[Anonymous]

Kodak plans to cut 3,000 more jobs
This
is an undated photo provided by Eastman Kodak Co., CEO Antonio Perez is
shown. After three long years, Eastman Kodak Co. is on track to
complete its historic transformation this fall into a digital-imaging
company focused on consumer photography and commercial printing, Perez
says. “The dream when we started was that we will wake up in 2008 with
a digital company that we wanted, and we are very close to that,”
Antonio Perez said in an interview Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2007.This is an
undated photo provided by Eastman Kodak Co., CEO Antonio Perez is
shown. After three long years, Eastman Kodak Co. is on track to
complete its historic transformation this fall into a digital-imaging
company focused on consumer photography and commercial printing, Perez
says. “The dream when we started was that we will wake up in 2008 with
a digital company that we wanted, and we are very close to that,”
Antonio Perez said in an interview Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2007.Eastman
Kodak Co. is cutting 3,000 more jobs this year as the picture-taking
pioneer wraps up its wrenching transformation into a digital-imaging
company focused on consumer photography and commercial printing.By
year-end, its work force will slip below 30,000, less than half what it
was just three years ago.On top of 27,000 layoffs already targeted,
Kodak said Thursday it is reducing its payroll even further to
accommodate the $2.35 billion sale in January of its health-imaging
unit and its costly foray this week into a high-margin inkjet-printer
market dominated by Hewlett Packard Co.”The dream was that we would
wake up in 2008 with the digital company that we want to have. We’re
still right on that track,” Chief Executive Antonio Perez said at an
annual meeting of Kodak analysts and institutional investors.”We will
finish this year. This is done. … This is the last year of
restructuring.”The company that put film cameras into nearly every home
in America acknowledged in 2003 that its analog businesses were in
irreversible decline. It outlined a strategy to invest in new digital
markets governed by entrenched heavyweights such as HP, Seiko Epson
Corp. and Canon Inc.As it battled to outrun sliding demand for film,
its century-old cash cow, Kodak embarked on a nearly $3 billion
shopping spree but also ran up $2 billion in net losses over eight
straight quarters. It finally snared a $16 million profit in the
October-December period when, for the first time, it earned more from
digital than from film, paper and other chemical-based products.”As far
as I’m concerned, Kodak is finally over the negative surprises,” said
Ulysses Yannas, a broker with Buckman, Buckman & Reid. “They are
entering a phase where increasingly profitability starts to show.”A
year or two out from here, it will be a totally different company,”
with profits driven by an inkjet-printer system that “probably is a lot
bigger than anybody thinks it’s going to be.””The inkjet introduction
now appears to be a bet-the-company move for Kodak,” said George
Conboy, president of Brighton Securities, a money-management firm in
Rochester, Kodak’s hometown.”If they make a go of it, it could be very
successful. If they don’t, they’re not going to have a second chance
for a second act of this magnitude because the capital will not be as
easy to come by. I don’t think it has to work in ’07 but it needs to
show concrete results in ’08.”Kodak unveiled a trio of home printers
Tuesday that produce documents and photos using ink cartridges that
cost roughly half as much as the competition’s. Analysts think the move
could trigger a price war.”We are interested in serving customers,”
Perez said in an interview. “They said they wanted a fair, low price
for the ink because they want to print more and they want to print with
freedom. What the other companies are going to do, I don’t know
honestly, don’t care much.”Kodak’s latest job cuts will bring extra
restructuring charges of $400 million to $600 million, or total charges
of $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion since 2004.It is now eliminating 28,000
to 30,000 jobs by year-end, with 23,300 already axed. And the sale of
its 111-year-old health unit, partly intended to help fund its $300
million-plus investment in inkjet, will strip another 8,100 jobs.That
will shrink its payroll to around 29,000, its lowest level since the
1930s. It employed 64,000 people at the end of 2003 and 145,300 in
1988.Kodak said it expects to digital earnings from operations will
reach $200 million to $300 million in 2007 on digital revenue growth of
3 percent to 5 percent.”By the end of the third quarter, basically my
hope is that we’re done with all the announcements of restructurings
and jobs and everything else and we’re just fully concentrated on
growing” more than a dozen digital ventures from cameras and online
photo services to high-volume printing presses, Perez said.While Kodak
remains the world’s top maker of photographic film, Perez doesn’t
discount someday discarding the storied business that George Eastman
launched in 1881.”Film is going to follow its own destiny,” he said.
“Right now, entertainment (motion-picture) imaging is very stable, is
very good for the company. … If that goes digital, which eventually I
believe it will, then we’ll do something else. We will do what’s better
for the shareholders.”Kodak shares fell 70 cents to $25.99 in afternoon
trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange.

[Author]

February 14, 2007 at 11:00 AM