Topic: Kodak Alaris acquired by private equity firm

[Bryan]

I don't know what this means for the distribution of Kodak film, I hope it's not bad news.  They always paint a rosy picture when they make a deal like this.   Kodak Alaris only distributes Kodak still film, Kodak makes all the film and distributes motion picture film.  Alaris was spun off as part of the bankruptcy settlement with the United Kingdom Pension Protection Fund.

https://rbj.net/2024/08/02/kodak-alaris-acquired-by-calif-based-private-equity-firm/

[EarlJam]

Kingswood has, shall we say, an eclectic portfolio of companies, none of them remotely related to photography. It's not one of the VC/PE companies that I watched when I worked in the commercial audio-visual industry, but their holdings and investment strategy don't give me much of an expectation that they'll know how to run the company, or keep existing and add new customers. I'm more than willing to be wrong on this and kind of hope they prove me wrong.

https://www.kingswood-capital.com/portfolio/

[Francois]

For some odd reason, it feels like pretty much anything related to Kodak is a bit of a hot potato financially, especially Alaris.
As far as I know, the sale is probably just going to end-up with a bunch of lay-offs in an attempt to bring the company back to better profitability... only to end up being put for sale once again.
But I just hope it won't be the case this time as I just wish more good news come from this in the future.

[EarlJam]

Here's the recap of Alaris's 2023 financials. Looks like a good chunk of the losses came from the Kodak Moments launch (appears to be a print service similar to Snapfish). Acquisition rule of thumb would be 3 times revenue, so my guess is that Kingswood paid around $1.5 Billion.

It's hard to know how Kingswood will handle distribution. If it was my call, I'd sign Freestyle for the western US and B&H Photo for the east, with one or both handling Canada so Francois has continued access  .

https://www.kodakalaris.com/getmedia/a9140f05-3565-495b-8e4b-8c0f70c1e6db/KA-AR-2023-Final.pdf.aspx

[Pete_R]

If it was my call, I'd sign Freestyle for the western US and B&H Photo for the east, with one or both handling Canada so Francois has continued access  .

And the rest of the world?

[EarlJam]

If it was my call, I'd sign Freestyle for the western US and B&H Photo for the east, with one or both handling Canada so Francois has continued access  .

And the rest of the world?

That's a good question, Pete, one I should have addressed and for which I don't have much of an answer. Overall revenue and profitability seem insufficient to support a global, dedicated "Kodak" sales organization. $500 million or so could support maybe 10 staff sales reps globally, which in my mind points to a distribution model rather than direct sales force.

Addendum: not to flog this too much more - here's 2023 revenue by region, and staffing. $500 million gross revenue with ~1500 employees is $333,000 per employee. Gross profit works out to around $100,000 per employee. That's not sustainable in the long run.

[Francois]

with one or both handling Canada so Francois has continued access  .

They could go with Amplis Photo. They're a big distributor here and they used to distribute their products (a long time ago). They already distribute Ilford so they have all the potentially interested stores in their database.