Why should Kodak fire Perez?

J Rollinger · Jan 19, 2012

Hatchetman said:
How does a guy get five years to drive a company into the ground AND THEN get to remain CEO after declaring bankruptcy?!

And following in the tradition of our U.S corporations I'm sure he will receive a 5 million dollar bonus!

keithwms · Jan 19, 2012

J Rollinger said:
And following in the tradition of our U.S corporations I'm sure he will receive a 5 million dollar bonus!

Yeah well just wait 'til you see the bonus they have to give to hire someone competent to come clean the whole thing up form Perez.

My own mgmt experience is obviously at a smaller scale but I have seen this issue. Something urgently needs to be fixed and it's high risk and will make your CV look like crap if you can't make it work and show improvement- immediately. Lee Iacocca, on day one. Of course, you can hire an inside schmuck at low cost, or you can hire a seasoned pro and get the job done, albeit at much higher cost. Successful corporations will always go with option #2. And chp 11 really requires some proof of concept, you can't just cancel debts and go home. It's a lot of work and they'll pay dearly to get someone to take it on. The trustee of Kodak's debt will set a high bar... and should.

michaelbsc · Jan 19, 2012

keithwms said:
Yeah well just wait 'til you see the bonus they have to give to hire someone competent to come clean the whole thing up form Perez.

You know, 50 years ago we (the USA) weren't so completely screwed up. What the hell happened to us?

All you guys from other places, do we just think you're OK and you're screwed up too? Or are we really as isolated in our group stupidity as it seems.

Like Chris said earlier, maybe we really are all morons.

After all, as the joke goes, the four basic particles in the universe are protons, neutrons, electrons, and morons. And all the morons landed here.

MB

Ken Nadvornick · Jan 19, 2012

I dunno...

Mr. Perez and the Kodak BOD* ultimately got their way. For a couple of years straight I was trying and trying to point out that we never really needed to keep guessing about what he/they were up to, because he/they were telling us up front that he/they desperately wanted to kill off film manufacturing at Kodak. He/they must have said that a thousand different times in a thousand different ways to a thousand different Wall Street analysts.

And... well... he finally did it...

Mission accomplished. The BOD* will probably give him a well-deserved bonus, right?

Ken

* Over which he was in charge? Right?

keithwms · Jan 19, 2012

Ken Nadvornick said:
* Over which he's in charge now? Right?

Well basically I think the chp. 11 trustee is now in charge. To regain confidence in remaining assets, the thing that happens now is that Perez and everybody else in sr. mgmt gets the boot. My guess is that is what a trustee would advise. I don't know the details... any corp lawyers here???

MDR · Jan 19, 2012

Micheal as far as I know we're just as stupid in Europe CEO are not chosen for their competence but for their Networks. The Austrian Minister for Culture and Education choose several new Museum directors and even admitted that they were chosen because they had good Networks, one of them even said she doesn't know why she was chosen because her area of expertise lies in a completely different field. Austrian CEO of big companies often sit on up to 20 Boards and are not that many simple because most companies are run by the same guys.
Knowledge about the field and qualifications are not necessary as long as you have the right connections, most Austrian CEO either come from Political parties or from aristocracy (forbidden in Austria since 1919). We are Morons because we believe in the story of the small man who make's it big (rags to riches story) while in reality if you look behind these stories you either find out that he wasn't really poor and came from a rich familiy or came from aristocracy or a powerful family clan. Capitalism whom I am partly a fan of is not the great equalizer some believe it to be. We're told if you go to college learn hard and work hard you will become succesfull and rich what a load of B.S. work less and build your networks that's currently the road to succes. Unfortunately have seen this to often.

Sorry End of rant

Dominik

zsas · Jan 19, 2012

keithwms said:
Of course, you can hire an inside schmuck at low cost, or you can hire a seasoned pro and get the job done, albeit at much higher cost. Successful corporations will always go with option #2.

I respectfully disagree and Jim Collins has the stats to prove that option 1 is the better choice. "the superstar" outside CEO does does not correlate with stimulating change than hiring within (eg Jack Welch GE)....

Very great read here by Collins, Companies Need Not Hire Outside CEOs
to Stimulate Fundamental Change:

http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/companies-need-not-hire.html

I presume that Collins would argue that Perez, an outsider, was the wrong person and someone like say PE would be better....

keithwms · Jan 19, 2012

zsas said:
PE would be better....

Hear, hear!

Yeah I guess my question is what do you consider an outsider, in the context of chp 11. I would guess that it'd be legally impossible to keep somebody within under those circumstances. My comments were more about reorg in the context of chp 11. I don't see how creditors could be persuaded to accept internal leadership. I mean, if I were the creditor would I agree to Perez staying on? Oh hell no.

I am sure Collins is right about internal capacity for change, outside of the chp 11 context. My own experience is that there are a lot of people on the inside who know where all the skeletons are hidden and can make a lot of good changes.

zsas · Jan 19, 2012

I get you, actually to support your point, in late 92 IBM was on the ropes, the board was looking for a new CEO to break up the company and hired an outsider named Lou Gerstner, the former CEO of Nabisco to be the successor to John Akers in 93. Gerstner led massive change uniting a "One IBM" and bear hugging their customers. Gerstner (93-2005) led one of the greatest turn arounds in corp history, was initailly hired to break it up but with amazing abilities to unite and transform, made IBM great again. It can happen but personally in ref to Kodak, Perez utters DPUG speak every other word, our segment of Kodak will be quickly divested (good case scenario) since they are trying to transform to digital, there is no bear hugging us by anyone at Kodak, writing is on the wall, I called the situation here Kafka's The Metamorphosis. I read a few articles today and I don't believe Kodak once mentioned the word Film but said DPUG speak every other word. Perez might be doing a good job if your goal is to be digital because they go out of their way to avoid talk of "traditional" businesses

keithwms · Jan 19, 2012

I just wonder what Kodak's printer biz is worth to the existing companies. I kinda doubt that Epson and the others will have any desire at all to invest in it.

Kodak killed their chem/biosciences stuff off some time ago, I guess they have nowhere to go there.

What else is there... digital sensor IP. Apple, with a half trillion market capital, may find some value in that, and in the overall imaging brand. I can certainly think up some Apple-esque gizmos that'd be very nice for Kodak, but then someone earlier mentioned that Kodak had already divested of some sensor technology. Aaargh.

Film will be spun out abroad, I guess. But the other stuff, I have no clue what it's worth. It'll be interesting to see.

The priority of chp 11 will probably be to take care of pensions and existing debt. That is a very tall order unless somebody like Apple marches in to the rescue. Who knows, maybe Eastman and Jobs are sitting on a big puffy cloud hashing it out right now.

Here is the basis upon which I think there may be some valuable IP overlap between Kodak and Apple:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/kodak-sues-apple-and-htc-over-alleged-patent-infringement/14511.html

JBrunner · Jan 19, 2012

Perez took control of a ship that was sailing off the edge of the word and decided that what they needed to do was punch some holes in the ship and find a bigger edge of the world to sail it over.

EASmithV · Jan 20, 2012

JBrunner said:
Perez took control of a ship that was sailing off the edge of the word and decided that what they needed to do was punch some holes in the ship and find a bigger edge of the world to sail it over.

That's depressing and funny at the same time.

AlbertZeroK · Jan 20, 2012

I just hope when they do fire him, the judge will allow Kodak to cancel his golden parachutte.

keithwms · Jan 20, 2012

AlbertZeroK said:
I just hope when they do fire him, the judge will allow Kodak to cancel his golden parachutte.

I think we'd all be happier if he somehow accidentally fell into a coating machine and the resulting film distributed worldwide, so that we could all have the experience of developing him, stopping him, fixing him and then bleaching him.

Steve Smith · Jan 21, 2012

JBrunner said:
Perez took control of a ship that was sailing off the edge of the word and decided that what they needed to do was punch some holes in the ship and find a bigger edge of the world to sail it over.

Best analogy ever!

Steve.

Why should Kodak fire Perez?

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