“Eastman Kodak Co. is preparing to seek bankruptcy protection in the coming weeks, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would cap a stunning comedown for a company that once ranked among America’s corporate titans,” Mike Spector and Dana Mattioli report for The Wall Street Journal.
“The 131-year-old company is still making last-ditch efforts to sell off some of its patent portfolio and could avoid Chapter 11 if it succeeds, one of the people said,” Spector and Mattioli report. “But the company has started making preparations for a filing in case those efforts fail, including talking to banks about some $1 billion in financing to keep it afloat during bankruptcy proceedings, the people said.”
Spector and Mattioli report, “A filing could come as soon as this month or early February, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Kodak would continue to pay its bills and operate normally while under bankruptcy protection, the people said. But the company’s focus would then be the sale of some 1,100 patents through a court-supervised auction, the people said… Efforts to sell the portfolio have been slowed by bidders’ concerns that Kodak might seek bankruptcy protection. The company has talked to hedge funds about borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to bridge its finances until the patents sell, but the talks have faltered, people familiar with the matter said.””
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Arbiter delays ruling on Kodak’s patent claim against Apple and RIM – December 19, 2011
Why Apple should buy Kodak’s patents, or possibly the whole company – July 21, 2011
Kodak plummets 19% as suit against Apple, RIM remanded to judge – June 30, 2011
In a digital economy it is critical to run lean and be able to reinvent oneself on a dime.
Sad to see Kodak fold but old management apparently couldn’t adapt to that MO…too little too late.
Kodachrome was great!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/advisory-boards/jobs-council/members/perez
The CEO is on Maobama’s “jobs” council. This country is intentionally being destroyed by liberals and RHINOS. Been going on since a little before WWII.
And heading that council is Jeffrey Imelt of GE, which not only pays almost no taxes but recently announced it will be moving the division making X-ray machines to China.
Special interest and demagoguery you mean
You call him Maobama, and in doing so you display your staggering ignorance of what exactly a Maoist is.
Which is hardly surprising from an American, a people who have a sporting event called a World Series that only involves teams from North America.
I suggest you use a little of your time to investigate what the words Khmer Rouge and Illuminoso Sendoro, or Shining Path, both Maoist organisations.
Perhaps you might find some illumination, and stop being an ignorant fool.
The term is RINO, it stands for Republican In Name Only. If you’re going to act stupid, at least be literate. Also, read Rorschach reply again.
Being insolent toward the President of the United States is reserved for our enemies. Twerps like you remind me of why I stopped wasting time on Huffington Post.
“Never try to teach a pig to sing. You’ll just waste your time and you’ll annoy the pig.”
It gave you those nice bright colors, made you think that all the world’s a sunny day…
What a tragedy, especially for the employees, the retirees, pensioners and the community of this once great innovative company! You can only blame the CEO and Board of Directors all the way back to the 1990’s for having absolutely NO Vision! They should have eliminated the dividend in the 90’s and saved every penny to prepare to reinvent themselves for the digital era. Let this be a lesson to the whining and crying short-sighted asset managers demanding a dividend from Apple. If Apple gets its cash up to 200-300 billion, they can ensure the company Perpetuity and survive forevermore on the income yield of the cash nest egg alone, if ever they need to reinvent themselves. This would guarantee themselves never to succumb to the fate of Kodak or Blockbuster or Barnes & Noble. And THAT is what I call Long-term Shareholder Friendly! THAT may be Steve Jobs’, may he rest in Peace, most brilliant contribution to Apple. Ponder that Ms. Karen Finnerman and other short-sighted analysts.
I think you meant Borders and not Barnes & Noble. The former is dead; the latter is till with us.
I live in the greater Rochester NY area (home of Kodak), and have worked for them in the past. It will be interesting, and not in a good way, to see what happens.
Their scientific and commercial filter science is/was top notch. I hope they can pull it out of the fire. It would be hard on Rochester. They are one of the better corporate citizens. … Or so I understand.
You understood correctly. Or at least they were; I’m not up on what they’ve been doing lately.
RIM better send its attorneys to the auction – all the better to learn how to wind down the company and sell off its assets when the time comes for RIM to declare bankruptcy.
Noone is going to buy the patents if bankruptcy is pending, as any sale could be caught up in possible litigation. Only after they declare Chap11, will anyone consider buying the patents.
It was pointed out to me a few years ago that Kodak film was made overseas while Fuji Film was made in the USA. Maybe that is part of their problem, they lost sight of how important American workers are.