Kodak done?

[chuckroast]

I hope you are right on the first point.

The chemicals are not an issue for me and EK doesn’t make those anyway. It would certainly be the end of colour film for me although I should have transitioned to digital colour anyway. I’ve hung on this long because I’m a very low volume shooter so I’ve been able to stomach the high prices, sort of. B&W film, Kodak is my favourite for both LF and 35mm. I could use Delta 100 but I think if EK goes down all things considered I’m probably done. With the price of Ilford paper and everything this would be the final depressing kick in the 4ss I need to get into digital / inkjet.

Of late, I have been testing the newish Lucky SHD100 which is available in all formats from 35mm to 4x5. I've tried it in both Pyrocat and 510 Pyro both conventionally and doing semistand/EMA. It's pretty great and has shown none of the terrible quality problems that the older Lucky brand has.

It's under $7/roll of 120. Even with a stiff tariff applied in the States, it's still a reasonably priced alternative. The last time I saw a film like this was APX 100 ... and it didn't stain all the well in Pyro.

 

[chuckroast]

"scale of users for these films appear to me to be far smaller than for monochrome." Is this true? Yes, colour slides are a very niche area, but I thought colour negatives were big ... that was part of the motivation for the Harman activity. Any one got any numbers?

I went and looked, and you are absolutely correct and I was dead wrong in my guess. Colour film sales drawf monochrome:

Photographic Film Market Size, Trends | Report [2033]

Global Photographic Film market size is estimated at USD 591.02 Million in 2024 and expected to rise to USD 697.65 Million by 2033, experiencing a CAGR of 1.86%.

www.marketgrowthreports.com

 

[loccdor]

"Kodak aims to conjure up cash by ceasing payments for its retirement pension plan."

What does this mean, exactly? People who worked there and retired don't get paid? Or...

 

[chuckroast]

"Kodak aims to conjure up cash by ceasing payments for its retirement pension plan."

What does this mean, exactly? People who worked there and retired don't get paid? Or...

I can only speak to what I saw at UAL. The company declared bankruptcy and was relieved of all further pension payouts.

The money remaining in the pension plan was then put under some sort of government run oversight process. Because of the bankruptcy and presumably an inadequate funding of that plan, the people got about half of what they thought they would in retirement.


Since Kodak is, I believe, still s US chartered company, I would imagine something like this would happen and the Feds would have to again step in as they did with UAL.

 

[BrianShaw]

"Kodak aims to conjure up cash by ceasing payments for its retirement pension plan."

What does this mean, exactly? People who worked there and retired don't get paid? Or...

Plan termination. A serious action that will get plenty of scrutiny. In the US there is a government "insurance" for pension plans that go under. See page 4:

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-activities/resource-center/faqs/retirement-plans-and-erisa-compliance.pdf

 

[thinkbrown]

When someone says something like this, I always have to picture a gigantic excavator that picks up the Kodak film coating line including the bedrock several dozens of feet down below floor level and cart it over to another continent. Then drop it into place in the outskirts of Mobberley as some blokes pop into the nearest pub to pick up some workers and hand out blue and white lab coats left and right and hey presto - film is reborn!

Nah, you've got it backwards. We just do the typical American thing and rename Rochester to New Mobberley. Problem solved!

 

[chuckroast]

Nah, you've got it backwards. We just do the typical American thing and rename Rochester to New Mobberley. Problem solved!

If that means I could finally get a proper pint of bitter, I'm in!

 

[F4U]

I wonder how many mega billionaires there are out there, who create foundations for pet activism causes. Or buying up large tracts of land all over the US? And here's piddly little Kodak, that one of them could rescue and the amount of money it would cost them would not even create a blip on their financial radar.

 

[MattKing]

I doubt they will ever be able to dig out from under this pension plan obligation given the amount of film that sells today. Perhaps the best thing is to cease operations and hope that a collection of Hollywood moguls like Quentin Tarantino and friends can purchase the assets but not the obligations and resume operations in Rochester somehow.

Unlikely, I know. But I’m really going to miss them if they go. They make the good stuff.

The Eastman Kodak pension plan investment has a surplus, which they are trying to access, while the pensioners are resisting.
Which may be what is actually behind this announcement.

 

[chuckroast]

I wonder how many mega billionaires there are out there, who create foundations for pet activism causes. Or buying up large tracts of land all over the US? And here's piddly little Kodak, that one of them could rescue and the amount of money it would cost them would not even create a blip on their financial radar.

Kodak isn't a charitable cause. It's a commercial concern that was fundamentally mismanaged for years. The leadership there completely missed the impact of digital until it was simply too late.

In much the same way, Sears - which started out as a mail order business - was entirely way too late to the internet/eCommerce game.

In both cases, companies that had very clear first mover advantage, market leadership, a well established reputation, and a loyal customer base, completely eviscerated their advantages because their leadership was sclerotic, lacked vision, and didn't pay attention to a changing world.

Neither Kodak nor Sears were decimated by digital or the internet respectively. They were eviscerated by a lack of leadership imagination.

This why I favor having corporate execs be paid mostly in stock options and grants. Small salary, big potential back end. When leaders are long term owners, they pay far more attention. This is why I would hope that Kodak film could somehow find ownership - at least at the controlling stock level - that cares about the product and the customer base. Harmon, Adox, Foma et al might together create a consortium ownership model that would pay attention and be able to capitalize on Kodak's film making expertise and equipment.

 

[Steven Lee]

Kodak isn't a charitable cause. It's a commercial concern that was fundamentally mismanaged for years. The leadership there completely missed the impact of digital until it was simply too late.

This is wrong on many levels. Kodak was the pioneer of digital tech. They invented the digital camera in the 70s, and the first wave of digital SLRs had Kodak-made sensors.

The reality was that there's nothing the Kodak management could do. Absolutely nothing. You are forgetting how huge Kodak was at their peak: over $200 billion (!) in annual revenue (adjusted for inflation), which is about as much as Microsoft made in 2024. And Microsoft is a $3.9 trillion (!) company.

The imaging market today, all of it, cannot support a company of such size.

What they did is similar to what Fujifilm did - mostly got out of imaging and diversified into completely different fields, but unlike Fujifilm they ended up splitting into smaller companies. The healthiest part of former Kodak is Eastman Chemical today (EMN) which is worth $8 billion, followed by Carestream Health which is private but doing over $1.5B a year in revenue. Eastman Kodak is microscopic in comparison, with total enterprise value of less than half a billion.

TLDR: Kodak management wasn't nearly as incompetent as most people think, and the most successful survived parts of their business simply aren't as known because they no longer use the brand.

 

[DREW WILEY]

If Kodak were to go down, along with its near monopoly of realistic color neg film production and now the future of chrome film too, that would be the end of any incentive for Fuji to produce RA4 printing paper, or for anyone to make processing chemicals (which still happens to have high demand). You can't just start that kind of thing back up by selling off patents or by relocating complicated experienced production.

Meanwhile, Ilford's black and white presence is being artificially crippled by dramatically rising prices to US consumers - what do you want, a death spiral to the whole industry? And don't imagine digital printing supplies won't follow suit in an inflationary spiral if they're the only remaining option. What are even hand-coaters going to do if all kinds of subsidiary ingredients disappear due to lack of broader demand? Back to cave painting - but it had higher esthetic standards than most of today's photographic output.

Time to take a deep breath, before a bunch or unsubstantiated rumors gain traction.

 

[chuckroast]

This is wrong on many levels. Kodak was the pioneer of digital tech. They invented the digital camera in the 70s, and the first wave of digital SLRs had Kodak-made sensors.

Yes, their R&D was impeccable, but they couldn't capitalize at scale.

The imaging market today, all of it, cannot support a company of such size.

That why you have to have leaders with imagination who know how to read the market and adjust to its changes, restructuring the company, the staff, and the products accordingly. You can't hang on to an old battleship of a company and wait until its too late to turn it around.

Note that many other companies DID reinvent themselves in the face of changing technology and are today healthy, going concerns: Nikon, Canon, Target, and Walmart all leap to mind.

"The world changed" is no excuse of leadership failure to respond.

What they did is similar to what FujiFilm did - mostly got out of imaging and diversified into completely different fields, but unlike Fujifilm they ended up splitting into smaller companies. The healthiest part of former Kodak is Eastman Chemical today (EMN) which is worth $8 billion, followed by Carestream Health which is private but doing over $2.5B a year in revenue. Eastman Kodak is microscopic in comparison, with total enterprise value of less than half a billion.

TLDR: Kodak management wasn't nearly as incompetent as most people think, and the most successful parts of their business no longer use the brand.

Disagree fundamentally. They could have sold off or partnered the chemical and film division. Their coating expertise alone was a significant asset then, and possibly even now. Yes, it was an asset of declining value, but it didn't have to fall off a cliff.

Note that far smaller companies like the aforementioned Harmon, Foma, Adox etc. seem to plod along just fine. They are smaller and thus more agile to change. Kodak could have done that, but a hundred years of institutional inerta and complacent leadership thinking prevented that.

I am not suggesting that Kodak management of that era was "incompetent". I am saying they were unimaginative and inflexible.

I've done my share of consulting in large (or even very large) businesses. You see this all the time. When something gets really big, people lose sight of whom they serve and what their larger mission is. The preservation of the status quo becomes more important and leadership hunkers down in "protect" mode. That was true at Kodak, but it is equally true of many large institutions including big business, big church, big government, big charity, big entertainment ...

 

[brbo]

I wonder how many mega billionaires there are out there, who create foundations for pet activism causes. Or buying up large tracts of land all over the US? And here's piddly little Kodak, that one of them could rescue and the amount of money it would cost them would not even create a blip on their financial radar.

15 in the USA.

 

[chuckroast]

Back to cave painting - but it had higher esthetic standards than most of today's photographic output.

+1

 

[mshchem]

Private equity come to the rescue please! Restructure, write off, spin off, merge, joint marketing. So many opportunities!

The film side is so small, merge or JV with Alaris and maybe Fujifilm. Heck Harman or Foma could make Kodak branded papers, so could Fuji.

Before the brand becomes worthless something needs to happen. T shirts, merch etc

The graphic arts business is going extinct, unfortunately for Kodak.

 

[chuckroast]

Private equity come to the rescue please! Restructure, write off, spin off, merge, joint marketing. So many opportunities!

The film side is so small, merge or JV with Alaris and maybe Fujifilm. Heck Harman or Foma could make Kodak branded papers, so could Fuji.

Before the brand becomes worthless something needs to happen. T shirts, merch etc

The graphic arts business is going extinct, unfortunately for Kodak.

This is exactly the right general approach. However if PE jumps in, they will have to gut the fat, lay off people, and reduce things to get to operational and financial integrity.

THEN all we'll hear is about the horrors of "the man", "greed" and all the rest of it so popular these days from people with no skin in the game.

 

[mshchem]

This is exactly the right general approach. However if PE jumps in, they will have to gut the fat, lay off people, and reduce things to get to operational and financial integrity.

THEN all we'll hear is about the horrors of "the man", "greed" and all the rest of it so popular these days from people with no skin in the game.

Sometimes you need a surgeon. It ain't always pretty.

 

[FredK]

"Kodak aims to conjure up cash by ceasing payments for its retirement pension plan."

What does this mean, exactly? People who worked there and retired don't get paid? Or...

As a retiree within the recent times, I can only state that the company was not paying money into the retirement funds for at least five years because the fund was over-valued, per the guidelines provided by the government. The over-funding can be interpreted many ways, but the one way I interpreted it is that the average employee lives less years in retirement than the actuaries accounted for. That was a factor in departing a job I truly loved, as was guaranteeing that I could get the money accrued over all of the years. Fingers are crossed that they can pull out of this dive....for the friends who still love their work there.

As for the comment about the company having "fat", all the fat and some of the muscle were removed a long time ago in the many downsizings to small-scale and streamline operations.

 

[FotoD]

I hope Foma buys the rights to TMY2 and TMX, then we could get reliable production of those films. They have never filed for bankruptcy or ceased operations since 1921, as far as I know.

Too bad if we lose the cinema emulsions though.

 

[Aidan Sciortino]

Reading the actual contents of the shareholder meeting things do not look so dire to me.

There’s a good summary here; https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kodak-cautions-theres-substantial-doubt-134355629.html

It sounds like this pension plan clawback has been in progress for a little while, and Kodak is making this disclosure due primarily to regulatory reasons regarding the deadline for paying back this debt and the fact that they don’t control the pension plan thing entirely and thus can’t count it on their books until it’s done.

 

[Milpool]

Yeah it would be great to have lower quality versions of TMY-2 and TMX.

 

[Cholentpot]

Eastman needs to shed Alaris somehow. It was a necessary but bad business move.

If Kodak could sell straight without a middle man I'd think they would do much better. They'd have far more wiggle room to do things.

 

[Kino]

Sometimes you need a surgeon. It ain't always pretty.

Yeah, private equity would sell off the patents, scrap the production lines and sell the real estate.

Nope. Can't agree.

 

[koraks]

Heck Harman or Foma could make Kodak branded papers, so could Fuji.

Essentially Fuji's already doing that. When Sinopromise went bust, Fuji became the last man standing in the West.

Btw, actual Kodak brand paper is made by Lucky presently. IDK how much actual Kodak tech is in it. Probably some from 20+ years ago.

@Steven Lee I agree with what you said about Kodak's digital transition. Unimaginative wasn't the problem. The fact that Kodak more or less survived is a small miracle. The massive miracle is what Fuji managed to do. That has become the benchmark in the public opinion, to the detriment of how people think about Kodak. Path dependency is a strong force to resist. It's like trying to stop an oil tanker from sinking by trying to swim underneath it and push it back up.

Yeah, private equity would sell off the patents, scrap the production lines and sell the real estate.

In the vast majority of cases that's not what PE does though.