It's business as usual at Kodak Israel Ltd., following yesterday's announcement yesterday by Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: EK) that it was seeking voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Kodak Israel, which has 400 employees at its premises in Petah Tikva, will meet its obligations to its employees and vendors.
Kodak Israel does not expect to reduce its activity. The company's managing director, Hezi Rotman, recently resigned and no successor has yet been appointed. The company has gone through several streamlining measures, which mostly included layoffs, in the past few years. The company currently focuses on R&D; it is Kodak's largest R&D center outside the US.
Kodak Israel once had 1,000 employees, after Kodak acquired Canada's Creo for $980 million in 2005. Creo, which had operations in Israel, became the Kodak Graphic Communications Group, which is responsible for Kodak Israel.
Kodak made several large acquisitions in Israel, mostly in the printing industry, which formed the core of Kodak Israel: Picture Vision for $90 million in 2000; medical imaging solutions developer Algotec Systems for $42 million in 2003; Scitex Digital Printing in early 2004 for $262 million; and start-up Realtime for $63 million a few months later.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 19, 2012
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