Kodak is cutting more jobs. President and CFO stepping down.

[Photo Engineer]

The Kodak Sales store at Kodak Park used to be a photographer's paradise. Film, paper, chemicals, and other supplies everywhere. Last time I was there it was Christmas Lights, Teddy Bears, T-Shirts and etc, all with "KODAK" in them somewhere.

PE

 

[Sirius Glass]

I keep wondering if Perez/ IQ is bigger than his shoe size!

PE

PE, you are giving him too much credit for his intelligence.

If you squared Rerez's IQ, the magnitude would be less that 10 and the sign would be negative.

 

[Photo Engineer]

You cannot square something and come up with a negative number!


EDIT: Hmmm, I wonder if it is an imaginary number!

 

[Sirius Glass]

You cannot square something and come up with a negative number!


EDIT: Hmmm, I wonder if it is an imaginary number!

YOU BROKE THE CODE! His IQ is a very small imaginary number.

 

[newcan1]

When the President and the CFO step down, that is a damning indictment of the CEO. I cannot see how it could be taken any other way.

 

[lxdude]

Well, the President was a Co-President (and Co-COO), so they still have a President and COO.
No doubt, the Co-COO setup was Coo-Coo.

 

[RattyMouse]

YOU BROKE THE CODE! His IQ is a very small imaginary number.

PE is a smart guy.

 

[EASmithV]

There are probably associated cuts in rent and office/plant expenses and supplies as well.

Seriously!? They should just get fake plants, if they keep dying... I guess it's too cold in Rochester, or they don't remember to water them or something...

 

[wildbill]

all those jobs will return when kodak introduces their next wave of inkjet printers (not manufactured anywhere near rochester). Maybe not.

 

[EASmithV]

Great, now we just need to wait for a color Foma emulsion... I'm disgusted by what has happened to Kodak, but c'est la vie. All we can do is buy film while it is available.

 

[kb3lms]

... the roles of CEO and Chairman being combined person should be a red flag from the word "go".

For Kodak, this is 1989 all over again.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/09/business/click-up-down-and-out-at-kodak.html

Note the line of Prof_Pixel's Kodak vs Dow chart under Whitmore. And that was during boom times for film with next to no digital competition. It didn't work then and it ain't gonna work now.

All this has happened before and all this will happen again....

 

[lxdude]

For Kodak, this is 1989 all over again.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/09/business/click-up-down-and-out-at-kodak.html

Note the line of Prof_Pixel's Kodak vs Dow chart under Whitmore. And that was during boom times for film with next to no digital competition. It didn't work then and it ain't gonna work now.

All this has happened before and all this will happen again....

The link goes to a 'Page not found' message.

 

[Brian C. Miller]

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/09/business/click-up-down-and-out-at-kodak.html

Try it now. There was some extra stuff at the end.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/09/business/click-up-down-and-out-at-kodak.html

Phillip Samper would have been a MUCH better choice as far as I was concerned!

I didn't know him well, but his son was truly outstanding.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Lots of hot-shoe-shuffling and positive-spin at the top, rather like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, but the Big K is still precariously close to the abyss.

"Analysts have said most of Kodak's earnings problems are concentrated in the company's core photographic business, the one Mr. Whitmore knows best. ''Kodak's photo business has been suffering a long-term margin erosion attributable to more competition''

So what did Kodak and its many innovative boots and minions in the boardroom do to stem the tide of the competition trampling over it? Nothing much. It glossed over inkjet paper, scanners and kiosks (make a longer list) and then stepped up into seriously expensive patent infringement bunfight with Polaroid. A $12b payout? Where would Kodak get that sort of pocket money from? And all those people left unemployed, and still more and more going. Except the comfortably remunerated eagles at the top of the company who continue to churn out carefully crafted spin and surgar-coated assurances. Ugh—!

 

[msa]

I wish Kodak would have entered the Photovoltaic Solar Cell business instead of junky ink jet printers.

I still have 6 boxes of Kodak Christmas Lights in my garage.

Christmas Lights!

Thing is, the PV market (when it existed in the US, anyway), really favors those with larger chip fabs.

IBM has a process to partially strip down wafers and then recoat them to create PV cells...this lets them recycle manufacturing rejects.

Not that there's any money in it vs China, but it would have favored companies with large fabs (IBM, Intel, Motorola (of course, all that went to Freescale and ON), etc.)

I don't think Kodak could ever have been competitive in that market, but it's all overseas now anyway.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Phillip Samper would have been a MUCH better choice as far as I was concerned!

I didn't know him well, but his son was truly outstanding.

Fred;

Carp was very much like Samper, while Kohrt was much like Whitmore. Look at what Carp did!

The marketing type / bean counter usually cuts things the wrong way. You need a team! Every person has to input their information with their expertise.

PE

 

[Photo Engineer]

For those of you who did not know this, Kodak has / had a rather extensive chip fabrication facility at Kodak Park. It was one full wing of B 81, the Physics Division, and that is where the first digital imaging sensors were made.

PE

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

For those of you who did not know this, Kodak has / had a rather extensive chip fabrication facility at Kodak Park. It was one full wing of B 81, the Physics Division, and that is where the first digital imaging sensors were made.

PE

Didn't they make sensors for the Leica M8 and M9 cameras?

 

[SilverGlow]

For those of you who did not know this, Kodak has / had a rather extensive chip fabrication facility at Kodak Park. It was one full wing of B 81, the Physics Division, and that is where the first digital imaging sensors were made.

PE

Yes, true, and as most of us know, Kodak sourced the early full-frame sensors for both Canon and Nikon, but in the time since then, those two companies eclipsed Kodak's technology on sensors. This should've never have happened. Kodak should be top sensor dog today, but their stupid management resulted in them getting left behind. Too many old bastards, not enough fresh blood, young blood. They should've consulted Steve Jobs, but I suspect their arrogance was sky high.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Kodak still makes top of the line sensors, and has had a recent major breakthrough in this area.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Kodak still makes top of the line sensors, and has had a recent major breakthrough in this area.

Wouldn't it be cool if they could capitalize on this?

 

[msa]

For those of you who did not know this, Kodak has / had a rather extensive chip fabrication facility at Kodak Park. It was one full wing of B 81, the Physics Division, and that is where the first digital imaging sensors were made.

PE

Sure PE, but the companies I'm talking about have (or had, when they were in one piece), dozens and dozens of fabs in the US alone, and hundreds worldwide.

It wouldn't make sense for Kodak to try to compete with them, since that market favors scale. Anyway, the PV ship sailed...straight to China.

(Just like it doesn't make sense to try and compete with Epson and HP by making $50 printers.)

Kodak should be focused on the high end sensor market, things they can do that nobody else can. Getting down in the mud on low margin products won't save the company.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

(Just like it doesn't make sense to try and compete with Epson and HP by making $50 printers.)

It's not about the printers, it's about the ink and paper

 

[Diapositivo]

It is my understanding that the $330,000,000 figure applies to the total of 3,700 employees being cut in 2012 - that comes out to about $89,000 per employee being cut.

The text says:

The company has reduced its workforce by approximately 2,700 employees worldwide since the beginning of 2012. Kodak expects to reduce its workforce by approximately an additional 1,000 employees by the end of 2012. The annualized savings generated by these headcount reductions, including compensation and benefits, is approximately $330 million.

(bold and underlined mine)

The key word here is "annualised" (even if Steve would mark it is spelt "funny"...)

That means that to arrive at that figure Kodak has summed the saving for a certain (undisclosed) number of years discounting each year value with a certain (undisclosed) discount rate.

If we have let's say a flow of 6 years of savings (S1, S2, S3, ... S6), the present value of those savings, discounted at a let's say 4% discount rate, should be equal to:

PV = S1/(1,04) + S2/((1,04)^2) + S3/((1,04)^3) + S4/((1,04)^4) +S5/((1,04)^5) +S6/((1,04)^6)

If the rate is not specified and the number of years of future money flows is not specified the firm can come out with "any" number of "discounted" saving.

$89.000 pro capite would be quite an excessive amount, I believe, also in the US. I don't think it includes overhead costs as the words "including compensation and benefits" seem to clearly state that other "less direct" labour cost items are not taken into this account.

We should also consider that $89.000 is the discounted saving from the average world workforce cut and it might be that Kodak also cut jobs in countries where the average labour cost is less than in the US.

Basically, though, the "annualised" 330 million $ is not a "serious" figure so to speak.

If Kodak meant to discount only 1 year of savings the word which would be normally used is "discounted saving". "Annualised" is typically used for a flow of let's say at least three years (although annualising and discounting yearly are, in fact, the same operation and the words mean the same thing).