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Kodak edges toward bankruptcy
[Dawn] Eastman Kodak, the company which brought photography to the masses a century ago, faces a gloomy future amid new reports that it is on the edge of bankruptcy.Never able to rebuild after the digital wave blew its core film business away from the mass market, the Wall Street Journal reported on late Wednesday that Kodak has already begun preparing to ask for protection from creditors. On Tuesday the New York Stock Exchange told the company, once one of the fabled 30 Dow Jones blue chips, that it faces delisting from the exchange if it cannot get its stock price back above $1.00 level. In its heyday Kodak shares topped $80 in 1996 -- just at the outset of the digital photo revolution that eventually replaced the need for consumers to buy Kodak film, once a virtual monopoly in the US market. On Wednesday its share price plunged 28 per cent to 47 cents a share; Thursday it sank another 10.6 per cent to 42 cents as Moody's downgraded the company's debt rating to a very low Caa3, citing "a heightened probability of a bankruptcy over the near term." And on Thursday the company's chief communications officer quit, following in the wake of three board directors in the past two weeks. The Wall Street Journal said the company is still hoping that it can sell off some of its valuable patent portfolio to raise money. But if that last-ditch effort fails, it could file for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 protection, later this month or in February, the Journal said citing sources familiar with the issue. That would place the jobs of its 19,000 employees in question. At its height in the 1980s, it had 145,000 workers. Posted by: Fred 2012-01-07 |
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