Emerging Kodak

kuparikettu · Jan 31, 2013

While it's so nice to have so many threads about the bleak future of Kodak, maybe we could dedicate one thread to hopeful news on Kodak emerging from chapter 11.

I'll start: http://www.pr-inside.com/multi-touch-technology-using-new-transparent-r3570023.htm

So worry not, there will be coating happening in the future and while the machines churn out film for use in phones and pads and lcd screens, maybe once a year they might also run a batch of film for photography and cinema!

batwister · Jan 31, 2013

Sorry to put a downer on your thread, but this is a very different type of film. 'Conductive film coating' for 'touch panels and related applications'.
Nothing to do with the light sensitive emulsion we so enjoy.

AgX · Jan 31, 2013

Another downer would be that this is not actually new technolgy. At least I don't see new technology in this.

Agfa has been coating film with PEDOT for years. Furthermore they make PEDOT, including as screen printing ink.
Kodak in contrast would do customized pattern coating. But this would just be job-coating (on their own base film) to my understanding.

EDIT:
Maybe the novelty lies in etching a full area coated film instead of screen printing it, to form that pattern.

pbromaghin · Jan 31, 2013

batwister said:
Sorry to put a downer on your thread, but this is a very different type of film. 'Conductive film coating' for 'touch panels and related applications'.
Nothing to do with the light sensitive emulsion we so enjoy.

Ah, but if it uses the same machine, it keeps the lights on in between

kuparikettu · Jan 31, 2013

batwister said:
Sorry to put a downer on your thread, but this is a very different type of film. 'Conductive film coating' for 'touch panels and related applications'.
Nothing to do with the light sensitive emulsion we so enjoy.

Nah, the main point wasn't so much whether or not this tech has anything to do with photographic film per se, but rather on the fact that Kodak is involved in some research and production of technologies which aren't too tightly connected to photography but to other large business areas instead. This is important, because we have seen that Fuji is nowadays a company which produces even makeup products (http://www.fujifilm.com/news/n111205.html). It's for the best of us if these giants find other revenue streams in addition to traditional film business because we do know that focusing purely on photography and downsizing won't be possible due to the large coating lines and the cost of manufacturing new smaller machines.

bobwysiwyg · Jan 31, 2013

Not to be Mr. Negative [pun intended] but I doubt other profitable aspects of their business will be allowed to 'fund' photographic production. It's either profitable on its own or not.

kuparikettu · Jan 31, 2013

bobwysiwyg said:
Not to be Mr. Negative [pun intended] but I doubt other profitable aspects of their business will be allowed to 'fund' photographic production. It's either profitable on its own or not.

That would be the case if film production, makeup and electronic film products were totally unconnected. However, because they share some parts (chemicals, coating, production lines, distribution) producing other stuff that is wanted keeps the production lines running and thus makes the losses of having equipment unused smaller.

Thus it is like a factory producing wooden household items: if at some point there isn't as much demand for wooden stools, they might keep the production running at a smaller portion of stools being produced of the whole capacity but they can have the machines work on some other wooden articles as well. Stools are still profitable, but only doing wooden stools isn't -- widening the catalog is sometimes necessary.

Film is still very much profitable and large business, but only producing film is bad idea. Innovations should be used broadly (Btw, Harman does this too: http://www.harmantechnology.com/DotNetNuke/Technology/Antimicrobial/tabid/185/Default.aspx)

Athiril · Jan 31, 2013

bobwysiwyg said:
Not to be Mr. Negative [pun intended] but I doubt other profitable aspects of their business will be allowed to 'fund' photographic production. It's either profitable on its own or not.

I don't think this is true at all. The digital imaging and printer aspect of Kodak was sucking everything else dry for many years before it caught up with them.

IIRC they also shifted losses, costs and profits around to other areas.

Sal Santamaura · Mar 11, 2013

Emerging with these results to "build on:"

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kodak-posts-bigger-loss-sees-212818533.html

Hatchetman · Mar 11, 2013

Sal Santamaura said:
Emerging with these results to "build on:"

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kodak-posts-bigger-loss-sees-212818533.html

Wow. it just keeps getting worse.

RattyMouse · Mar 11, 2013

Kodak's losses are staggering. 400 million dollars and increasing. Sales are also down 24%. Really, how can this dinosaur keep on wheezing along? I guess I'll believe it when I see it, that they exit bankruptcy.

Darkroom317 · Mar 12, 2013

The stock is so cheap we should come together and buy a controlling interest in the company.

Pioneer · Mar 12, 2013

Don't you know? That is the re-organization plan. Print and sell more stock...Oooops, sorry...that was Bernanke.

Dennis S · Mar 12, 2013

Why did they invent the digital camera and not market it ? Everyone else did.

iulian · Mar 12, 2013

Darkroom317 said:
The stock is so cheap we should come together and buy a controlling interest in the company.

If you add all the liabilities, they should give us money just to buy it

This is what corporate arrogance looks like. It happened to Polaroid it (almost) happened to Apple, it happened to Silicon Graphics and it will happen to IBM and HP quite soon, I'm afraid.
Others will be more dedicated to the customer and grow, starting the cycle all over again.

I think it started with the useless film formats pushed onto the customers to sell more crappy cameras (just look up a list... 620 anyone?) culminating with the APS fiasco and the delay in marketing digital. Too many mistakes to survive. The fact that they were huge delayed the end, but the vision in Kodak is just a ECN product line.

Sorry for the rant, but I see design-by-commitee and marketing-by-commitee everyday. No one takes charge and imposes a vision, and when they do it's usually crap like expensive inkjet with cheap ink and nobody dares to contradict them.

Support the ones who care about us (Ilford, ADOX, maybe even Maco and Fuji) and let the dead rest already.

Regards,
Iulian

Brian C. Miller · Mar 15, 2013

Businessweek: Kodak loss up 80 pct in 2012 as sales fall 20 pct, "The Rochester, N.Y., company said it lost $1.38 billion in 2012, 80 percent more than the loss of $764 million the year before."

Money, meet furnace.

MattKing · Mar 16, 2013

However:

"The Rochester, N.Y., company said it lost $1.38 billion in 2012, 80 percent more than the loss of $764 million the year before. Excluding reorganization costs, the latest loss would have been $308 million, Kodak said."

So their reorganization costs were in excess of $1.07 billion.

Roger Cole · Mar 16, 2013

And their loss excluding those costs was less than half the loss of 2011.

Still they are bleeding heavily if not quite gushing as badly as in 2011.

AgX · Mar 16, 2013

iulian said:
I think it started with the useless film formats pushed onto the customers to sell more crappy cameras (just look up a list... 620 anyone?) culminating with the APS fiasco and the delay in marketing digital.

Kodak had been forerunner with types as 126, S-8 which really cranked up the markets worlwide.

APS had been a well designed system that had been outrun by digital technololgies just as the whole industry.

alanrockwood · Mar 16, 2013

Darkroom317 said:
The stock is so cheap we should come together and buy a controlling interest in the company.

Buying stock in Kodak prior to their emerging from bankruptcy is absolutely, without a doubt, the worst thing one could possibly contemplate. To begin with, even purchasing 100% of the shares will not give you control. The company is in bankruptcy, and control is now formally in the hands of the court and effectively in the hands of the creditors. Shareholders are powerless in this situation.

Furthermore, the chance that shareholders will retain any value when the company emerges from bankruptcy is zero. For example, suppose you were to invest, let us say, $10,000,000 in kodak shares today and hold them until the company emerges from bankruptcy. When the company emerges from bankruptcy your shares will have a value of $0.00, that's zero, as in absolute zero, as in not worth even one penny.

This is not a good investment strategy.

It all comes down to how things work in a bankruptcy. Without going into much detail, in a bankruptcy there is a sort of prioritization that takes place for claims on company resources. Shareholders are last in line. This means that every class ahead of the shareholders must be made whole before the shareholders get anything. Since the company owes more money than the value of its assets, the current shareholders will be left out in the cold. If there is to be an operating company at the end of all this it will not be owned by the current shareholders.

The typical scenario is for the old shares to be cancelled, and new shares are to be issued to the current bond holders. Thus, the current shareholders get nothing, and the company will end up being owned by the current bond holders.

Darkroom317 · Mar 16, 2013

alanrockwood said:
Buying stock in Kodak prior to their emerging from bankruptcy is absolutely, without a doubt, the worst thing one could possibly contemplate. To begin with, even purchasing 100% of the shares will not give you control. The company is in bankruptcy, and control is now formally in the hands of the court and effectively in the hands of the creditors. Shareholders are powerless in this situation.

Furthermore, the chance that shareholders will retain any value when the company emerges from bankruptcy is zero. For example, suppose you were to invest, let us say, $10,000,000 in kodak shares today and hold them until the company emerges from bankruptcy. When the company emerges from bankruptcy your shares will have a value of $0.00, that's zero, as in absolute zero, as in not worth even one penny.

This is not a good investment strategy.

It all comes down to how things work in a bankruptcy. Without going into much detail, in a bankruptcy there is a sort of prioritization that takes place for claims on company resources. Shareholders are last in line. This means that every class ahead of the shareholders must be made whole before the shareholders get anything. Since the company owes more money than the value of its assets, the current shareholders will be left out in the cold. If there is to be an operating company at the end of all this it will not be owned by the current shareholders.

The typical scenario is for the old shares to be cancelled, and new shares are to be issued to the current bond holders. Thus, the current shareholders get nothing, and the company will end up being owned by the current bond holders.

I was joking

AgX · Mar 16, 2013

In case Kodak resurrects from bancruptsy as the same legal entity, the old shareholders are still in hold of their part/share of Kodak.
This of course does not say anything of a future stock price nor of a future dividend from Kodak.

alanrockwood said:
Without going into much detail, in a bankruptcy there is a sort of prioritization that takes place for claims on company resources. Shareholders are last in line. This means that every class ahead of the shareholders must be made whole before the shareholders get anything. Since the company owes more money than the value of its assets, the current shareholders will be left out in the cold. If there is to be an operating company at the end of all this it will not be owned by the current shareholders.

Shareholders are debtors, how could they get their money back anyway?

Or do I miss something?

bobwysiwyg · Mar 16, 2013

It's my understanding that existing common shares generally become worthless as a result emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Sell if you got'm.

alanrockwood · Mar 16, 2013

AgX said:
In case Kodak resurrects from bancruptsy as the same legal entity, the old shareholders are still in hold of their part/share of Kodak.
This of course does not say anything of a future stock price nor of a future dividend from Kodak.

Shareholders are debtors, how could they get their money back anyway?

Or do I miss something?

I see you are from Germany. Perhaps bankruptcy laws are different there. Under US bankruptcy law the shareholder is last in line to get anything in a bankruptcy. It is virtually unheard of for shareholders to receive anything in a bankruptcy. Exceptions to this generalization are EXTREMELY rare and even those few rare exceptions virtually always involve special circumstances, such as the Texaco bankruptcy. I believe the shareholders survived that one.

The priority for payout in a bankruptcy runs roughly like this. The government gets paid first (taxes). Then wages to workers get paid, including any back wages owed. Then various forms of secured debt, i.e. debt backed by collateral, then unsecured debt. At the very tail end of the priority list come the shareholders. If the creditors don't get paid what they are owed then the shareholders lose ownership of the company. Their shares are cancelled and become worthless. If the company emerges as an operating company it does so under new ownership, usually being owned by the former creditors as partial compensation for not having been paid all the money they were owed.

alanrockwood · Mar 16, 2013

Darkroom317 said:
I was joking

Sorry, I didn't realize you were joking.

Emerging Kodak

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