Kodak is placed under Chapter 11 of the Law of Bankruptcy

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Kodak is placed under Chapter 11 of the Law of Bankruptcy

Once the jewel of the world photography and emblem of American capitalism, Eastman Kodak , announced Thursday, Jan. 19, she had filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. law on bankruptcy, in order to restructure to immune from claims of creditors. The company has a credit facility of $ 950 million negotiated with the bank Citigroup, “believes it has sufficient liquidity to conduct its activities in the context of Chapter 11, and continue to provide products and services to its customers as usual, ” she wrote in a statement at night.

Kodak, which has not registered a profit since 2007, recently tried to restructure by diversifying into the cameras. “The Board and the entire management team see it as a necessary step and the thing that should make for the future of Kodak ” , said CEO Antonio M. Perez said in a statement. Subsidiaries outside the United States are not included in the application for placement under Chapter 11, which was filed with a court in New York. They will continue to honor their financial commitments normally, assured the company.

At the time of its splendor, the company more than a century, based in Rochester, north of the State of New York, employs more than sixty thousand people. Kodak has continued to decline since she missed the train of digital at the turn of the millennium, even though it was behind many of the inventions that were to lead on these new techniques. Today, employees are more than seven miles. Kodak launched in 1975 that it has to be the first digital camera, a black and white box the size of a toaster. But when the digital exploded, the manufacturer of the legendary Kodachrome film has left ahead of its competitors, especially in Asia.

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On the eve of its bankruptcy filing, the company yellow and red was worth only $ 150 million public offering, when she was featured for over sixty years in the very exclusive club of the thirty stocks that make up the index Dow Jones . Removed from it in 2004, the value was threatened for several weeks with a simple expulsion from the coast, due to being enough.

Since 2003, Kodak has closed factories thirteen hundred and thirty laboratories and deleted forty-seven thousand jobs, said Antonio Perez , CEO of the group, said in the statement. The Company believes realize now 75% of its business in the digital, via the sale of licenses and printing techniques.
The CEO did not specify the expected impact of this strategy on employment, while Kodak has yet eighteen thousand employees worldwide. Its portfolio of over a thousand patents in imaging has generated over $ 3 billion in royalties since 2003, has argued the group. But Kodak has not released any profit since 2008. “Now we must complete our transformation into a more attacking us in our cost structure and efficiently by giving money to non-strategic assets ” , said Perez. The decision was expected by the markets, which have been falling action Wednesday at 55 cents , while it was worth ten times a year ago.

Now protected from creditors, Kodak will be able to concentrate on the sale of its rich patent portfolio, set of old disputes and focus on its most profitable activities. The aim is to highlight the bankruptcy process with a more agile and efficient, as this had done a few years ago Other icons “made in the United States” , such as automobile manufacturers General Motors and Chrysler.
Kodak, which is advised in this process by the investment bank Lazard and FTI Consulting and specialized firms Sullivan & Cromwell, hopes to see its restructuring plan approved by the court in order to return to normal operation in the course of 2013.