Kodak News

[Ron Marshall]

Kodak may sell its film business:

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle1343516.ece

[Colin Robertson]

Kodak also had a medical imaging division, which I understand they are also ditching. Not sure what business they are staying in.

[Ralph Barker]

I see only two problems with the idea of Kodak spinning off its film business:

1. Kodak execs arriving at a realistic valuation for the business and associated real estate and equipment, patents, etc., and

2. finding a buyer with sufficient cash, but who still has realistic profit expectations such that the business can continue to succeed once properly scaled (with less executive overhead, among other things).

Perhaps we could start up a collection?

[Gordon Moat]

I highly suggest reading the SEC reports for EK that are available to the public. In that you will find that revenues from traditional products are still about $4 billion annually. In fact, despite restructuring charges over the last several years, Kodak still managed to go from a fourth quarter 2005 traditional products earnings of $51 million to a fourth quarter 2006 earnings of $77 million.

To be realistic with this, would you expect any public company to retain a division that was not making any profits? What other answer could you possibly expect?

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[Christopher Perez]

I also read where the expected value of the film business will continue to decrease. I don't recall how soon, but very soon, their film business will be worth less than 3.3Billion.

Anyone who buys that unit, assuming Kodak puts it up for sale, will be faced with declining revenues.

I've heard that the Chinese have been interested in something like this for a long time. I wonder if they'll pop for Kodak's film business like they did for IBM's laptop computer group...

[scott_6029]

Having participated in the Structured Finance World (READ LBO's) for 13 years + ...you can absolutely make money buying a declining revenue business. I've seen many astute LBO firms buy 'declining' horse and buggy companies and milk the livin daylights out of 'em. Lot's of variables to consider for sure, but declining revenues is only one of them and not a deal killer.

[Michael Kadillak]

I am not concerned about this news one single bit. In fact I honestly hope that it does happen because of the simple fact that the buyer would be naturally wanting to sell film to recoup their investment and hopefully make a great return. In this scenario I suspect that we would be able to purchase any Kodak film in any size in the right size box and that would mean that customers and customer service for film would be number one priority as opposed to being the bastard red headed stepchild it is now at Kodak.

The biggest hurdle I feel will be if Kodak will sell thier ownership of the emulsion formulations and what price they feel that they want to get for it. They say that it is a decliing market publically because that is what the financial analyists want to hear but when the doors of the corner conference room are closed and it is time to roll up the sleeves and talk numbers, I suspect that they will want the moon and several stars. This will be interesting to follow and see if anyone can put such a deal together.

Cheers!

[neil poulsen]

"We will do whatever is good for this company and whatever is good for shareholders,” Mr Perez said.

Predictable. No mention of customers.

If they tag real estate along with the deal, this could be the end of their film, not just their film ownership.

Long term, I wonder whether Kodak itself will survive.

[GPS]

This is good news for Fuji and all of us that buy their film.

[Capocheny]

This is good news for Fuji and all of us that buy their film.

I'd rather see a broad base of suppliers out in the marketplace as opposed to a monopoly of sorts. Losing Kodak just reduces the size of the playing field.

I switched over to Fuji films (at least, with transparency) back some time ago and was expecting this sort of thing to happen with Kodak.

However, it's never good news to hear of a supplier, whether Kodak or not, to contemplate getting out of the business.

If they do choose to sell... hopefully, it'll be to buyers who come in with a game plan that's sustainable over the long haul.

Cheers