dark days ahead for black/white films/products ???

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 15:38:31 GMT, "Robert Van Brustum"
<robert.vanbrustum.TakeThisOut@pandora.be> wrote:

 >seems that Agfa and Kodak will stop producing B/W films and paper.
 >Ilford is in deep trouble and it's b/w department is for sale.
 >Has anyone official confirmation about all this ??
 >The Ilford news was on a BBC newspage - the Agfa and Kodak come from a few
 >colegues/photographers

Kodak just recently updated Tri-X, you tend not to invest money in a
product and then drop it. Then again it wouldn't be the first time.

Kodak has a weird way of discontinuing products, for example they
discontinued old Tri-X, and then brought out new Tri-X.... I think
most of the Kodak B&W products have suffered from this over the
years,,,,,

With Kodak not intuerested in film in NA anymore, and Ilford in
trouble, Agfa or Fuji discontinuing B&W products would be really,
really dumb right now.....

Ilford is under Administration, Canada calls this Creditor Protection,
and the United States calls it Chapter 11. I think they were looking
for a buyer for the whole company though.....

Businesses go under Adminstration or Protection every day, most, will
in a couple of years come out of protection and continue on. Chrysler
in the United States went through this in the 1980's. The K car and
the Mini-van were part of Chrysler re-inventing themselves. There are
4 steps to this process:

1) Restructuring, cut expenses, dump a pile of muddle mnangement, cut
employees, and generally hope that the cuts will allow income to
exceed expensives by enough that you can come up with a debt payment
plan that the creditors can live with.

2) Reinventing, dump the dead wood products, and come up with some new
ones, Often a company ends up with 57 different products, that
can't be made in large enough quantities to be profitable, so you cut
many of them, and then come up with a couple of new ones....

3) Selling off profitable divisions or products, although this is
often leaves you with a bunch of crap that isn't worth keeping, if you
already went through the reinventing stage, then you probably end up
with no company

4) Winding up, the company having dumped dead and dying products in
stage 2 and having sold off the products that were profitable in stage
3 pays off it's debts as best it can. and then ceases to exist,

W<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

The Wogster <wogsterca.DeleteThis@yahoo.ca> wrote:


5) write off the shareholders. Turn the company over to the debt holders who
then become the new owners of a more or less debt free company.

Nick
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

"Nick Zentena" <zentena DeleteThis @hophead.dyndns.org> wrote in message
news:rfep02-tuu.ln1@barley.dyndns.org...

 > 5) write off the shareholders. Turn the company over to the debt holders
 > who
 > then become the new owners of a more or less debt free company.

How do we do that, Nick, by a revolution or something?<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

jjs <John.RemoveThis@nopsam.stafford.net> wrote:
 > "Nick Zentena" <zentena.RemoveThis@hophead.dyndns.org> wrote in message
 > news:rfep02-tuu.ln1@barley.dyndns.org...
 >
  >> 5) write off the shareholders. Turn the company over to the debt holders
  >> who
  >> then become the new owners of a more or less debt free company.
 >
 > How do we do that, Nick, by a revolution or something?


Not us but the banks etc. Really no different then having the bank take
somebody's house for not paying the mortgage. It happens all the time. Many
of the telecom companies that have come back from the dead are examples of
this. The old shareholders basically got nothing. The downside is the new
company is now stronger and that means the other companies are having to
deal with that. When MCI was being restructured the other phone companies
pushed hard to have it broken up instead of being allowed to come out
relatively debt free.


Nick<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

Nick Zentena <zentena.DeleteThis@hophead.dyndns.org> wrote:
 > jjs <John.DeleteThis@nopsam.stafford.net> wrote:
  >> "Nick Zentena" <zentena.DeleteThis@hophead.dyndns.org> wrote in message
  >> news:rfep02-tuu.ln1@barley.dyndns.org...
  >>
   >>> 5) write off the shareholders. Turn the company over to the debt holders
   >>> who
   >>> then become the new owners of a more or less debt free company.
  >>
  >> How do we do that, Nick, by a revolution or something?
 >


One more thing. It's my understanding that Ilford decided to go into
protection. They weren't pushed into it. Now maybe they were so close to
being pushed they decided to jump but maybe not. The fact that they made the
choice to go into protection implies to me they were still paying the bills
but wanted out from under problems. Maybe they wanted the labour contracts
changed. Maybe they wanted the debt re-done. Maybe they wanted supplier
contracts changed.

  Nick<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

Uzytkownik "The Wogster" <wogsterca.DeleteThis@yahoo.ca> napisal w wiadomosci
 >
 > Kodak just recently updated Tri-X, you tend not to invest money in a
 > product and then drop it. Then again it wouldn't be the first time.
Kodak has simply reduced their product line, which is very easy to see
if anyone bothered to go to their website. They have discontinued a
few products (Portra BW for example), but "revamped" Tri-X and the
whole T-max line.
They are also marketing a new film which replaces T400 CN and Portra
at the same time ...
Tech Pan is also still being sold.
So I think it's just a question of cutting what is not profitable -
and good for them

 > Ilford is under Administration, Canada calls this Creditor
Protection,
 > and the United States calls it Chapter 11. I think they were
looking
 > for a buyer for the whole company though.....
Ilford is splitting in two parts, the Swiss-based digital business is
doing OK, the UK-based BW part has 40 million British pounds of debt !
And they're looking for a buyer for it.
This is news from Reuters' website.

Regards,
Magdalena<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

"Robert Van Brustum" <robert.vanbrustum.RemoveThis@pandora.be> wrote in
message news:Xjl_c.581$R14.198977579@hebe.telenet-ops.be...
 > seems that Agfa and Kodak will stop producing B/W films
and paper.
 > Ilford is in deep trouble and it's b/w department is for
sale.
 > Has anyone official confirmation about all this ??
 > The Ilford news was on a BBC newspage - the Agfa and Kodak
come from a few
 > colegues/photographers
 > robert--
 > robert.RemoveThis@vanbrustum.be
<font color=purple> > Visit my site <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.vanbrustum.be</font" target="_blank">http://www.vanbrustum.be</font</a>>
 >
 >
Kodak, at least, doesn't seem to have any immediate plans
to discontinue B&W materials. They are reducing their
product line the the minimum but I think they will continue
film and paper for another decade. After that, who knows.
Color transparency films have been hit hard by the switch
from slides to digital. Nonetheless Kodak, Agfa, and Fuji
are still making it. At some point the market will
stabilize. It will be a fraction of the size it was, say
twenty years ago, but it will still be large enough to
justify at least smaller companies continuing to supply
materials.
Of the three companies mentioned above Ilford is in the
worst trouble. Some parts of Ilford are doing just fine but
the film and paper division at Moberly is hanging by a
thread. It will depend on what sort of investor buys what's
left. They may try to continue the business or they may
dissolve it. At this point its all guess work.
Agfa photo is definitely in business but seems to have
decided to pull out of the film and paper market over time.
Again, it depends on whether then new investors are
imaginative and innovative, or just take the path of least
resistance, the latter seeming to be the usual route for
business type to follow.


--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk.RemoveThis@ix.netcom.com<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

thx alot guys for all the information, and, sorry I missed a discusion on
this topic.
For quite a while I'm using products from smaller companies like FOMA, EFKE,
Moersch, ... excellent stuff.
But, on the other hand I just love Ilford Delta films developed in Ilfotec
DDX and the companies warmtone fiber paper. Toned in sepia/selenium, it
gives you very special and outstanding results.
Would really hate te see these disapear. Hopefully there will be one of the
Eastern European companies buying these production lines.

I purchase my stuff via 2 German companies that sell the products via the
net. Very serious people and excellent service.
If anyone interested in the addresses, just ask.
Robert--
robert RemoveThis @vanbrustum.be
Visit my site <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.vanbrustum.be" target="_blank">http://www.vanbrustum.be</a>
"Richard Knoppow" <dickburk RemoveThis @ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:2q012uFpl77oU1@uni-berlin.de...
 >
 > "Robert Van Brustum" <robert.vanbrustum RemoveThis @pandora.be> wrote in
 > message news:Xjl_c.581$R14.198977579@hebe.telenet-ops.be...
  > > seems that Agfa and Kodak will stop producing B/W films
 > and paper.
  > > Ilford is in deep trouble and it's b/w department is for
 > sale.
  > > Has anyone official confirmation about all this ??
  > > The Ilford news was on a BBC newspage - the Agfa and Kodak
 > come from a few
  > > colegues/photographers
  > > robert--
  > > robert RemoveThis @vanbrustum.be
<font color=green>  > > Visit my site <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.vanbrustum.be</font" target="_blank">http://www.vanbrustum.be</font</a>>
  > >
  > >
 > Kodak, at least, doesn't seem to have any immediate plans
 > to discontinue B&W materials. They are reducing their
 > product line the the minimum but I think they will continue
 > film and paper for another decade. After that, who knows.
 > Color transparency films have been hit hard by the switch
 > from slides to digital. Nonetheless Kodak, Agfa, and Fuji
 > are still making it. At some point the market will
 > stabilize. It will be a fraction of the size it was, say
 > twenty years ago, but it will still be large enough to
 > justify at least smaller companies continuing to supply
 > materials.
 > Of the three companies mentioned above Ilford is in the
 > worst trouble. Some parts of Ilford are doing just fine but
 > the film and paper division at Moberly is hanging by a
 > thread. It will depend on what sort of investor buys what's
 > left. They may try to continue the business or they may
 > dissolve it. At this point its all guess work.
 > Agfa photo is definitely in business but seems to have
 > decided to pull out of the film and paper market over time.
 > Again, it depends on whether then new investors are
 > imaginative and innovative, or just take the path of least
 > resistance, the latter seeming to be the usual route for
 > business type to follow.
 >
 >
 > --
 > ---
 > Richard Knoppow
 > Los Angeles, CA, USA
 > dickburk RemoveThis @ix.netcom.com
 >
 >
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

U¿ytkownik "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk.RemoveThis@ix.netcom.com> napisa³ w
wiadomo¶ci


 > Of the three companies mentioned above Ilford is in the
 > worst trouble. Some parts of Ilford are doing just fine but
 > the film and paper division at Moberly is hanging by a
 > thread. It will depend on what sort of investor buys what's
 > left.
I just wish I had enough money to buy at least the paper production
I'm totally in love with Ilford's papers, and now have to stock up.

Regards,
Magdalena<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

As unnatural as it seems, i feel Kodak would no sooner go into the underwear
business than eliminate the medium to which it is credited with bringing to
the public in the first place, revolutionizing photography as we know it,
for over 100 years.

Although I do agree Kodak seems to make poor business decisions on a regular
(and predictable) basis, it would certainly be unrealistic to see them get
out of silver-based imaging altogether. Like me, there are thousands
(perhaps millions?) of us carrying on this artform with devout passion.
Kodak, although it doesnt seem to acknowledge it publicly, knows this all
too well. If the other smaller companies drop-off it will leave Kodak once
again to carry the torch for another 100 years. Perhaps 100 years is a
stretch, but I find it hard to believe that they would get out of a niche
market that shows serious potential of rebounding once again, as the more
passionate youth of today discover the cheapness and "consumerism" of
digital media tommorow.

Has the PC, digitizer tablets or Adobe Illustrator, taken over the pen,
marker, pencil and paper? Not even. Yes the new mediums are flourisging, and
have infact eliminated the paper based procedures of the past, (desktop
publishing, etc) But is art paper still produced? Oil paints and painters
canvasses? Cartoonists still use paper regularly.

It all depends on what you do and why you do it. So long as we continue to
see those beautiful, (if not mega-fad) Ansel Prints in the frame shops of
shopping malls, people will want to follow the art. To get there they will
learn how, and step up to the world of silver-imaging.

Mike Lachance


"Robert Van Brustum" <robert.vanbrustum RemoveThis @pandora.be> wrote in message
news:Xjl_c.581$R14.198977579@hebe.telenet-ops.be...
 > seems that Agfa and Kodak will stop producing B/W films and paper.
 > Ilford is in deep trouble and it's b/w department is for sale.
 > Has anyone official confirmation about all this ??
 > The Ilford news was on a BBC newspage - the Agfa and Kodak come from a few

 > colegues/photographers
 > robert--
 > robert RemoveThis @vanbrustum.be
<font color=purple> > Visit my site <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.vanbrustum.be</font" target="_blank">http://www.vanbrustum.be</font</a>>
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

"Michael R. Lachance" <nospamhere DeleteThis @nuh-uh.com> wrote


 > Has the PC, digitizer tablets or Adobe Illustrator, taken over the pen,
 > marker, pencil and paper? Not even. Yes the new mediums are flourisging, and
 > have infact eliminated the paper based procedures of the past, (desktop
 > publishing, etc) But is art paper still produced? Oil paints and painters
 > canvasses? Cartoonists still use paper regularly.
 >
 > It all depends on what you do and why you do it. So long as we continue to
 > see those beautiful, (if not mega-fad) Ansel Prints in the frame shops of
 > shopping malls, people will want to follow the art. To get there they will
 > learn how, and step up to the world of silver-imaging.

The art supply firms that are left are (and probably are all they ever were)
are cottage industries or fleas on the rump of some multi-national.

Grumbacher, the US purveyor of oil colors, is owned by Rubbermaid, of trash
basket fame. I just saw the synergy: they not only supply the trash basket,
they sell you the stuff to put in it.

Rubbermaid also owns/is:

Sanford, Sharpie, Paper Mate, Parker, Waterman,
Colorific, Eberhard Faber, Berol, Grumbacher,
Reynolds, rotring, uni-Ball, Expo, Accent,
Vis-à-Vis, Expresso, Liquid Paper, and Mongol.

No wonder you can't find a good pencil anymore (a Blackwing, a Venus
Velvet ...). "Yes sir, a pencil, which would you like, we have a
large selection: Mongol, Eberhard Faber, Berol? If you would like
a mechanical pencil we carry PaperMate, Parker, Eberhard, Waterman
and Rotring." And it's all made from the _same_ bleedin' scratchy
graphite.

Might as well tell Rubbermaid to make room in their list of trade names
for Brovira, Kodabromide, Oriental, Ilford, Velour ... A factory
in Croatia can make the paper and put it into the different boxes for
them ... Luminos Lives!

--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio
Consulting Engineer: Electronics; Informatics; Photonics.
Remove spaces etc. to reply: n o lindan at net com dot com
psst.. want to buy an f-stop timer? nolindan.com/da/fstop/<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

"Nicholas O. Lindan" <see.RemoveThis@sig.com> wrote in message
news:6bO_c.7074$Vl5.2112@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...

 > The art supply firms that are left are (and probably are all they ever
 > were)
 > are cottage industries or fleas on the rump of some multi-national.
 >
 > Grumbacher, the US purveyor of oil colors, is owned by Rubbermaid, of
 > trash
 > basket fame. I just saw the synergy: they not only supply the trash
 > basket,
 > they sell you the stuff to put in it.
 >
 > Rubbermaid also owns/is:
 >
 > Sanford, Sharpie, Paper Mate, Parker, Waterman,
 > Colorific, Eberhard Faber, Berol, Grumbacher,
 > Reynolds, rotring, uni-Ball, Expo, Accent,
 > Vis-à-Vis, Expresso, Liquid Paper, and Mongol.
 >
 > [... snip but it's there for posterity...]

How very distressing the information is, but you are the wonder, Nicholas. I
had no idea.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ??? 

 > Might as well tell Rubbermaid to make room in their list of trade names
 > for Brovira, Kodabromide, Oriental, Ilford, Velour ... A factory
 > in Croatia can make the paper and put it into the different boxes for
 > them ... Luminos Lives!

So should I sell my film equipment while I still have the chance to get
some value out of it?<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: dark days ahead for black/white films/products ???