Thursday, January 19, 2012

Kodak Files for Bankruptcy

REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

The event Deal Journal has been anticipating for weeks is finally here – Kodak is filing for bankruptcy.

The company released a statement in the wee hours Thursday confirming that it’s filed for Chapter 11, and said it’s secured $950 million in so-called debtor-in-possession financing to keep the company operating in bankruptcy court.

The full statement here:

Eastman Kodak Company and Its U.S. Subsidiaries Commence Voluntary Chapter 11 Business Reorganization

Flow of Goods and Services to Customers to Continue Globally in Ordinary Course

Non-U.S. Subsidiaries Are Not Included in U.S. Filing and Are Not Subject to Court Supervision

Company Secures $950 million in Debtor-in-Possession Financing in U.S. Kodak’s Reorganization to Facilitate Emergence as Profitable and Sustainable Enterprise

ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–January 19, 2012– Eastman Kodak Company (“Kodak” or the “Company”) announced today that it and its U.S. subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

The business reorganization is intended to bolster liquidity in the U.S. and abroad, monetize non-strategic intellectual property, fairly resolve legacy liabilities, and enable the Company to focus on its most valuable business lines. The Company has made pioneering investments in digital and materials deposition technologies in recent years, generating approximately 75% of its revenue from digital businesses in 2011.

Kodak has obtained a fully-committed, $950 million debtor-in-possession credit facility with an 18-month maturity from Citigroup to enhance liquidity and working capital. The credit facility is subject to Court approval and other conditions precedent. The Company believes that it has sufficient liquidity to operate its business during chapter 11, and to continue the flow of goods and services to its customers in the ordinary course.

Kodak expects to pay employee wages and benefits and continue customer programs. Subsidiaries outside of the U.S. are not subject to proceedings and will honor all obligations to suppliers, whenever incurred. Kodak and its U.S. subsidiaries will honor all post-petition obligations to suppliers in the ordinary course.

“Kodak is taking a significant step toward enabling our enterprise to complete its transformation,” said Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “At the same time as we have created our digital business, we have also already effectively exited certain traditional operations, closing 13 manufacturing plants and 130 processing labs, and reducing our workforce by 47,000 since 2003. Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core IP assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company.”

“After considering the advantages of chapter 11 at this time, 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,” Mr. Perez continued. “Our goal is to maximize value for stakeholders, including our employees, retirees, creditors, and pension trustees. We are also committed to working with our valued customers.

“Chapter 11 gives us the best opportunities to maximize the value in two critical parts of our technology portfolio: our digital capture patents, which are essential for a wide range of mobile and other consumer electronic devices that capture digital images and have generated over $3 billion of licensing revenues since 2003; and our breakthrough printing and deposition technologies, which give Kodak a competitive advantage in our growing digital businesses.”

Mr. Perez concluded, “The Board of Directors, the senior management team and I would like to underscore our appreciation for the hard work and loyalty of our employees. Kodak exemplifies a culture of collaboration and innovation. Our employees embody that culture and are essential to our future success.”

Kodak has taken this step after preliminary discussions with key constituencies and intends to work toward a consensual reorganization in the best interests of its stakeholders. Kodak expects to complete its U.S.-based restructuring during 2013.

The Company and its Board of Directors are being advised by Lazard, FTI Consulting Inc. and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP. In addition, Dominic DiNapoli, Vice Chairman of FTI Consulting, will serve as Chief Restructuring Officer to support the management team as to restructuring matters during the chapter 11 case.

More information about Kodak’s Chapter 11 filing is available on the Internet at www.kodaktransforms.com. Information for suppliers and vendors is available at (800) 544-7009 or (585) 724-6100.

Kodak will be filing monthly operating reports with the Bankruptcy Court and also plans to post these monthly operating reports on the Investor Relations section of Kodak.com. The Company will continue to file quarterly and annual reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which will also be available in the Investor Relations section of Kodak.com.

(Sources - http://blogs.wsj.com)

What people say about IPV6


World IPv6 Launch will mark the largest industry commitment to and deployment of IPv6 in the history of the Internet, with ISPs, home networking equipment manufacturers and web companies around the world permanently enabling IPv6 within their products and services.

We welcome additional participants to join this year’s World IPv6 Launch.


“Web-enabled businesses will need to ensure their applications are available over IPv6 in order to keep pace with the Internet’s ever-expanding audience. Akamai is committed to helping our customers with a smooth transition to IPv6 without impacting performance or requiring disruptive changes to their origin networking infrastructure. The global breadth of our IPv6 deployment helped enable a seamless experience for content providers during World IPv6 Day last year, and we stand ready to support this next important, and permanent, step in the evolution of the Internet.”
– Tom Leighton, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, Akamai


“We’ve seen unprecedented growth in network traffic over the past several years, and IPv6 is critical to the continuation of that growth. AT&T has been a leader in the transition to IPv6 for many years, and we’re excited to participate in World IPv6 Launch by enabling IPv6 services for new and existing residential customers, in addition to the enterprise customers we support with IPv6 today.”
– John Donovan, CTO, AT&T


“IPv6 is important to all of us. It is critical to the continued growth of the Internet, bringing together people and devices around the globe. As a leader in the development of IPv6 since its inception, Cisco is excited to be an integral part of the industry working together toward the World IPv6 Launch organized by the Internet Society. In addition to the continued support for IPv6 we have in our products today, we will be joining other websites around the world by permanently enabling IPv6 on www.cisco.com, as well as enabling IPv6 by default on our new line of E-series home routers.”
– John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco


“IPv6 deployment is a key priority for Comcast in 2012, and we’re excited to participate in this Internet Society event that will help catalyze action around the world on this important transition.”
– John Schanz, EVP and Chief Network Officer, Comcast


“D-Link recently completed a new round of IPv6 interoperability testing, underscoring our commitment to customers when the transition from IPv4 takes place. As we continue to develop new and innovative networking products, D-Link will provide support across all of our solutions to ensure a smooth transition to IPv6 for service providers and end users.”
– William Brown, associate vice president of product development, D-Link North America


“Last year’s industry-wide test of IPv6 successfully showed that the global adoption of IPv6 is the best way to keep web devices communicating in the future. Permanently enabling IPv6 is vital to keeping the Internet open and ensuring people stay connected online as the number of web users and devices continues to grow.”
– Jay Parikh, VP of Infrastructure Engineering at Facebook


“World IPv6 Launch marks a watershed moment in Internet history. It breaks the limits of the original address space to open a vast new territory, trillions upon trillions of times larger, and reinforces the end-to-end architecture that made the Internet so powerful at the beginning. Google strongly supports this upgrade. We’re happy to see that everyone is moving to the 21st-century Internet!”
– Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google


“We are at the stage in IPv6 deployment where it’s time for major Internet Service Providers to make it a transparent part of their customers’ experience. Internode has enabled native IPv6 by default for all new customers, and all the routers we sell all come with ‘IPv6 Inside’. Our experience shows us that IPv6 is now fully capable of providing seamless, uninterrupted and efficient access to the Internet, dual-stacked with IPv4. It’s time to jump in – the water is fine.”
– Simon Hackett, Managing Director at Internode


“Last year, in the event of the World IPv6 Day, KDDI’s IPv6 networks worked well when the major websites around the world had IPv6 enabled. KDDI is now operating the networks accommodating more than 600,000 dual stack users. We are promoting the launch of IPv6, in order that the Internet may continue to maintain its key role in society.”
–Mr.Yoshiharu Shimatani, Senior Vice President of KDDI


“We are proud to participate in the transition towards IPv6, as one of the first fully IPv6-enabled content delivery networks. IPv6 is a crucial step in facilitating the continued growth and improved performance of IP networks globally. The success of last year’s World IPv6 Day motivated many participants to permanently IPv6 enable their sites. Limelight Networks is committed to working with the industry to increase the level of preparation so that we can accelerate our move to a more scalable, flexible and interoperable Internet.”
–Todd Braning, VP of Network Architecture and Engineering for Limelight Networks


“Bing is excited to bring the next-generation search to the next generation of the Internet. Microsoft has been pleased to partner with so many industry leading technology companies to usher in the next evolution of the Internet.”
– Derrick Connell, corporate vice president of Bing at Microsoft Corporation


“The time to permanently enable IPv6 has arrived. Time Warner Cable is committed to the World IPv6 Launch in June, our customers should be reassured that the platform is ready and our partners should be including IPv6 in all their products and services.”
– Mike Lajoie, CTO of Time Warner Cable


“The Internet has grown to be an essential part of our daily lives. It connects our devices to our apps; more importantly, it connects us to each other. Yahoo! is proud to be a part of the World IPv6 Launch – an event that marks the next chapter of our Internet. IPv6 enables the Internet to grow, while remaining open and accessible to new applications and new ideas.”
– Jason Fesler, Distinguished Architect and IPv6 Evangelist, Yahoo!