Tetenal

Henning Serger · Oct 7, 2018

AgX said:
A further question would be what such restructuring would mean for us if the restreucturing will succeed and creditors paid?

I've clearly said that in my posting, see above. Tetenal has been very precise on this: Operation is going on normally. No changes for customers. Production and shipments are running as usual.
We photographers will not be affected.

Best regards,
Henning

AgX · Oct 7, 2018

The issue of not paying customers or not delivering suppliers is not uncommon, and thus one should at least try to make a businees as flexible as possible.

If the cause for the Tetenal case would be some single, fateful impact from the outside, Tetenal would not state to have all their structures have be to checked and rearranged.

Also they state a very difficult market with gross revenue losses.

AgX · Oct 7, 2018

Henning Serger said:
I've clearly said that in my posting, see above. Tetenal has been very precise on this: Operation is going on normally. No changes for customers. Production and shipments are running as usual.
We photographers will not be affected.

Henning. I also said clearly "if the restreucturing will succeed and creditors paid", thus on the long run, after a survival of this insolvency.

If then all structures are checked and rearranged the surviving Tetenal might look quite differently and may serve a different market.

Henning Serger · Oct 7, 2018

All the speculation is just a waste of time. I bet that in one year Tetenal will be here and running, and will have solved the current problems.

AgX · Oct 7, 2018

I did not start speculation, you did...

Henning Serger said:
I am very optimistic that Tetenal will be a stronger company after this process.

MattKing · Oct 7, 2018

Henning Serger said:
Tetenal's problems have been at least partly caused by one of their suppliers, who failed to deliver color paper to them for five months. And color paper is an important business for them (they are Kodak Alaris color paper distributor....). So that was not Tetenal's fault

Henning:
Do I understand correctly that you are saying that Kodak Alaris is the supplier who failed to supply Kodak colour paper to Tetenal for five months?

Henning Serger · Oct 7, 2018

AgX said:
I did not start speculation, you did...

No. You did: ".....serious, life threatening situation for a firm."

AgX · Oct 7, 2018

Since 2004 Tetenal is distributor for Kodak colour papers. Since 2016 sole Europe distributor for these.

AgX · Oct 7, 2018

Henning Serger said:
No. You did: ".....serious, life threatening situation for a firm."

Henning, what else is an insolvency than that?

Maybe you got a different definition. If some firm being in insolvency, in what kind of procedure ever, they can't pay urged credits without dissolving the firm.

The task of the court is to regulate either the spreading of the assets to the creditors, or to establish a standstill concerning the creditors in which a regulation for a survival of the firm is found.

MattKing · Oct 7, 2018

AgX said:
Henning, what else is an insolvency than that?

Maybe you got a different definition. If some being in insolvency, in what kind of procedure ever, he can't pay urged credits without dissolving the firm.

Restructuring debt often does end up satisfying most or all of the creditors, even if the terms of payment end up being changed.

Henning Serger · Oct 7, 2018

MattKing said:
Henning:
Do I understand correctly that you are saying that Kodak Alaris is the supplier who failed to supply Kodak colour paper to Tetenal for five months?

Matt,
probably due to my horrible English I may have not been precise enough.
Tetenal explained in their letter adressed to their business partners that one major problem has been that a "color paper manufacturer" could not supply them for about five months. They don't mention a name. Tetenal is active in distributing both traditional silver-halide color paper (RA-4 process) and inkjet paper. Concerning silver-halide color paper they are distributor of Kodak Alaris paper.
But there is no official statement from them which supplier had the problems.

Best regards,
Henning

AgX · Oct 7, 2018

MattKing said:
Restructuring debt often does end up satisfying most or all of the creditors, even if the terms of payment end up being changed.

I do not think the employees at Kodak considered Kodak's insolvency as a mere interlude. Nor did the employees of AgfaPhoto who went to highest labour court.

Henning Serger · Oct 7, 2018

AgX said:
Henning, what else is an insolvency than that?

I've already explained it im my first post:
"Insolvenzplanverfahren in Eigenverwaltung" is significantly different from the long-established German insolvency law. But it makes absolutely no sense to dig further in German law, which is complicated enough even for lawyers .
This is - or at least should be - a photography forum. And as explained above, the whole production of photo chemistry is going on, the distribution of color paper is going on, and even new products will be introduced soon. That is what is important for photographers to know now. All else we will see in the next months.
No need at all wasting time in further "sky is falling" postings. We have had hundreds of them when Ilford had its problems in 2004, when Kodak had its problems in 2011/12, when the new investor supported Harman technology / Ilford Photo. Members here were in a strong competition which one could post the most negative and horrible scenario.
And what happened instead? Just the opposite.

Beste regards,
Henning

AgX · Oct 7, 2018

Any german insolvency procedure means that the debtor is in "insolvency", which means he got no means to pay his debth.

At the moment (by own statement) Tetenal is not even able to pay the wages for their employees for the next 3 months.
They hope to have enough earnings by then to pay them again.

Henning Serger · Oct 9, 2018

AgX, we certainly can agree that we disagree .
Let's talk again next autumn, and then we will see whether my more positive outlook has been right or your more pessimistic expectation.

Best regards,
Henning

AgX · Oct 9, 2018

You are optimistic, but I am not pessimistic.
Instead I am just referring to the definition of insolvency plus stating what Tetenal said themselves about their situation.
And saying that a surviving Tetenal may look different is not pessimistic either, but hinting at one possible outcome, again based on a Tetenal statement.

Strange thing though is that we here are discussing things while in Germany it is rather calm on this case to say the least.

Rudeofus · Oct 16, 2018

If a supplier stops shipping product to a company, then that's a bad thing. If that stop lasts for five months straight, then little surprise here that things are tight at Tetenal. Nobody here knows (or at least posts publicly) the reason for that supply stop, it may be unpaid bills, it may be technical problems, it could be anything. At this point we can only resort to wild speculations.

Henning already stated, that this is an "Insolvenzplanverfahren in Eigenverwaltung", which means, that in accordance with the creditors the original management tries to resolve the financial issues while the company typically continues operations. While the word "insolvency" sounds all bad and scary, there appears to be some expectation on the creditor side, that this company can be turned into a profitable outfit by its own people.

From all this I'd conclude, that Tetenal is here to stay, at least for now.

AgX · Oct 17, 2018

Rudeofus said:
While the word "insolvency" sounds all bad and scary, there appears to be some expectation on the creditor side, that this company can be turned into a profitable outfit by its own people.

No, it just means that the court thinks so.

An insolvency is bad and scary.
(One idea behind the introduction of the insolvency procedure under self-management though was that the debtor would be trickled to go to court at a very early stage even before actual insolvency has reached. Tetenal however even could not pay wages.)
And as I pointed out even if a firm survives there may be many victims.

Rudeofus · Oct 17, 2018

AgX said:
No, it just means that the court thinks so.

Creditors would have probably made a successful argument in court, if there was a plausible reason to deny/reject "Eigenverwaltung". They either made no such argument, or the court didn't buy it. It's a bankruptcy's court main job to look after the money owed to creditors. Continuation of operation is a distant second, and relevant only, if it helps with "payment of debt" task. Evidently the court sees a brighter future for Tetenal than some folks here on photrio.

AgX said:
An insolvency is bad and scary.
(One idea behind the introduction of the insolvency procedure under self-management though was that the debtor would be trickled to go to court at a very early stage even before actual insolvency has reached. Tetenal however even could not pay wages.)
And as I pointed out even if a firm survives there may be many victims.

AFAIK the main aim behind "Insolvenzplanverfahren in Eigenverwaltung" was to keep companies going, which became temporarily unsustainable after some incident, but which are otherwise financially viable businesses. That "no RA-4 paper supplied" thing could be considered one such incident, assuming that it wasn't caused by unfulfilled obligations towards supplier. Nobody would put a companies' management in charge of winding down a failed company. Their participation in the process indicates, that the overall operation is viable, not according to my opinion, but according to the educated opinion of that bankruptcy court.

AgX · Oct 19, 2018

This week the court has ordered a trustee to run the business of Tetenal, what to my understanding means the ending of the selfmanagement and the installation of the standard insolvency procedure to save the firm.

AgX · Oct 19, 2018

Here their presentation during Photokina just before they applied for the insolvency procedure.:

trendland · Oct 19, 2018

Martin Rickards said:
Has anyone heard anything about Tetenal's going into administration/bankruptcy?

I have same thoughts every year. Some colleguages mentioned every time if I just say the word Tetenal: " Tetenal - this company still exist?" No one will belive it.
Me too (to be faire)! But it is a good question Martin - so many traditionell companys closed the last time. And the manufacturer of NEOFIN BLUE can survive this crisis.

Well Martin - perhaps you should have a LOOK on the today's pricing of NEOFIN BLUE and this will soon end this Diskussion.

NO WONDER ABOUT TETENAL IS STILL ALIVE

........!

Seriously (I was at Tetenal several Times - but at last min.2 years ago ) if Tetenal meanwhile stand short before bankruptcy I would not wonder about.

Because of the imense cost they might have with their trucks. I wasn't able to count -but there are min
40 side by side. I can't say what such Park of trucks will cost per month perhaps therefore the highly priced NEOFIN by the time have you used NEOFIN BLUE -just out of curiosity?
I can't explain : You think about Tetenal = Chemistry production and what is to be seen AT Tetenal?
SMOKING CHIMNAYS - no way Martin.....

with regards

PS : Tetenal is shipping "Worldwide" I could not imagine how many NEOFIN Stuff and other thinks
Tetenal would be able to carry if Managements find out : In the near of our plant complex is a Railway
Station !

trendland · Oct 19, 2018

AgX said:
This week the court has ordered a trustee to run the business of Tetenal, what to my understanding means the ending of the selfmanagement and the installation of the standard insolvency procedure to save the firm.

Hmm what is going on here Tetenal has insolvency procedure? No Joke ?

Ok but then there has gone something wrong meanwhile (I wasn't there for 2years as I said)

with regards

PS : That can only be come from management failures

trendland · Oct 19, 2018

R.Gould said:
This has come as a complete surprise to me, I believe that Tetenal also make a lot of the Ilford chemistry, hope this does not affect them to much, also they make chemistry for Fotospeed and many others, hope it doesn't affect chemical supplies to much, they are one of the biggest suppliers

That's right Ilford managed chems via Tetenal (found out years ago while wondering about same package containments) others stated they both Ilford and Tetenal use the same supplier for their canisters.
No that was much more - guess Ilford find out that Tetenal production was cheaper indeed.
That must have not meant Tetenal made max. special pricing (have an Idea of that Ilford has indeed more costs with own production).

So your worrys are not necessary (can't belive it AND WHAT SHOULD I TELL MY COLLEGUAGES NEXT

) OK at first an Investor will jump in (hope) at last (if it does not work) your Ilford stuff is coming again from Ilford and increased ( 15 - 20 %)

with regards

trendland · Oct 19, 2018

This is a real bad day for people who shot bw Agx because that is throwing a shadow on the whole
bw film industry (including Ilford) and the same shadow stand from this day on the complete future of bw film.

with regards

PS : Hope (last hope) management lost money with Poker in Las Vegas because of if Tetenal isn't able to earn enough money I can't say HOW SHOULD BE THEN ABLE ????????

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