Kodak Is Officially Bankrupt
January 19, 2012 ⋅ Tech ⋅ by Thomas Fox ⋅ 5958 Views

Former photography giant Kodak is now officially bankrupt. The company’s shares had been under pressure for months as speculation continued to grow amongst traders, culminating in horrific financial earnings for 2011 and the hiring of law firm Jones Day for restructuring advice late last year. The giant who, at one time, held a 90% share of the photographic film market, began its steady decline in the late 1990s as digital photography and printing became the industry norm. Kodak last turned a profit in 2007 and was forced to secure financing upwards of $950 million USD from Citigroup, Inc. in an attempt to fund a restructuring of the floundering enterprise.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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  • Anonymous

    My grandfather worked his entire ‘working career’ at Kodak in various positions. For the longest period of time he repaired cameras for Kodak photographers. Based here out of Chicago he used to hang out at the original Playboy mansion and dealt daily with other amazing photographers based here. Ironically enough, right before he was going to retire he said that Kodak’s days were doomed. He had a feeling the need for silver photography paper was coming to an end – that someone or something would replace the need to print on paper. Other employees at Kodak thought he was nuts – I mean – you have to print photos on paper! Obviously lots of people were thinking the same thing as him, but the story of people saying he was nuts etc is all the more funny now in retrospect. They’ll bounce back, they still have some strong patents they can rely on.

  • http://draf.tumblr.com izzy sulz

    kodak moment

  • Nicholas Peterson

    What does ‘The Wallstreet Diary’ or whatever know about investments? I think we owe it Kodak to take full stock of their portfolio, even the gimmicky Black and White’s, and see what develops.

  • http://twitter.com/jd3uc3 Justin

    Born and raised in rochester, sad to see the company finally go bankrupt. quite a few of my friends live here because their parents moved to rochester in order to work for kodak.

    the company has been going downhill for a long time, layoffs started like 5 years ago. hopefully things will pick back up and rochester will go back to the way it was before i was born.

  • http://twitter.com/1ColinG Colin Taylor Burnett

    They’ll
    bounce back.  Kodak needs to get ahead of
    the market instead trying to play catch up, so they may not turn profits for
    another 12-36 months but if the right transcending moves are made, exponential
    growth and market domination are theirs in this half of the decade.  Kodak had a prime opportunity to pioneer the
    digital photography market but DECIDED to allow foreign companies to spear head
    the market. Now they’re here and they’re probably kicking themselves all the
    way to the bank.  

  • Anonymous

    Really depressing to hear of yet another American company on hard times.

  • choco-prince

    The phrase “picture that like a kodak” lives on

  • Anonymous

    Bankruptcy does not mean they are closing their doors. It means bondholders get screwed and negotiate new terms through the court system.

    I went to school in Rochester though, so its sad to see them falling on hard times.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XF6UHKAZW42HPKQBDHKQLOMSU4 Latoya

    my co-worker’s aunt makes $79 hourly on the laptop. She has been out of work for 5 months but last month her paycheck was $7597 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Here’s the site to read more… trunc.it/inujh

  • Anonymous

    damn, wait a minute why don’t try overseas there’s alot of places without kodak

  • Anonymous

    Kodak and Hostess. Goodbye Good America

  • http://twitter.com/edwardrow Edward EJ Row

    sucks

  • hypoh

    RIP Kodak.