聯合翻譯有限公司/聯合翻譯社

After months of speculation, film company Eastman Kodak Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today. In its filing in US Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York, the company reported that it has $6.8 billion in debt and $5.1 billion in assets. Kodak has struggled for years as photography moved from film to digital photography. 

The company also announced it had secured a $950 million loan from Citigroup to help operate during bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reports.  

If its filing is approved by a bankruptcy judge, the company would be able to continue its operations, including the manufacture and distribution of its current products, while it re-negotiates its debt to creditors. For months, the Rochester, New York-based company has tried to raise money by selling its portfolio of more than 1,100  patents. "Kodak is taking a significant step toward enabling our enterprise to complete its transformation," Antonio M. Perez, chief executive officer, said in a news statement today. 

 The price of Kodak shares has been below $1 for more than six weeks. In its January 3 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kodak reportedthat the New York Stock Exchange had warned that the company could be delisted if its stock price failed to climb above $1 per share. 

Ironically, the patents Kodak has been trying to sell to raise cash are for digital imaging innovations. Though Kodak invented the first digital camera in 1975, as well as other products for digital image capture such as the Photo CD, an early digital device, "Big Yellow" (as the once dominant film company was affectionately known to professional photographers) did not capitalize on its digital innovations, focusing instead on the manufacture and sale of film and paper for amateur and professional photographers, medical imaging and the motion picture industry.

“The profit margin was much higher for silver halide [film] technology than for consumer electronics,” says Fred Shippey, who was a senior photographic engineer for Kodak (he left in 1993). To maximize profits in the short-term, Kodak developed "hybrid" products, like that photo CD and the Kodak Premier, intended to be used with scanned film. These were eventually supplanted by other, digital-only innovations. Says Shippey, “If you’re not looking down the road, the road eventually comes to an end.”

Gary Pageau, publisher of the Photo Marketing Association magazine, sees Kodak as simply a victim of changing consumer demand. “Photographers simply aren’t shooting as much film," he says. “We don’t use papyrus any more either.”

Henry Posner, spokesperson for retail store B&H Photo-Video, does not expect Kodak’s bankruptcy to cause “a seismic shift” in the rest of the photo industry.  “Kodak’s not the giant it used to be and the number of people relying on their products exclusively is dwindling.”

In the wake of repeated losses, the company has made a series of layoffs and cut backs over the years. It currently employs about 17,000 people; in 2003, it employed 63,900, according to Bloomberg News. Posner says, "I’m concerned with the effect of this on Kodak’s past and current employees and the rest of Rochester, which I’m sure will feel the impact of this economically and socially."

資料來源: http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/news/Kodak-Files-for-Bank-4397.shtml