Kodak divisions are falling left and right as the company struggles to claw its way out of bankruptcy protection. After killing off its camera business and selling off its film business earlier this year, Kodak announced today that it will shortly be pulling out of the consumer printing business in order to focus on commercial printing.
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Kodak has announced that it’ll be shedding even more jobs in an effort to cut costs as it transitions into being a company solely focused on commercial printing and corporate services. Two weeks after announcing the sale of its photographic film business, the company is stating that another 1,000 pink slips will be issued by the end of this year as part of a $330 million cost cutting plan. This is on top of the 2,700 layoff notices already handed out this year, and the new round of cuts will reduce the company’s headcount to 13,400, down from the 145,000 employees it had during its glory days.
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Ritz Camera went under the hammer yesterday at a public auction, the latest chapter in the company’s efforts to figure out a profitable business model in the increasingly Internet-driven business of selling camera gear. Among the things on the auction block yesterday was Wolf Camera, the competing chain of photo retail stores that Ritz acquired back in 2001. If you’re a fan of Wolf Camera shops, here’s some bad news: their days may be very numbered.
A source just informed us that all Wolf Camera shops are slated to be liquidated. He heard from a Wolf store manager friend that the chain was purchased by a liquidation company at the auction, and that exact time frames will be announced soon.
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As we first reported back in June, Ritz Camera is putting itself on the auction block as it struggles to pull itself out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The public auction will be held tomorrow, and may mean the breakup of the largest camera store chain in the United States. The company ran 800 stores back in 2009, but now only has around 300 under various names, including Ritz Camera, Wolf Camera, and The Camera Shop. That number will soon be trimmed to 137. A number of buyers are reportedly interested in snatching Ritz up, presumably due the fact that the company still generates a good bit of revenue — nearly $200 million over the past year through its brick-and-mortar and online businesses.
If you have any gift cards for any of Ritz’s camera shops, you should think about using them as soon as you can. There will soon be an aggressive trimming of unprofitable retail locations, and who knows what a potential buyer might have planned for the stores?
(via Reddit)
Image credit: Ritz Camera to be liqudated by drewsaunders
Most people already know that one of the ways Kodak tried to dig itself out of its sizable financial hole was to sell the Kodak Gallery to Shutterfly, and the service officially shut down just a few short days ago. Most Kodak Gallery users probably won’t be too upset with the move, but unfortunately, it looks like even the 2-million active users (the Kodak Gallery had a total of about 75-million) will have to go a few weeks without access to their photos as their accounts are transferred over. Read more…
Ritz Camera and Image LLC officially filed for bankruptcy last Friday for the second time in three years. And while bankruptcy and financial trouble in general are, unfortunately, not uncommon in the world of photography these days, Ritz is making headlines because of their major unsecured creditors. Amon the biggest names on the list are Nikon, Sony and Fuji, all of whom stand to lose quite a bit of money as Ritz prepares to restructure. Read more…
Recent news coming out of Rochester yesterday points to the fact that Kodak will be selling off its two massive patent portfolios sooner rather than later, and regardless of any progress made in the suit against Apple and RIM. In accordance with the June 30th deadline outlined in their lending agreement, Kodak has already filed a motion with the bankruptcy court — to be approved at a hearing on July 2nd — petitioning for a closed bids auction due to the “special nature of the assets.” Read more…
Kodak has been selling off its assets left and right as it tries to dig itself out of its financial hole. Most recently, it “successfully” sold its Gallery business to Shutterfly. But Kodak’s most prized possession, and the sale it was hoping to make up the most ground with, is its massive collection of patents split into two portfolios. Read more…
Kodak is asking the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for permission to pay $13.5 million in bonuses to roughly 300 executives and employees in order to convince them to stay with the company as it struggles to reinvent itself. Though the beleaguered company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, it believes that the money would help to retain employees that have knowledge and skills that would be difficult to replace if they were to leave. The current headcount at the company stands at around 7,600.
Here’s your mind-boggling fact of the day: the $1 billion Facebook is shelling out to acquire Instagram is enough to purchase Kodak more than 12 times over!
(via USATODAY)
Image credit: Kodak Building in Rochester, NY by Viktor Nagornyy
It wasn’t too long ago that Kodak filed multiple patent infringement lawsuits against Apple in a scramble for life-giving cash, but now the tables have turned. Less than a month after Kodak filed for bankruptcy and announced the end of its camera business, Apple is reportedly in the process of asking the court for permission to sue bankrupt Kodak for infringing on Apple’s patents in its printers, digital cameras, and digital picture frames. This back and forth IP fight is one that Kodak might not be in for long: the company is still trying to sell off its portfolio of roughly 1,100 imaging patents.
(via Bloomberg via Ars Technica)
