Kodak reports---

I think we should should storm the place and take all their equipment, engineers, recipes, stock, and start a new country offshore with PE as our exalted King.

Wayne said:

I think we should should storm the place and take all their equipment, engineers, recipes, stock, and start a new country offshore with PE as our exalted King.

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All hail Ron! All hail Ron!

michaelbsc said:

I think that for reasons obscured from us, and likely never to be revealed, this isn't an option for them.

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Their present production capacity (albeit massively downsized from a decade ago) is simply far, far too large to run proofitably as a "boutique".

It isn't at all like micro-brewing bear, unfortunately.

ntenny said:

(on the possibility of a "Boutique Kodak" spinoff)



I don't think the reasons are "obscured from us"---they've been discussed here frequently. When your infrastructure is scaled for extremely-high-volume production, it's somewhere between "difficult" and "impossible" to ramp down to boutique scale.

Assuming film sales don't stay at a level that justifies continued production at Kodak's scale, it kind of seems like the best outcome is that they spin off their formulae and some of their considerable "secret sauce" knowledge to an operation built from the ground up to run at a smaller scale. I don't know who that would be, though.

-NT

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I thin most of your analysis is spot-on.

But I don't see anybody who would provide the finance to for this venture when there are already (presumably) "right-sized" competitors such as Ilford, Efke, Adox, etc.

There is, to a small extent, an ability to produce film emulsions using coating technology that is primarily deployed to support microelectronics production (the forthcoming Adox APX films produced by Agfa-Gevaert are an example) - but the emulsion needs to be designed with this coating technology in mind.

EK took a stab at downsizing their film prouction capabilties about 7-8 years ago but their view of the equilibirum size of the market proved too optimistic, I guess.

aldevo said:

I thin most of your analysis is spot-on.

There is, to a small extent, an ability to produce film emulsions using coating technology that is primarily deployed to support microelectronics production (the forthcoming Adox APX films produced by Agfa-Gevaert are an example) - but the emulsion needs to be designed with this coating technology in mind.

EK took a stab at downsizing their film prouction capabilties about 7-8 years ago but their view of the equilibirum size of the market proved too optimistic, I guess.

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From the latest Morningstar report on Kodak:

As Kodak attempts to reinvent its business model, the film and entertainment product group serves dual roles. First, it funds investment in the digital capture and printing technologies that will determine the firm's profit and growth potential. Second, although basic film is a terminal product category, the division is unlikely to disappear as assets are repurposed for industrial uses such as printed circuit boards and touch screen films.

So there is some machinery in common between film production, circuit board production and touch screen production.

This is very interesting for the long term viability of film, because it means that even if production had to diminish to very low levels, the machines wouldn't be scrapped and, one day, could be used again to produce film. Actually that even means that circuit board producers and touch screen producers are potential future film manufacturers.

The decline of film can be reversed, there isn't a "no-return" point.

Fabrizio