haven't checked the latest SEC filings, but the last time I looked it was the film division that was generating profits. The machinery is mostly depreciated and the technology is mature so R&D spending i minimal. Digital and print, on the other hand, have been burning though cash.

This. Kodak has a number of divisions, and the film division is easily the most profitable. The digital sensor division has burned every dollar they throw at it. If they stop wasting money on that, they are healthy. But as long as people with less intelligence and knowledge than money insist Kodak pursue unprofitable technologies, the greater company will suffer.

The bigger problem is speculation by people who make statements and act based purely on assumption and care little for fact. Investors who have zero idea how Kodak makes money have sold their shares as a knee-jerk reaction to what should be a non-event. At the end of the day, however, Kodak products aren't worth any less than they were a week ago, so the stock price is not an indicator of anything but the skittishness of slightly informed fund managers.

 

[Bob Michaels]

Whats happening? With the many film users in the world, cant we each chip in a dollar to buy them out???😱

How about $1.05? (Friday night aftermarket trade price) That will make you a part owner. The stock symbol is EK. You could probably buy the whole company for $250 million.

Since it closed at $.78 when the NYSE shut down at 4PM, you would have made a profit of 35% in those 4 hours.

Unfortunately, none of that has anything to do with the fact that Kodak is losing large amounts of money. They burned through $847 million in cash in the first six months of this year.

 

[K14]

They burned through $847 million in cash in the first six months of this year.

That put the nail in the coffin. Too, worried prospectors like Google worried about buying their patent portfolio and getting sued later on.

Talk about being put between a rock and a hard place.

No way out!

Gary

 

[paulfitz76]

A Loss

A Loss

To Give this issue some perspective. On the left, is the site of the former duPont Rochester film plant on Driving Park Ave, Rochester, NY. There were 9 coating lines here, making graphic arts films. Capacity of over 1 million sq. ft. per month (at least). Completely torn down and removed. 🙁🙁

On the right, is Kodak Park at the corner of Lake and Ridge. The main long building you see is a color film coating line. We used to call over there to former duPont employees who "escaped" to Kodak to see what was running that day. Notice the large white area behind it. That used to contain the Main offices for HR and Management of the film area. That's where you went to apply for a job, as I did several times.

I ended up at Driving Park Ave instead.

I won't say film is dead. What seems to be dead is the drive and ingenuity in this country to really engineer and manufacture things to the nth degree, save Apple Computer. I hope I linked the image ok!

 

[claacct]

With Kodak gone the psychological barrier will be broken and film will die as well...

 

[Roger Hicks]

With Kodak gone the psychological barrier will be broken and film will die as well...

No.

There are QUITE A LOT of other countries outside the USA. Their citizens are somewhat less likely to succumb to parochial hysteria.

This is of course assuming the unlikely event that Kodak dies completely, with no parts of it being successfully spun off.

Cheers,

R.

 

[carpark]

With Kodak gone the psychological barrier will be broken and film will die as well...

Don't forget Kodak are not the only people who make film. It would be sad but not the end by a long way

 

[Vics]

Bad news for sure. I should have been stocking up. What good is buying up film going to do if the developer goes under too? Ilford stands to gain from this.

Surely one could mix one's own D-76. The formulas are known, aren't they? The C-41 kits and E6 kits are all 3rd party now?

 

[Vics]

To Give this issue some perspective. ...

I won't say film is dead. What seems to be dead is the drive and ingenuity in this country to really engineer and manufacture things to the nth degree, save Apple Computer. I hope I linked the image ok!

iPhones are being manufactured in the US now?

 

[claacct]

I know what you mean. I quit eating chicken when Col. Sanders died.

http://www.colonelsanders.com/

Instead of chicken an ostrich analogy would have been far more to the point, not only describing the attitude of Kodak for a long time now but also that of its fans...

 

[Roger Hicks]

Instead of chicken an ostrich analogy would have been far more to the point, not only describing the attitude of Kodak for a long time now but also that of its fans...

Of course, the doomsayers are MUCH better informed and more rational than anyone else...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Pete B]

Time for Kodak to get their sensor in a scanner perfectly matched to their films. Type in the batch code off the box and, so long as you've downloaded the latest firmware with that batch's definition, enjoy a wonderful Kodak colour palette.
It could've been so different.
Pete

 

[antiquark]

Does Kodak supply any film/technology to the military? If yes, the govt might find a way to bail them out.

 

[batterytypehah!]

OK, so I'm pretty much a babe in the woods about all things business. But: My feeling is, at under $1 a share, somebody would have made a big move already, if it weren't for Kodak's baggage. By which I mean well over 100 years of generating hazardous waste, and countless avenues for litigation as a result.

 

[batterytypehah!]

Does Kodak supply any film/technology to the military? If yes, the govt might find a way to bail them out.

Federal? Don't think so. You will not hear the words "bail out" out of anybody's mouth in the current administration until the 2012 election.

NY state might feel more inclined, but this is entirely a guess on my part. EK is actually incorporated in NJ, I just learned, but that's a Republican administration, so not likely.

 

[rogerzilla]

It could be an excellent result, if someone buys the film line and promotes it properly without Kodak's erratic management. Leica should get involved to protect M7/MP sales and their repair service (is the Leica/Google thing true?).

Film is a pretty scalable business as there's no huge R&D costs to be amortised as there is with digital; if you only sell 2% of the film you did 20 years ago, fine, you just make 2% the amount you did then. Efke or Ilford can show that there are no great economies of scale required.

Could film become the new vinyl? Some say it already is; it requires that someone makes new film cameras that don't cost $000s, although I imagine most new vinyl actually is played on turntables costing a similar amount to a Leica M7.

 

[RObert Budding]

Who knows - maybe Ilford will buy the Kodak film division. That wouldn't be a bad outcome.

 

[rogerzilla]

Surely one could mix one's own D-76. The formulas are known, aren't they? The C-41 kits and E6 kits are all 3rd party now?

Yes, b/w developing will never be a concern since you can mix your own from three or four easily-available chemicals. Colour processing is more of a problem. You can do it at home (I have) but it's not very rewarding and far more difficult because of the high temperatures required. If good commercial labs stop doing C41 and E6, there is no point in anyone making colour film. Arguably digital does colour better than film does anyway (with the exception of latitude and highlight control).

I suspect that in ten years' time b/w will still be strong but digital may be your only option for colour. If it makes you feel better, your old Leica M3 was probably fed on b/w for the first 10-15 years of its life and it will be like going full circle.

 

[Bob Michaels]

.................................. I take comfort from the fact that the world has never actually come to an end, literally or figuratively, despite the countless predictions to the contrary I have read in my lifetime. It's surprising how many things are survivable, and how little the world is changed in most cases even by those things that are, at the time, perceived as Great Events.

Cheers,

R.

Roger, you are sounding like Kodak did not cease operations on Friday (oh yeah, they really are still alive and making film) and that there is someone else in the world besides Kodak that makes film (oh wait, there actually is Fuji, Ilford, Maco, and a couple of eastern companies)

Did you somehow miss Chicken Little when he ran through shouting "the sky is falling, the sky is falling"?

 

[sevo]

You can do it at home (I have) but it's not very rewarding and far more difficult because of the high temperatures required. If good commercial labs stop doing C41 and E6, there is no point in anyone making colour film.

I've been doing colour in the small scale studio lab since the mid eighties - it is not hard, in many ways up-to-spec colour is easier to teach to an intern than quality black and white. The easiness of studio/local lab level E6/C41 was the thing that once pushed them into the market over (then) chromatically superior processes that needed large scale labs.

Colour might become extinct because it is rather hard to argue its superiority to digital, while black and white is much harder to beat - but it will hardly become extinct merely because small scale external services vanish. All previous colour processes did not have them either, and some mail order labs will survive until the last day.