Kodak Exits Bankruptcy and Emerges as Commercial Printer

Eastman Kodak emerged from bankruptcy Tuesday to begin corporate life as a commercial printing company and maker of touch-screen sensor components and film for the movie industry according to Bloomberg.

Much of what consumers associate with Kodak is gone and, in fact, the new company doesn’t sell to consumers at all. Business will be focused on printing technology and business-to-business sales.

The exit comes after U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper approved Kodak’s plan, last month, to cut about $4.1 billion of debt and give nothing to shareholders.

The commercial-printing part of the business will make presses and create printing technology for documents, publications, and product packaging.

Antonio Perez, Kodak chief executive officer said, in a statement, “We have emerged as a technology company serving imaging for business markets. We have been revitalized by our transformation and restructured to become a formidable competitor.”

At the same time, Perez acknowledged that this would be an uphill battle. “This is a totally new company,” Perez told Bloomberg. “When we created the new portfolio we were very aware of the fact that we were going to be late coming into this market. The only way that you could be successful coming in late is to come into the market with breakthrough technologies and very differentiated value propositions, and this is what we have.”

Related: Kodak Announces Financing for Up to $895M

According to USA Today, the company’s old stock (EKDKQ) ceases to exist and a new generation of stock shares will be created and go to new investors. The old stock closed at five cents a share in OTC trading.

The company’s board will be replaced with a new one, two-thirds of which are new members. The Document Imaging and Personalized Imaging businesses will be owned by the pension fund that covers Kodak’s United Kingdom workforce.

Christopher Veronda, a spokesman for Kodak, said the company’s new stock would be listed on one of the major exchanges in coming days with a new trading symbol. Veronda indicated that the new shares would not be listed on an exchange right away but could trade over the counter until that happens.

The main question is whether Kodak can reinvent itself now that it is out of bankruptcy. Kodak thinks so and company scientists think one possible solution lies with a technique called Stream Inkjet Technology. This technology, according to the company, allows for faster printing, a high level of detail, and lower cost.

As USAToday pointed out, despite all the scientific sounding jargon, Kodak is pinning its hopes on its ability to continue doing what it has always done best, “coating.” Kodak film, after all, was nothing more than strips of plastic coated with light-sensitive chemicals.

In one way or the other, putting stuff on top of other stuff is and will remain Kodak’s stock in trade.