Agfa sells its consumer imaging division

[Philippe Gauthier]

Agfa just announced that it sold its consumer imaging division. The new owner are a trio are one German and two American holdings, with the Germans assuming the management. The new company, that will have about 2800 employees, will take charge of all the photo related activities of Agfa under the name of AgfaPhoto - the name change should be effective in 18 months.

Here's the press release: http://news.agfa.com/corporate/news.nsf/news/F07C0210ECC86EA9C1256EF3004D27CE?opendocument

A I the only one to consider this good news? Instead of the film divison being a small declining one in a large group, it will be the core activity of a new company, who will no doubt try to make it thrive.

[Nick_3536]

Well I think it's good news. It would be better if they still made sheet film.

[Ralph Barker]

I see it as a positive step, too. Maybe the management buyout will result in them bringing back sheet film and the old enlarging papers. Well, that might be too much of a dream. ;-)

[George Hart]

Better still if they brought back APX 25!!!

[Michael Jones]

Unfortunately, as I miss APX 100, the more you read the press release, the bleaker it seems:

"After 6 months in 2004, sales in Consumer Imaging reached 363 million Euros, a decrease of 17.9 percent (or 15.6 percent at stable exchange rates) compared to the same period of 2003.

The sales decrease (excluding exchange rate effects) is evenly spread over the two quarters and reflects the rapidly accelerating shift from analogue to digital photography as well as increased price erosion. Turnover of film rolls is most affected, while Lab Equipment and photopaper show a more moderate decline. During the first half, Agfa's new digital minilab d-lab.1 and digital wholesale finishing lab d-ws, were launched."

Just what we need, more digital imaging...

Mike

[Annie M.]

Aaaaaaaaaaakk...... there goes my favourite paper. It's a book move and they are going to gut it for the digital minilabs.

[Nick_3536]

The digital labs are Agfa. The consumer film [I'm not sure what that includes] will I guess get the film. They're not the same company anymore. What exactly is Agfa selling? Film? Chemicals? Agfaphoto is going to include what? They sure aren't providing much info.

[Eric Rose]

I've switched over to Ilford products. After they lied to me about their intentions with APX 100 in 4x5, that was it for me.

I love Agfa papers and chemicals, but I felt I had to throw my support behind a company that is truely trying to hang in there with traditional products.

FP4 and PyroCat-HD - ROCK ON!

Eric

[Annie M.]

In the press release the labs are included in the Consumer Imaging section. The transfer is to management & private capital investment funds that are players in hedging.... one of which swooped in and cashed in profits of over 50 million short selling ENRON (...hmmmm I wonder how they knew).....Absolute profit credo!

The sky is falling!...... Chicken Little

[tim o'brien]

'Spect it's time to load up on a case of Rodinal, transfer it into glass bottles, purge with Nitrogen and seal.

They might sell off the film production to finance the buyout.

tim in san jose

430 sheets of APX100 and counting (down)

[JK Stone]

Here is a wild hare, what if Agfa went after some of Kodaks film business? The knuckleheads who run the company (I am convinced that no photographer works there anymore) might be more than interested in dumping say black and white film products to Agfa (Kodak might keep TMAX100 since it does everything).

After all who needs black and white in a digital world?

[enrico scotece]

jk - "After all who needs black and white in a digital world?"

what the hell are you talking about??

[Andre Noble]

How hard can Rodinal be to make from raw chemicals, really?