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(Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co, which invented the hand-held camera and helped bring the world the first pictures from the moon, has filed for bankruptcy protection, capping a prolonged plunge for one of America's best-known companies.
The more than 130-year-old photographic film pioneer, which had tried to restructure to become a seller of consumer products like cameras, said it had also obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to keep it going.
The loan and bankruptcy protection from U.S. trade creditors may give Kodak the time it needs to find buyers for some of its 1,100 digital patents, the key to its remaining value, and to reshape its business while continuing to pay its 17,000 workers.
"The board of directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak," Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez said in a statement.
"Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core intellectual-property assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company," he added.
At end September, the group had total assets of $5.1 billion and liabilities of $6.75 billion.
Kodak said it and its U.S. subsidiaries had filed for Chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Non-U.S. subsidiaries were not covered by the filing and would continue to honor all obligations to their suppliers, it added.
The more than 130-year-old photographic film pioneer, which had tried to restructure to become a seller of consumer products like cameras, said it had also obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to keep it going.
The loan and bankruptcy protection from U.S. trade creditors may give Kodak the time it needs to find buyers for some of its 1,100 digital patents, the key to its remaining value, and to reshape its business while continuing to pay its 17,000 workers.
"The board of directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak," Chairman and Chief Executive Antonio Perez said in a statement.
"Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core intellectual-property assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company," he added.
At end September, the group had total assets of $5.1 billion and liabilities of $6.75 billion.
Kodak said it and its U.S. subsidiaries had filed for Chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Non-U.S. subsidiaries were not covered by the filing and would continue to honor all obligations to their suppliers, it added.
Hmm…looks like Kodak will be with us for a while albeit the bad situations…Well, let’s take a look at Kodak’s history already…
American inventor George Eastman patented photographic film stored in a roll in 1884. Four years later he had perfected the first camera to take advantage of his invention. He founded Kodak in 1892. The meaningless name was chosen because it was impossible to mispronounce and was disimilar to any existing words.
The Kodak Brownie camera was introduced in 1900 and was initially priced at just one dollar in the US. The camera was simple to use and was advertised with the slogan: "You push the button, we do the rest".
A Kodak advertisement circa 1909
George Eastman (L), founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, is shown with fellow inventor Thomas Edison in this picture dating from the late 1920s
In 1935, Kodak introduced Kodachrome film. The film film was manufactured for 74 years, finally being discontinued in 2009.
On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He was photographed in his Friendship 7 Mercury capsule with a point-and-shoot camera loaded with Kodak 35mm film.
The assassination of John F Kennedy was captured by Abraham Zapruder using a Bell & Howell camera loaded with 8mm Kodachrome II colour film.
The Earth rises on August 23, 1966, as seen from the moon by Lunar Orbiter 1 using a Kodak camera.
20 July 1969: Astronaut Buzz" Aldrin faces the camera as he walks on the Moon during Apollo 11 extra vehicular activity. The plexiglass of his helmet reflects back the scene in front of him, such as the Lunar Module and Astronaut Neil Armstrong, taking his picture. Armstrong, Apollo 11 commander, took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera loaded with Kodak film.
Models demonstrate Kodak cameras at the 1971 Ideal Home Exhibition in London
All rise for the true ancestor…In 1975 Steven Sasson, a Kodak engineer, produced the first working prototype of a digital camera. It was the size of a toaster, weighed eight pounds, had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels, and took 23 seconds to save a black and white image onto a cassette tape...
...The crude 100-line digital images could be displayed on a TV by transferring them from the tape using a VCR-sized microcomputer. A patent was issued for the technology, but Kodak didn't take the digital market seriously until 1991, when it introduced the Kodak DCS-100, which had a 1.3 megapixel sensor and was priced at $13,000.
In 1982, Kodak intoduced the Disc film format. It did not catch on and Kodak stopped manufacturing the film in 1999.
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