Kodak Staying the Course in Inkjet Printers
Amid plenty of rumors and speculation surrounding their bankruptcy, Kodak has announced that it intends to sell off their personalized document and document imaging businesses, but will continue to sell and design inkjet printers and work in commercial printing.
CEO Antonio Perez said, “‘The initiation of a process to sell the personalised imaging and document imaging businesses is an important step in our company’s reorganisation to focus our business on the commercial markets and enable Kodak to accelerate its momentum toward emergence.’”
This announcement follows an auctioning of their digital imaging patents which seems, at least from the outside, to have not produced anywhere close to their anticipated value. Website Labels and Labelling, reports that the OEM believes that being able to sell off this part of the company along with the portfolio of patents will boost the company’s efforts in reorganization.
The sale of the Kodak business is being handled by investment bank Lazard. It is anticipated that the sale will be complete by the middle of 2013 and will result in about $700 million in capital. This amount will allow Kodak to pay back it’s creditors and get out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
A spokesperson for Kodak, Christopher Veronda has said that their desktop inkjet printer segment is “‘no longer considered a core business’”, however, “’is now at a different product life cycle stage […] we have successfully built a significant installed base that is generating strong ink revenue […] the business has enjoyed several profitable months and is expected to generate cash in 2013.’” This is a slight change from earlier predictions from CEO Antonio Perez who had anticipated that inkjets would be doing that during 2012.
Lastly, Kodak vehemently denies any suggestions that they plan to sell off their desktop inkjet business, though perhaps making them truly profitable may change their attitude.
From Internet
