Business changes at Eastman Kodak Co.
What businsses is Kodak keeping?
Commercial printing, based in Kettering
Business services
Consumer inkjet printing
Entertainment imaging
Commercial film
Specialty chemicals
What businesses is Kodak selling?
Picture kiosks
Still-camera film
Souvenir photo products at theme parks
Scanners and related software and services
Eastman Kodak’s commercial printing operations in Kettering will play a key role in pulling the iconic American company out of bankruptcy and back to profitability, the company said.
Kodak has selected its commercial printing operations, based at the Miami Valley Research Park, as one it will keep as the company shifts its focus from imaging to printing so it can emerge from bankruptcy sometime next year.
“The Dayton operations are squarely in the heart of that,” Kodak spokesman Christopher Veronda said Friday.
Kodak wants to sell its document imaging and personalized imaging business, which includes its still-camera film and 105,000 photo kiosks. The business also offers souvenir photo products at theme parks and other venues.
The company said it also will continue to pursue an auction of its vast patent portfolio and consider more cost-cutting moves.
Antonio Perez, Kodak’s chairman and CEO, said the planned sale is “an important step in our company’s reorganization to focus our business on the commercial markets.”
About 500 employees work at Kodak’s offices and labs in the research park at 1900 Founders Drive, where Kodak’s Prosper printing system was largely developed. The site is Kodak’s largest operation outside of company headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. About 40 companies are located at the park.
“I’m very pleased to hear Kodak reiterate this position, a feeling they have had for several years,” Bruce Pearson, president and chief executive of the Miami Valley Research Park, said Friday afternoon. “We’re thrilled that Kodak, as they go through their bankruptcy, views the technology that goes into these printers as very important.”
Digital printing, which allows a precise number of documents, books or magazines to be produced at high speed, has seen strong growth, and the company is confident that growth will continue, Veronda said.
Still, the company will “continue to keep an eye on costs across the company,” Veronda said.
Kodak laid off about 70 Kettering employees earlier this year after the company entered bankruptcy in January, Veronda said. He did not rule out further layoffs within the company, including the Kettering site.
Kodak, a storied photography pioneer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January. It has kept operating while it tries to sell its digital imaging patents. So far, it has not found buyers.
Kodak was founded in 1880. Kodak introduced the iconic Brownie camera in 1900. Selling for $1 and using film that cost just 15 cents a roll, it made hobby photography affordable for many people. Its Kodachrome film, introduced in 1935, became the first commercially successful amateur color film.
Kodak’s workforce peaked in 1988 at nearly 150,000 employees. But the company couldn’t keep up with the shift from digital photo technology over the past decade and with competition from Japanese companies such as Canon.
It said earlier this year that it would stop making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames as it tries to reshape its business.
Staff Writer Steve Bennish and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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