Interview with Eastman Kodak Chief Operating Officer

[lonelyboy]

http://whattheythink.com/articles/54...odak-position/



WTT: So the rumors of an impending bankruptcy filing are false?

PF: Yes. In fact, in the last week, news coverage has become more balanced. From an operations perspective, we are focused on continuing to drive growth in our growth areas, and we are very committed to our customer and supplier commitments. Kodak has no interest in filing for bankruptcy. [CEO} Antonio [Perez} has made that very clear. In fact, in a recent employee town meeting, he said, “There is nothing that is wrong with this company that cannot be overcome with what is right with this company.”

WTT: This speculation seemed initially to be driven by the fact that you have retained Jones Day, a well-known law firm with a specialty in bankruptcy. What is your relationship with them?

PF: We did hire Jones Day, and we have been extensively utilizing them since 2003 in areas related to litigation and intellectual property (IP). We have been in litigation on the IP side for a while, and we have made it public that we are looking at potential monetization of our Digital Imaging IP portfolio, which represents about 10% of our IP portfolio.

Editor’s Note: Jones Day is a large law firm with more than 2,500 lawyers on five continents and a wide variety of practice areas, one of which is Business Restructuring & Reorganization; another is Intellectual Property.

[zsas]

Game of Chess:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...-property.html

[M.A.Longmore]

.
He could be speaking with a forked tongue ...

Ron
.

[clay]

I love corporate-speak. Notice he never says that they are not going to file bankruptcy. They merely have no interest in it. Who would? Right up there with the "At the present time, we do not plan to have any layoffs". Of course, tomorrow is another day, and in no way can be construed as the 'present time'.

[MDR]

With such a law firm as advisor it's no wonder that Kodak is in financial troubles.

[Aristophanes]

Kodak revenues are not meeting its expenses. Their digital portfolio is weak and their analog portfolio is in demand decline. All the Lomo and eBay cameras in the world cannot make up 1% of what has been lost from the withdrawal of most major camera manufacturers.

So the question is: who owns the proceeds from a patent sale?

Current management, or the bondholders?

[jnanian]

...

[zsas]

So the question is: who owns the proceeds from a patent sale? Current management, or the bondholders?

A judge is going to decide, if they sell the patents and not file for bankruptcy, the bondholders will sue since their bonds were secured against the patents, if they file for bankruptcy, then a judge will decide too....not a good situation either way...

[semi-ambivalent]

A judge is going to decide, if they sell the patents and not file for bankruptcy, the bondholders will sue since their bonds were secured against the patents, if they file for bankruptcy, then a judge will decide too....not a good situation either way...

I am not a financial guru but I was always under the impression bondholders made a return based on the risk of their investment, much like stockholders. The assets of a company, including sales history and estimates of future sales, serve to indicate the potential risk to payback to the bond purchaser but are not themselves used as collateral for bonds. How can they be, they're owned by the stockholders? The bonds might not be repaid. That's the risk you took on the chance of some return. This is why I can take part in a bond sale by Kodak without owning any shares of Kodak stock. And vice versa.

Of course a company's Board can write whatever agreement they want but doesn't doing so imply Kodak was selling risk-free investment? I'm probably completely wrong; that's why I let others manage my vast empire of holdings.

s-a

[zsas]

I am not a Financial Analyst, but after reading the below, I gave my opinion.... I never said it is right or wrong, just the cold hard truth of what might transpire shoud the IP sale go on before or after bankruptcy....
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...-property.html