Looks like AGFA is out of the game.

[MP Guy]

Agfa-Gevaert on the insolvency filing of AgfaPhoto GmbH

Mortsel/Belgium, May 27, 2005 – Agfa-Gevaert announced today that it was informed of the insolvency filing by AgfaPhoto GmbH. Agfa-Gevaert is fully prepared to co-operate with the insolvency receiver once appointed and all parties concerned.

Effective November 2, 2004, Agfa-Gevaert sold its consumer imaging business to a group of investors in a management buy out/in. Since then the consumer imaging business has been operated through a group of companies under the name of AgfaPhoto. The AgfaPhoto group is a private group of companies owned by management, NannO Beteiligungsholding and a small number of financial investors.

Agfa-Gevaert provides AgfaPhoto group companies with distribution, order fulfillment, after sales and other services until the end of 2005.

In addition, at the time of the management buy out/in on November 2, 2004, Agfa-Gevaert granted a secured vendor loan for the full purchase price. Based on Agfa Gevaert's audited financial statement, the purchase price was set at 112 million Euros, which is still subject to an audit of the closing financials by the purchaser. The vendor loan is fully secured by a lease portfolio held by AgfaPhoto Holding GmbH, the parent company of the AgfaPhoto group. AgfaPhoto Holding GmbH is not implicated in the insolvency filing of AgfaPhoto GmbH. Agfa-Gevaert therefore does not expect the insolvency filing by AgfaPhoto to have a material effect on Agfa-Gevaert.

Agfa-Gevaert regrets this development for AgfaPhoto GmbH but is hopeful, that in the interest of preserving the employment and the business operations of AgfaPhoto group, the current difficulties can be overcome and that AgfaPhoto GmbH recovers quickly.

 

[Roman]

I'm not too savvy about the machinations of those goddarned bourgeois capitalist basta.. - err, big corporation managers, I wanted to say, but rumor on German photo forums has it that this is only a trick to lay off a few hundred workers, with the public & creditors picking up the tab, while on the other hand managers and investors will make more profit with a leaner structure...

Roman

 

[Roger Hicks]

Roman,

How very unlike Ilford, then...

I think I'll be voting 'Yes' for the constitution here in France on Sunday. What's your view?

Cheers,

Roger

 

[RubenBlaedel]

wow Roman you sure got them figured out
If it is what it takes to keep a film company running then there is not to much to do about it
Germany do need to get out af the negative spiral with growing unimployment and bad economy ! I can not imagine what a French no to the EU-threaty will do to the German economy - "arch du liebe scheise" (sorry no german spell checker)
cheers RUben

 

[Jarvis]

Roman, I think your wrong, in Germany it is pretty easy to lay off 100' of workers, as I grabb it it is really the end for Agfa .... Must say the pricing strategy of their products were always liberal compared to the competition, their apx100 are the cheapest 120's I can buy, rodinal is about the price of a bottle of coke .... anyway the tendency one can detect is that the big players in the analog market can't hack it, the small niche companies are moving in... which is OK ... tetenal, amoloco, Efke ... just to name a few all provide high quality products at reasonable prices ...

Look at the large Format cameras, there are plenty of suppliers, names you have never heard of al building pretty good stuff.... Take leica... and Voigtländer ... the big companies do get sort of arrogant, asking 3300€ for an MP and additionally charging 230€ for the rewind lever ..... (in either black or chrome finish)... I ask you !!

 

[phototone]

I truly doubt that Agfa films will disappear. Agfa is one of only three firms making color negative and color tranparency film. The market for this is still huge (don't look at the USA).
Think 3rd. world. Also, the market for 35mm cine film color negative camera film is still huge. Also 35mm release print stock. How many prints of the new StarWars epic were struck? something like 9000 or so. (Yes I know some venues are digital presentation), but most worldwide are still good old 35mm film. Lets see, 35mm movies run at 90 ft. per minute, x a 120 minute film (as an example) 90 x 120 = 10,800 ft. per print (per feature film). x 9000 prints ....well you do the math. I doubt one of the three major movie film stock manufacturers has so little core business that it needs to fold. Ilford, on the other hand, is primarily a b/w film producer, so they are not affected by the movie business etc.

I'll bet as some others have mentioned, that this is more of a political move to reduce the employee levels to a sustainable level.

 

[RubenBlaedel]

Just in case they do shut down - I can not stand** the Kodak and Fuji slide films - are there any alternatives ?? slidef ilm wise ??

** can not stand them for photographing object of art as paintings - ceramics sculpture etc in the studio - I am almost ok with them for portraits and natures shots as long as I am not forced to use Velvia

Velvia can be fun though on old uncoated lenses

 

[Jarvis]

the kodak E100 Vs series, or is it vg I forget is pretty good, my wife shoots them and they all look reasonable for colour slides at least.... what you will see though is a tendenca towards Velvia, mickey mouse colours as realistic as George Bush in drag riding an elephant on a state trip to norh korea ..... people like it, it sells, personally I don't understand why velvia users just don't do oversaturated digital .... it's the same effect, only cheaper...

 

[richiedcruz]

stocking up

stocking up

Just a little anecdote.

After reading that Agfa is now out of the game, I ran down to my local photo supply shop in Berkeley. They only had one bottle of Rodinal left (but lots of Neutol) everything else with an orange label was gone. They were fully stocked two weeks ago, when I was there to stock up on Tri-X.

Everyone in the shop had heard about Agfa going out of business, too, and not into some type of chapter 11.

Stock up while you can! 😱

Richie

 

[markrich]

Does this only affect Agfaphoto GMBH or other Agfaphoto firms around Europe and elsewhere?

Marky

 

[Roman]

OK, more and more evidence that my comment was not too far off the mark - the whole management buy-out deal seems to haeve been ratehr close to a scam by some shady investors to rip off a large sum - the main investor, NannO is notorious for having scammed around 35 million in the privatization of ex-state owned Esat German companies in the 1990s - the EU is investigating this.
Sorry , I only have German sources for this
http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/05-28/013.php
http://morgenpost.berlin1.de/content/2005/05/28/wirtschaft/756301.html
http://morgenpost.berlin1.de/content/2005/05/28/wirtschaft/756305.html


Roman

 

[David S]

I think you'll find that workers in th UK are the cheapest to get rid of in Europe, though that's a dubious distinction...

I had some involvement with the Ilford Receivership, and in its original form, the business was frighteningly inefficient. Receivership trading, after redundancies turned the business round into a profitable operation, and saved the marque and the name. As Roger suggests, somewhat different from Agfa??

 

[M like Leica M6]

One year ago I heard from some people from Agfa in Belgium that it was already clear the whole "managmenet buy-ou" will be nothing but a fake to get rid of debts and workforce. This is in my eyes not something for the EU to look at but for the state attorney.

 

[Roman]

http://www.nd-online.de/artikel.asp?AID=72482&IDC=3

- apparently, investigations into the case are already on the way.
And another article for those who read German:

http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/1116435041377.shtml

BTW, as mentioned in another place (on the German forum that you - M - are a member too, IIRC), another motivation behind that shady act might have been selling of assets and patent rights, which might bring more money for onvestors in the short run, than keeping up production.

Roman

 

[mattg]

I don't think this means the end for Agfa photo products, in the medium term I think there is still a market for Agfa's BW film and paper products, just a much smaller one than previously. Not sure about Roman's posts because I can't speak German but if there is some shady activity that will be a much worse situation.

Looking at what happened at Ilford film devision there will probably be a smaller product line, they'd already stated they would stop making Scala at some time in the future and that might now be sooner rather than later.

It's a real pity because the Agfa colour transparency film had the best neutral colour rendition of any I've used, just hope they'll decide to continue with production.

 

[Solinar]

Roman, thanks for keeping us updated. It would be a real shame if the venture capitalists have already sold off the patents of AgfaPhoto. This scenario is all too common in today's global corporate environment.

 

[Roman]

http://www.welt.de/data/2005/05/30/725006.html

- another update for readers of German; seems like 372 million Euros disappeared in the last 6 months, without any convincing explanation where to (in the whole year of 2003 - before any cost-cutting measures were taken - only 84 million Euros were spent...).

http://www.handelsblatt.com/pshb/fn/relhbi/sfn/buildhbi/cn/GoArt!200012,200038,905923/index.html

- due to payments of an estimated 50 million of Euros by Agfa-Gevaert, production will run for at least another 2 months.

Roman

 

[mikule]

I just recently received this as part of the Perth Arts News Mailout. Will AGFA still exist or am I reading all the news wrong?


====================


*** Black-and-White Photo Competition

AgfaPhoto is raising the curtain on the Third
International AgfaPhoto Multicontrast
Black-and-White Photo Competition. This year's
theme of "Body Language" is intended to give
enthusiastic photographers from all over the
world the opportunity of submitting their
artistic contributions which consider human
nature from different points of view.

All those interested in taking part can find more
details of how to enter the competition on our
special website
http://www.agfaphoto.com/en-GB/professional-photography/bw-photo-competition/.

And your questions on the competition will also
be answered at the e-mail address
bw-competition@agfaphoto.com.

All participants have until 12 August 2005 (postmark) to submit their
work.
====================

 

[taffer]

Just for the record, I went to a store yesterday and they only had ONE remaining bottle of Rodinal. Plenty of other Agfa chemicals though.

I thought about grabbing it but it's really difficult to give up on the convenience of Diafine once you've used it.

 

[chug]

I scored 9 rolls of Agfa Vista ISO 400 36 exp and one 24 for A$2 bucks on monday 🙂 I was rather happy with that buy.