ILFORD FIGHTS BACK

Ilford Photo fights back

The management team of Ilford Photo has reacted angrily to a factually incorrect article published in The Independent on 26 June in which a journalist referred to the company as having 'failed and disappeared'.

The offending passages have now been removed from the online version of the article but Ilford Photo has nevertheless published a statement to quell its customers' concerns.

The company has also reacted to Kodak's announcement that it is to stop manufacturing black-and-white papers by releasing a chart showing its own equivalents to Kodak's papers. This can be downloaded from the Ilford Photo website at www.ilfordphoto.com by clicking on the Monochrome Products availability list.

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Title: Ilford rescue complete
Date: 13 July 2005

The final chapter in the long-running saga of Ilford Imaging Group is near closure, with the announcement of a buyer for the company's Swiss operations.

Oji Paper, a 130-year old company based in Tokyo, has bought Ilford Imaging Group's Swiss operations for an undisclosed sum. The Swiss business is based around a manufacturing plant in Marly, in which the majority of Ilford's inkjet products are produced - including the Ilford-branded Gallerie and Printasia papers.

The plant's future, along with Ilford's distribution companies in the US, Australia and one firm operating in the Benelux countries and France, have faced uncertainty since the company went into receivership in August last year.

While the UK operations were rescued in a management buyout earlier this year, (BJP, 23 February), the German operations were closed, and the fate of the remainder of the Ilford Imaging Group rested in the hands of receivers Grant Thornton. Mark Byers of Grant Thornton is now hopeful that the remaining companies will also be bought by Oji Paper. 'Because the deal was so complicated, we decided to split the companies into two. Now the Swiss operations have been bought, we have offered Oji Paper an exclusive period to decide whether it will buy the remaining companies as well.'

The Swiss business will now operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oji Paper under the continued direction of managing director David Jones.

Urs Hauser, the site manager at Marly, predicted that there would be few changes in either the staffing levels or operations. He told BJP: 'We will continue much as we have in the last few years, with the core of our business being the inkjet papers, which are now around 80% of our revenue. I know for the time being there are no plans for any reduction in the staff.'

The move will have little impact on Ilford Photo said Phil Harris, the managing director. 'Although the plant in Mobberley, Cheshire, does some contract manufacturing of inkjet products for the Swiss company, we are separate companies. We will manufacture some products for the new owner until the end of this year but don't know what will happen beyond this.'

Source: © Incisive Media Investments Ltd 2004

Interesting information. Thank you for posting it.

Acording to a report I read in a photographic magazine, Ilford are ready to step into the breech created by Kodak's decision.

Yes Roy, quite right, Terance didn't quote the whole of yesterdays BJP article.

Ian

I have already switched to Ilford papers, and films (except for the ARISTA.EDU that is just to cheap to pass up).

Three cheers for Ilford. Long live the king.

Let it be known Kodak no longer wants to be in analog photography, so lets help them out as fast as possible. This is their stated business plan, not my opinion.

Arista EDU 125 is no more anyway. So is FP4 clone from Fine ART Photo Supply.

I use Ilford a lot. Delta 100, Pan F+ and Delta 3200. Soon I will use HP5 instead of Tri-X, too.

I really hope that Ilford or some other company will come up with an answer to Panalure. If I want B&W prints from my color negs, I really want them to be silver metal rather than just grey dye. As for the gentleman who said that Kodak wants out of the analog photo business, you don't know what the **** you're talking about. Kodak sells so much color negative material every year for still amateur professional and cinematography applications it'd make your head spin. According to Kodak, 2004 marks the HIGHEST ammount of MP film EVER sold by the company in its long long history. Also, sales of color negative film are *still* up, so Kodak knows that film is still a big player in C-41, just not as much so in B&W and E-6. Kodak is also the only manufacturer of S-8 film left, and the only manufacturer of B&W 35mm MP film. Ilford discontinued all of their 16mm movie stocks, whereas Kodak actually upgraded theirs last year. I AM worried about their new CEO, who probably doesn't even know how film works, being a former CEO of Hewlett Packard. Hopefully, all of the little guys who work on film at Kodak won't let that bastard totally ruin the company in the coming years.

Regards.
~Karl Borowski

P.S. Does anyone know what this means for Ilfochrome? I thought it was manufactured in Switzerland as well.

On the question of Ilfochrome, probably the most prominent Ilfochrome printer in the U.S. seems confident the operations and production of Ilfochrome materials are safe for awhile.

There's not a lot he says but you can see it here if you scroll the page:

http://www.christopherburkett.com/pa...uncements.html

This news combined with information I received about changes to the P30 chemicals (modified formula, new 5L kits) from local distributor have me feeling pretty good about the future of Ilfochrome.

[COLOR=DarkOrange]As for the gentleman who said that Kodak wants out of the analog photo business, you don't know what the **** you're talking about[/COLOR]


.......neither do you!
It's true. Kodak are pulling out of analogue, and are going to concentrate purely on digital imaging.................. alas, I feel whilst "the future is bright", it may not be "orange", but "black and white".......