Is Kodak about to cease production of film?

No - they have recently declared a debt in financial statements, but have a clear plan to release excess pension funds to pay it in plenty of time, with no expected impact to business.

No - Kodak Isn't About To Cease Production 🤦🏻‍♂️

By Paul McKay

You might have seen some sensational news articles in the past 24 hours that heralded the end of Kodak Film. Headlines like "133-year old Kodak says it might have to cease operations" and "Is Kodak Circling the Drain Once More?" that make it sound like disaster is imminent. To be clear, the loss of Kodak film would be disastrous for analogue photographers...

However!

Having spent the day talking to folks throughout the Kodak operation I can confidently state that this pessimism is wildly misplaced, and we don't need to panic-buy film. (Although if you want to... hello! 😂😉)

In short:

- Kodak Eastman has a debt of between $350-500m that is due in the next 12 months

- It ALSO has an excess $500m in its pension pot, which it is in the process of releasing*

- This excess will pay the debt

- There is no problem ✅

*Specifically by setting up a NEW pension pot which is maxed out and covers the needs of all pensioners. So I'm told! Pension accounting is not in my list of specialist subjects...

What if something falls through?

In fairness I am being a little facetious. The reason Kodak Eastman made headlines is because they HAD to declare the debt in their latest financial statement - they didn't have to declare their full plan, and this lead people to panic. Perhaps they're also taking the opportunity to put pressure on regulators to close the pension deal quickly? Who knows!

And in truth the pension sell-off might not happen. In which case the debt will be called in and production might be affected. But at the moment there's no reason to believe this would happen - and you'd like to think that the people involved would move heaven and earth to keep factories going, people employed, and film in production.

A much more interesting part of the financial statement was the news that the 'film' section of Eastman Kodak's business is in growth and profitable... the second of which wasn't true until very recently.