As a result, these conditions raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern as of the issuance date of the Company’s second quarter financials.
As Walter Bagehot said
"Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone..."
I've worked in an industry served by Kodak for 20 years, and it's been that way at least that long. I always knew it was pure speculation and BS, because we never sought out another vendor to replace them, "just in case". Their customers know they aren't going anywhere.
It's legally required to report a going concern when you are publicly traded. This is funny because it's a bit of the reverse, but I bet their accountants deemed publishing this as a requirement.
I wonder what the actual strategies are that Kodak can use to turn around their business? I think currently their revenue streams are:
* Commercial printing and imaging. They are one of the main suppliers for equipment and consumables for large-scale offset printing used in books, magazines, and stuff.
* Advanced materials and chemicals. They even have an FDA-registered pharmaceutical manufacturing facility.
* Film and industrial film production.
* Brand licensing and partnerships.
I think that while film has a bit of a comeback due to its nostalgia factor, it's always going to be relegated to a handful of niche applications. Meanwhile, I don't see Kodak getting back into consumer photography, much as I love photography, since it's a low margin and increasingly niche business. Also, they sold off their medical imaging division in 2007.
Fujifilm was able to make a massive comeback with a big pivot towards chemical. They're the best at making anything film-related, including a lot of stuff the pharma industry needs.
The camera division is extremely profitable due to the Instax golden goose: great marketing, stellar margins both on the cameras and the consumables.
>I wonder what the actual strategies are that Kodak can use to turn around their business?
The retro scene has never been larger and shows no signs of stopping. Bring back all the popular film and charge a premium for it so I can stop scouring eBay. Print a billion dollars by next week. Start printing vinyl records too, another billion. Pivot into the modern retro-futurism company. People are tired of "tech".
Unfortunately for Kodak, its foray into digital assets coincided with the onset of crypto winter—the cyclical slump in crypto markets that tends to follow periods of speculative frenzy. The price of bitcoin slid from a record high of more than $20,000 in late 2017 to less than $4,000 in December 2018.
In October 2018, KODAKOne launched a beta version of its licensing portal, which reportedly generated $1 million in licensing claims in its first two months.But the portal never exited beta mode, nor was KODAKCoin ever integrated with the platform.
The real pisser is that Kodak was ahead of the curve on digital photography before they decided on five year thinking instead of fifteen year thinking.
They paid for a modified version of Mosaic that could handle high resolution images. I want to say 4 megapixel before anyone else even had digital cameras. They were going to have you send in your images and then order a CDROM via a website with the ones you wanted to keep. Because storage was terrible at the time. I don’t remember if prints were an option, but I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.
I imagine that their revenue isn't as much a concern as their debt. A lot of companies in this position have decent revenue for a smaller company, and would be fine if they could cut costs (but they can't, because they have massive debts to service). I haven't looked at their balance sheet, though, so who knows.
Most film shooters I meet these days are young people that were not alive when film was commonly used by the public, so I don’t think it’s nostalgia. I suspect film is becoming more popular again as embracing a fully analog process allows you to disconnect from computers.
I just hope that any brand licensing doesn't lead to garbage products that only detract from the brand.
Kodac still has enough of a brand recognition that it could still be a leading option for digital video/photo equipment. They are pretty much the only option standing for film, which is somewhat scary in a few ways. It makes me apprehensive when technology becomes completely unavailable. What gets lost to humanity when this happens.
Would love to see Kodak do a hail mary on a camera that looks as thin/clean as an iPhone, gives you same or better camera quality, BUT has the absolute best UX around getting your photos transferred, printed, archived (as I upload stuff from the camera, send me permanent backup dvds for an added fee) etc.
Could also offer little software upgrades in the form of filter packs, plugins/add-ons, etc. I can use it to take normal photos, do 4k-8k video, stream direct from the camera, etc. Make it the most versatile camera known to man, all at an affordable price of like ~$299.
Call it the Kodak Moment to piggyback on the existing tagline and you've at the very least got a successful flash in the pan hipster product.
How many people want a device that's the same form factor of a phone and has all of the same photo features of that phone? Why not just use the phone that most people already carry around? It doesn't seem like there would be many people who want their pictures mailed to them on DVD that don't already know how to download pictures from their phone.
No chance. The number of patents involved means that only established cellphone manufacturers could ever dream of such a thing. If it involves a portable camera or screen that connects to the internet, it is totally locked down.
The standalone camera market outside of SLRs is too small to make significant impact on Kodak's bottom line. There's also substantial hardware manufacturing investment that they can't afford to make. Maybe they partner with a manufacturer and license the name with a lot of software control, but at the end of the day, the hardware (and software) costs are going to shave off any substantial profit. High risk, low reward.
Kodak is a chemical company these days with modest profits. They need to double down on that. Cameras are not in their wheelhouse.
with film I would have needed a medium format camera and tripod, today it is an easy handheld shot you can do spontaneously with a travel lens that goes from 28-200mm. I can go to a soccer or basketball game and shoot bursts, come back with 3000 photos and catch things like two guys tries to head the ball at the same time
I shoot on digital and film. Film photography has been "niche" for nearly 2 decades at this point. Comparing it to digital photography is like pointing out "smart watches can do so much more than mechanical watches" - that's not the point.
There's an overlap between the mystique of analog technologies, the ritual and limitations of physical processes, and status. Status in affording the time to learn about this niche, the money for hardware and film, the space for development (sometimes), signalling a different mentality towards content (in theory). Plus, for me, the end-to-end analogue feels like a retort to this phase of digital disinformation/AI-everything.
Any Joe can buy an expensive mirrorless with a good travel lens, shoot 3000 photos at a game, and come away with some good ones. Monkey on a typewriter and all that.
Not many digital cameras today can approach the quality of medium format 6x7, and no digital cameras in existence can hope to approach the resolution and quality of large format film photography.
If you're interested, hunt around for an EOS-1 or 1N - it's a 35mm film camera with pretty fast autofocus that can use contemporary Canon EF-mount lenses. (Canon still sells the cameras and lenses, although they're being phased out in favor of RF). Load Portra 400 and shoot in good light, and you might be surprised.
> Got a lot of great photos this time because I put to use what I learned shooting basketball.
I suppose you mean "action photos"? Any (informal, quick and dirty) tips? Especially for photos to be taken with phones or cheap cameras? Or is it hopeless?
Oof. The initial media report might actually have caused material (financial) damage to Kodak.
If someone was shopping around for a Kodak product, saw that original article, they likely decided against Kodak. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable buying a product from a company close to bankruptcy - because if anything goes wrong, no warranty, replacement parts, etc..
So the pension fund thing. My accrued pension value took a significant haircut when my own former company went out of business. In this case, they can take $0.5B out and still "meet all their obligations" without a haircut? So their pension fund was significantly overfunded and all their retirees still get all that was promised to them?
AIUI, the money they are taking out is 'surplus'. All current obligations will be handed off to either an insurance company / annuity or lump sum. Future retirement funds will probably be in personal 401(k)s.
I’m not understanding the use case, here. Aren’t there plenty of no-name disposable Chinese cameras like this?
For me, it’s capabilities beyond a cellphone camera, in a package not much bigger. One of the biggest frustrations is taking a photo of something and the phone’s limited optical resolution makes that item nothing more than a tiny spec in a large 48 megapixel image. Yes, even the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 5× zoom is horrifically inadequate for a good 40% of the photos and videos I take.
That’s why I rock a Nikon Coolpix A1000 - it does 4K video, has a 35× optical zoom, and all sorts of other goodies in a package that can collapse down into a block that’s not much thicker than a paperback book, and even smaller (H&W) than my iPhone. It’s small enough to fit into my satchel as an EDC for use at a moment’s notice, and not something that requires special dispensation every time I want to drag it along.
Consumers want flexibility in a portable package. There is no way I’d be able to drop another type of superzoom like the Nikon P1000 into my satchel, despite the much more attractive 125× optical zoom. It’s just too chonky as a whip-it-out-in-a-heartbeat EDC.
There are plenty of areas Kodak could make a difference if they cared to.
Fuji's instant Polaroid-like camera is a novelty and we still use it. Getting an immediate physical print is entertaining for people of all ages these days.
The security camera business is crowded but mostly with low image quality garbage.
For that matter webcams are also often garbage. A quality camera with optical zoom and good ISP and low light performance could do really well, especially with so much remote work.
The market for high speed cameras is still under-served. As is the market for high quality microscope cameras.
There are lots of opportunities out there if you aren't only focused on products that can sell a billion units.
Matt Levine - that's impossibly high standards... but here's an attempt:
If a business shuts down, the assets on its book have to be written down to what you could get in a quick sale, their liquidation value, minus the costs of closing shop. And of course, once you’re closed, there’s no more income.
The standard assumption for bookkeeping is that the business will keep operating. This is the "going concern" assumption, and it lets you value the assets as part of the ongoing business. Switching from "going concern" to liquidation accounting drops the book value, maybe a lot.
If there's debt coming due in the near future that the business can't repay, the survival of the business is in question. An accountant would then have to issue a "going concern" warning. That is, however, not a prediction of doom.
Looks like they have some debt coming due, but expect to get a cash boost from terminating their pension plan (after meeting all their obligations). So the company plans to continue their business, and is confident that they will.
But that is technically predicated on certain conditions (being able to roll over some debt, getting that cash as anticipated) that's not entirely under Kodak's control, and so there is that going concern warning: we think it'll be fine, but we still have to tell you.
Apparently that was misunderstood as a prediction of bankruptcy or intention to close shop.
An interesting thought experiment for me is I wonder when we read a statement like this from someone like Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, etc. in the future? The world changes around companies, and no empire lasts forever. Ask IBM. Ask the Dutch East India Company. Kodak didn’t adapt to a filmless world, what are FAANG companies not adapting to now?
Probably not within our lifetimes. IBM is still around. We can see from companies like Sears that it can take a long time for a company to completely disappear. They lasted what around 125 years right? Would be interesting to see how long NVIDIA lasts. Out of the companies you mentioned, if we look really long term they are the most replaceable, ie. on a long enough time horizon the Chinese could completely replicate/leapfrog what they do, they could become completely commoditized like sound cards were, or someone comes along that makes them irrelevant. Google/Microsoft have long term lock in that will keep them at the very least a trailing edge player just due to all the lock in and the bureaucracy of switching that entails.
When I learnt that Kodak deleted that Xinjiang photo, I stopped buying their products. Fine to not post initially, but publishing then deleting and apologizing shows weak corporate backbone.
Can FASB please get rid of the term "going concern" and replace it with something more understandable? It has caused a lot of confusion for many companies and there's no need for it whatsoever. They can completely replace the term with something else like "Continuing Operations". It's really fucking easy, I don't know why they insist on that backwards terminology except maybe they enjoy the confusion it creates.
> As of the date of issuance of these financial statements, Kodak has debt coming due within twelve months and does not have committed financing or available liquidity to meet such debt obligations if they were to become due in accordance with their current terms. These conditions raise substantial doubt about Kodak’s ability to continue as a going concern.
I'm not sure using more modern language would have cleared up any confusion here. "These conditions raise substantial doubt about Kodak’s ability to continue operations" is no less scary.
The "confusion" (according to Kodak) arises from the fact that the accountants did not consider (or considered and then discounted) the fact that Kodak apparently intends to put in place financing to help it repay or roll over its debts before they fall due. I'm not an accountant but I'm sure there are many rules around what they can and cannot consider before including such a statement.
Clearly, reporting that Kodak is about to go bankrupt simply based on that statement is jumping the gun. But I'm not sure there is anything particularly wrong with the statement itself. It seems to me like a credit crunch or even a spike in interest rates could derail Kodak's refinancing plans and what would happen then?
This is like telling software people to stop using words like "bug" or "patch". It would be silly. Those terms are firmly ensconced in the vocabulary of the people who use them and everyone who needs to know what they mean do know what they mean.
It's not "really easy". This is a technical term used the world over to convey a very specific meaning. Bankruptcy laws define and use the term. Contracts define and use the term, etc, etc.
Jargon arises out of need and is carried on because it becomes embedded in the scaffolding of a discipline. It's not about feeling special as part of the in group or something like that.
Qualified opinion. Definition: An auditor's report that indicates the financial statements are presented fairly, in all material respects, except for the effects of a specific departure from generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) or a limitation in the scope of the audit.
People love their ingroup terminology and quirks. Like that a power cable connecting the RV is a shoreline (eyeroll) and that ships are female (double eyeroll).
ilamont|6 months ago
FWIW, discussions about Kodak's decline have been going on for years. This thread is from 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12111597
abirch|6 months ago
As a result, these conditions raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern as of the issuance date of the Company’s second quarter financials.
https://www.kodak.com/en/company/press-release/q2-2025-finan...
As Walter Bagehot said "Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone..."
b-stockman|6 months ago
Why else would people be trying to hurt their stock other than to make an opportunity for someone to swoop in and make a killing?
stronglikedan|6 months ago
sotix|6 months ago
dylan604|6 months ago
porphyra|6 months ago
* Commercial printing and imaging. They are one of the main suppliers for equipment and consumables for large-scale offset printing used in books, magazines, and stuff.
* Advanced materials and chemicals. They even have an FDA-registered pharmaceutical manufacturing facility.
* Film and industrial film production.
* Brand licensing and partnerships.
I think that while film has a bit of a comeback due to its nostalgia factor, it's always going to be relegated to a handful of niche applications. Meanwhile, I don't see Kodak getting back into consumer photography, much as I love photography, since it's a low margin and increasingly niche business. Also, they sold off their medical imaging division in 2007.
I miss those Kodak CCDs.
camillomiller|6 months ago
MarcelOlsz|6 months ago
The retro scene has never been larger and shows no signs of stopping. Bring back all the popular film and charge a premium for it so I can stop scouring eBay. Print a billion dollars by next week. Start printing vinyl records too, another billion. Pivot into the modern retro-futurism company. People are tired of "tech".
at-fates-hands|6 months ago
https://www.investopedia.com/a-flash-in-the-pan-the-strange-...
Unfortunately for Kodak, its foray into digital assets coincided with the onset of crypto winter—the cyclical slump in crypto markets that tends to follow periods of speculative frenzy. The price of bitcoin slid from a record high of more than $20,000 in late 2017 to less than $4,000 in December 2018.
In October 2018, KODAKOne launched a beta version of its licensing portal, which reportedly generated $1 million in licensing claims in its first two months.But the portal never exited beta mode, nor was KODAKCoin ever integrated with the platform.
hinkley|6 months ago
They paid for a modified version of Mosaic that could handle high resolution images. I want to say 4 megapixel before anyone else even had digital cameras. They were going to have you send in your images and then order a CDROM via a website with the ones you wanted to keep. Because storage was terrible at the time. I don’t remember if prints were an option, but I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.
h2zizzle|6 months ago
RobotToaster|6 months ago
squidsoup|6 months ago
tracker1|6 months ago
Kodac still has enough of a brand recognition that it could still be a leading option for digital video/photo equipment. They are pretty much the only option standing for film, which is somewhat scary in a few ways. It makes me apprehensive when technology becomes completely unavailable. What gets lost to humanity when this happens.
morkalork|6 months ago
rglover|6 months ago
Could also offer little software upgrades in the form of filter packs, plugins/add-ons, etc. I can use it to take normal photos, do 4k-8k video, stream direct from the camera, etc. Make it the most versatile camera known to man, all at an affordable price of like ~$299.
Call it the Kodak Moment to piggyback on the existing tagline and you've at the very least got a successful flash in the pan hipster product.
Johnny555|6 months ago
How many people want a device that's the same form factor of a phone and has all of the same photo features of that phone? Why not just use the phone that most people already carry around? It doesn't seem like there would be many people who want their pictures mailed to them on DVD that don't already know how to download pictures from their phone.
squidsoup|6 months ago
sandworm101|6 months ago
snapetom|6 months ago
Kodak is a chemical company these days with modest profits. They need to double down on that. Cameras are not in their wheelhouse.
PaulHoule|6 months ago
I can’t get over how much better performing 35mm full frame mirrorless cameras are than the old film cameras. To get a shot like this
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114401857009398302
with film I would have needed a medium format camera and tripod, today it is an easy handheld shot you can do spontaneously with a travel lens that goes from 28-200mm. I can go to a soccer or basketball game and shoot bursts, come back with 3000 photos and catch things like two guys tries to head the ball at the same time
https://mastodon.social/@UP8/113240678816336189
… and I can afford to do it!
losteric|6 months ago
There's an overlap between the mystique of analog technologies, the ritual and limitations of physical processes, and status. Status in affording the time to learn about this niche, the money for hardware and film, the space for development (sometimes), signalling a different mentality towards content (in theory). Plus, for me, the end-to-end analogue feels like a retort to this phase of digital disinformation/AI-everything.
Any Joe can buy an expensive mirrorless with a good travel lens, shoot 3000 photos at a game, and come away with some good ones. Monkey on a typewriter and all that.
squidsoup|6 months ago
i_am_proteus|6 months ago
the_af|6 months ago
> Got a lot of great photos this time because I put to use what I learned shooting basketball.
I suppose you mean "action photos"? Any (informal, quick and dirty) tips? Especially for photos to be taken with phones or cheap cameras? Or is it hopeless?
throw432189|6 months ago
Can I ask what camera you use?
kylehotchkiss|6 months ago
actionfromafar|6 months ago
Insanity|6 months ago
If someone was shopping around for a Kodak product, saw that original article, they likely decided against Kodak. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable buying a product from a company close to bankruptcy - because if anything goes wrong, no warranty, replacement parts, etc..
kotaKat|6 months ago
I really don’t know what they were going for approving it on an air purifier.
akkad33|6 months ago
MarkusWandel|6 months ago
throw0101a|6 months ago
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44876283
AIUI, the money they are taking out is 'surplus'. All current obligations will be handed off to either an insurance company / annuity or lump sum. Future retirement funds will probably be in personal 401(k)s.
pests|6 months ago
hypertexthero|6 months ago
1. 35mm-equivalent basic plastic lens, 6 megapixel sensor with big pixels, autofocus, center-weighted metering.
2. No screen to see photos. Only a tiny LCD for basic settings like remaining pictures and remaining battery power.
3. Pictures saved to replaceable built-in SD card, downloadable to computers via USB-C to USB-C connector.
4. Long battery life (one whole day of shooting). Powered by rechargeable AA batteries.
5. Splash proof.
6. Photo sensor that adds grain to blown highlights and lost shadows.
7. Less than $100.
8. Bonus: Open source firmware.
Basically a competitor to the Camp Snap, but better.
Thank you!
rekabis|6 months ago
For me, it’s capabilities beyond a cellphone camera, in a package not much bigger. One of the biggest frustrations is taking a photo of something and the phone’s limited optical resolution makes that item nothing more than a tiny spec in a large 48 megapixel image. Yes, even the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 5× zoom is horrifically inadequate for a good 40% of the photos and videos I take.
That’s why I rock a Nikon Coolpix A1000 - it does 4K video, has a 35× optical zoom, and all sorts of other goodies in a package that can collapse down into a block that’s not much thicker than a paperback book, and even smaller (H&W) than my iPhone. It’s small enough to fit into my satchel as an EDC for use at a moment’s notice, and not something that requires special dispensation every time I want to drag it along.
Consumers want flexibility in a portable package. There is no way I’d be able to drop another type of superzoom like the Nikon P1000 into my satchel, despite the much more attractive 125× optical zoom. It’s just too chonky as a whip-it-out-in-a-heartbeat EDC.
sammyteee|6 months ago
daft_pink|6 months ago
They don’t predict the future, but they are a very serious indicator that should not be ignored
jordanb|6 months ago
FredPret|6 months ago
http://valustox.com/KODK
mandeepj|6 months ago
cluckindan|6 months ago
It does reek of market manipulation.
Edit: the short volume on 2025-08-12 was ten times that of 2025-08-11: https://fintel.io/ssv/us/kodk
So that happened the same day the news articles went public, when the SEC filing was published already on the 11th.
Someone might be looking to buy the company.
bitdivision|6 months ago
dylan604|6 months ago
xenadu02|6 months ago
Fuji's instant Polaroid-like camera is a novelty and we still use it. Getting an immediate physical print is entertaining for people of all ages these days.
The security camera business is crowded but mostly with low image quality garbage.
For that matter webcams are also often garbage. A quality camera with optical zoom and good ISP and low light performance could do really well, especially with so much remote work.
The market for high speed cameras is still under-served. As is the market for high quality microscope cameras.
There are lots of opportunities out there if you aren't only focused on products that can sell a billion units.
ChrisArchitect|6 months ago
Kodak says it might have to cease operations
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44875270
skybrian|6 months ago
FabHK|6 months ago
If a business shuts down, the assets on its book have to be written down to what you could get in a quick sale, their liquidation value, minus the costs of closing shop. And of course, once you’re closed, there’s no more income.
The standard assumption for bookkeeping is that the business will keep operating. This is the "going concern" assumption, and it lets you value the assets as part of the ongoing business. Switching from "going concern" to liquidation accounting drops the book value, maybe a lot.
If there's debt coming due in the near future that the business can't repay, the survival of the business is in question. An accountant would then have to issue a "going concern" warning. That is, however, not a prediction of doom.
Here's Kodak's Q10 form, with the "going concern" note on page 8: https://investor.kodak.com/static-files/17a780a0-cd47-4128-8...
Looks like they have some debt coming due, but expect to get a cash boost from terminating their pension plan (after meeting all their obligations). So the company plans to continue their business, and is confident that they will.
But that is technically predicated on certain conditions (being able to roll over some debt, getting that cash as anticipated) that's not entirely under Kodak's control, and so there is that going concern warning: we think it'll be fine, but we still have to tell you.
Apparently that was misunderstood as a prediction of bankruptcy or intention to close shop.
Mistletoe|6 months ago
nebula8804|6 months ago
_9y71|6 months ago
Previously discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28024539
busterarm|6 months ago
tecleandor|6 months ago
And btw, what's the new remjet-less film? I'm not up to date lately...
iLoveOncall|6 months ago
I don't wish that for Kodac but I mean their first bullet point specifically says "repay or extend". Doesn't exactly inspire confidence.
jihadjihad|6 months ago
theandrewbailey|6 months ago
DonHopkins|6 months ago
codr7|6 months ago
delduca|6 months ago
t1234s|6 months ago
paul7986|6 months ago
There's a lot that can be done using AI to enhance the UX of taking and photos themselves!
dannyxertify|6 months ago
rc_mob|6 months ago
throwmeaway222|6 months ago
joshuablog|6 months ago
[deleted]
joshuablog|6 months ago
[deleted]
joshuablog|6 months ago
[deleted]
whalesalad|6 months ago
blueflow|6 months ago
blindriver|6 months ago
NoboruWataya|6 months ago
> As of the date of issuance of these financial statements, Kodak has debt coming due within twelve months and does not have committed financing or available liquidity to meet such debt obligations if they were to become due in accordance with their current terms. These conditions raise substantial doubt about Kodak’s ability to continue as a going concern.
I'm not sure using more modern language would have cleared up any confusion here. "These conditions raise substantial doubt about Kodak’s ability to continue operations" is no less scary.
The "confusion" (according to Kodak) arises from the fact that the accountants did not consider (or considered and then discounted) the fact that Kodak apparently intends to put in place financing to help it repay or roll over its debts before they fall due. I'm not an accountant but I'm sure there are many rules around what they can and cannot consider before including such a statement.
Clearly, reporting that Kodak is about to go bankrupt simply based on that statement is jumping the gun. But I'm not sure there is anything particularly wrong with the statement itself. It seems to me like a credit crunch or even a spike in interest rates could derail Kodak's refinancing plans and what would happen then?
next_xibalba|6 months ago
It's not "really easy". This is a technical term used the world over to convey a very specific meaning. Bankruptcy laws define and use the term. Contracts define and use the term, etc, etc.
Jargon arises out of need and is carried on because it becomes embedded in the scaffolding of a discipline. It's not about feeling special as part of the in group or something like that.
Hilift|6 months ago
barbazoo|6 months ago