Judge allows Kodak’s plan to exit from bankruptcy
Print Edition
Kodak doesn’t look a whole lot like it did when it filed for bankruptcy protection last year, but its executives and investors are hoping for a picture-perfect future.
Many of its products and services are gone, including the camera-making business that made it famous more than a century ago.
Also gone are scores of workers, manufacturing facilities, supply contracts and millions of dollars in investments.
On Tuesday, US Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper approved the company’s plan to emerge from court oversight, paving the way for it to recreate itself as a new, much smaller company focused on commercial and packaging printing.
Kodak said it hopes to emerge from bankruptcy protection as early as September 3.
“They still have people with immense skill and who know how to win,” said Mark Zupan, dean of the business school at the University of Rochester, near Kodak’s headquarters. “But it’s also a team that has gone through hell for the last 10 to 20 years. It has been like constant water torture.”
Founded by George Eastman in 1880, Eastman Kodak Co is credited with popularizing photography at the start of the 20th century and was known all over the world for its Brownie and Instamatic cameras and its yellow-and-red film boxes. It was first brought down by Japanese competition and then an inability to keep pace with the shift from film to digital technology.
“Up until around 2005, Kodak was one of the most recognizable brands in the world, and that’s now gone,” said Robert Burley, a photography professor at Ryerson University in Toronto. “Its only real brand recognition these days is as a failed company that was unable to make the transition from the 20th century to the 21st century. To some degree, they have become a poster child for a company that could not keep up with technology.”
Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection last year after struggling with increasing competition, continuing growth in digital photography and growing debt. Since its filing, Kodak has sold off many of its businesses and patents, while shutting down the camera manufacturing unit that first made it famous.
“Kodak is a different company than the one in the popular imagination and very different from the one that filed for bankruptcy,” Kodak attorney Andrew Dietderich told the court at Tuesday’s hearing.
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