News from Kodak/Chapter 11 Emergence

L

London CDK

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All - as some of you know, my name is Colleen Krenzer and I work with the PR agency for Kodak's film and P&OS group. Today, the company announced that is initiating the sales processes for the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses, which include the film and P&OS businesses. Some key points.

1. Kodak will continue to manufacture all its products during this time.
2. As Kodak moves forward with the potential transition of these businesses to new ownership, it will ensure that customers continue to have the same products, services and support that they currently receive from Kodak.
3. As it has done with previous businesses that it has sold (e.g. Carestream)
Kodak will ensure that the potential buyers shares its commitment to serving customers.

We wanted to share this with you directly and stress that manufacturing is ongoing and will continue to be so. As much as I can, I will share updates with you, on behalf of the company. I work specifically with the film and paper groups and as such, am not involved in the corporate area and therefore, am not privy to all the latest information. That said, I will try my best. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120823006226/en/Kodak-Takes-Steps-Successful-Emergence
 
Thank you. I appreciate this information coming from a source close to Kodak.
Time to shop for a small freezer and fill it up with Yellow Boxes.

Wayne
 
Colleen has yet too tell me anything that's not true, and I've known her for a fair few years. This is REALLY good inside information.

Cheers,

R.
 
Gang...the message is also on the Kodak home page if you'd like to have a look. I find this pretty darn sad.
 
Good news. Maybe the buyer will put better management in place to run the business. Kodak management would run it into the ground sooner or later no matter what. Selling is the only chance to save the film department.

Unfortunately Ilford does not make anything that can replace Portra. For B&W, with Plus-X gone and all, I already switched to FP4/HP5. Wonderful films.

- N.
 
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Good point -- Ilford may want to "stick to its knitting" and just stay with black and white, but they'd do a wonderful job with color film, I'm sure.
 
I hope a really good buyer turns up soon and do magic with the emulsions and we'll get the good kodak films lik IR films (color and bw) as well as the nice plus-x and double-x etc to continue. Isnt Hollywood still dependent on kodak films on some how for the backup of films even when recorded digitally? My present 400 fav is the tmax 400, but in 125 there is only the FP4+ which is a truly superb film when stand developed in HC110. I hope that the one great Kodak positive and negative films will soon florish again.
 
Thanks, Colleen for keeping us in the loop. As a 60-year user of Kodak products, I find it all very sad that Kodak never tried to keep to its core business and make a go of it.
 
Thanks for the update Colleen. It's good to know that we can count on paper and film production continuing during the sale and transition period. Let's hope it continues afterwards too.
 
The only way at least I know to totally ensure the current Kodak quality and consistency we get now is to continue to at least coat the master rolls in Building 38. Both still and motion stock are coated on the same line in Building 38, which much of the machinery rests on solid blocks of concrete that go down some 40 feet to Rochester bedrock greatly eliminating problematic vibrations. Kodak will continue offering motion stock through 2015 as per a new contract with several major studios, part of their debt is some 26 million owed in overdue rebates to these MP industries.

So maybe they will coat master rolls of it and some other company will slit, package, store and distribute it....?....If not there, then what....

And Colleen, any word on Kodak Chemistry?
 
I'll need to stock up film big time... Yikes. That's gonna cost me now, with not much cash to spend currently...

Although I'm convinced that the new owner will confess to having a heart for the business, the tables might turn once the deal is done...
Where there's money to be made, things like the ethics of a promise sometimes are only kept as long as fresh fish...
 
We'll all see what happens as this process unfolds. And thank you, Roger, for the kind words. I'll keep checking in on this thread and as people have questions, I'll work with Audrey Jonckheer, who over sees all Film, Paper & Output Systems WW to see what answers we can get. If we can answer them, we will. If we can't, I'll tell you that as well.
 
Not going to hoard or stock up just yet but I will continue to use products from Big Yellow in spite of management's attempts to tarnish what was once a wonderful brand.
 
Thanks Colleen, everyone really appreciates a human interaction post announcement. I only mention the whole quality / coating facility equation because, well, a big part of that quality is the amazing coating facility at Building 38. The speculation on how this part will turn out is just getting started. But then who knows, Ilford's quality is remarkably good and their coating plant is not as sophisticated as Kodak's, at least that I know of.

Keep your chin up and know you have many on your side. Consider posting on APUG if you can take the heat, if not, I *totally* understand.

Best, Dan
 
Odd decision to split motion picture film production and distribution from print film (E6 dead and gone already).

This smacks of trying to leverage the existing, rump demand for motion picture stock as a profit centre with little distribution overhead, but dump the photographic segment as it requires substantial distribution networks. Perhaps Kodak would still retain the manufacturing facilities with the offshoot company simply handling the overhead of sales, marketing, and distribution of the end products.

Obviously the sale of the digital kiosk systems is a distribution and network maintenance issue with big overhead, so dumping that makes sense. People are not walking into stores to order prints from digital SD cards; they do it online. Dying biz model in any case.

It's just odd that all film production would not go as a package considering they are really down to one emulsion system in Rochester that is exclusive to Kodak products and cannot be moved or disassembled. Economically it makes no sense to divide the dwindling demand for film stock between two corporate entities (motion picture and still photography) when there is really only one output resource.

Kodak has totally fumbled its asset sales with bizarre packaging of the patents not aligned with potential purchaser strategies. This, again, seems to be a poorly thought out attempt.
 
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