Niall, Stefan,
some things are for sure and some aren’t with respect to Ilford.
For sure is:
1) Ilford separated their digital from their analogue business
2) The analogue section went bankrupt on Friday last week.
Not for sure is if the b/w production will really stop.
Even though this was communicated by Ilford employees I think the last decision will be made by the new management and one week is too short to make a definite decision on such an important aspect.
We will see what happens. If they are able to lay off workers under bankruptcy protection without social plans they might be able to continue.
If they have to pay off the workers with social plans that will be it for Ilford.
It is like this in our semi-sozialistischen europäischen Demokratien. In der zeitlichen Anpassung von Unternehmen an neue Marktsituationen ist gesetzlich unmöglich.
A market reduction of 25% per year will force any labour intensive company located in Europe into bankruptcy - even though technically it could survive because it is impossible to reduce costs at the same speed. You have to keep paying excess staff until they retire or you have to pay them 1,5 years of wages to compensate them. Where to take this from if you are already struggling to survive?
No bank will give you a credit for paying off excess staff as it makes no economical sense.
On the day where your debt to your employees and suppliers exceeds your capital you have to declare bankruptcy.
So this is more of a technical thing than really the end.
I suppose Ilford saw this bankruptcy as their last chance.
We wish them all the best. Hopefully some jobs and parts of the factory can survive.
We saw this coming so we have stocked HP5 and FP4 raw material for 35mm and 120 for at least a two years supply.
So in case there will be some months without deliveries we can constantly supply film.
Unfortunately things developed much faster than we thought so it will take us a few weeks as well to have the first ready made films available.
Mirko
(This post was last modified: 26-08-2004, 07:41 PM by Mirko Boeddecker.)
some things are for sure and some aren’t with respect to Ilford.
For sure is:
1) Ilford separated their digital from their analogue business
2) The analogue section went bankrupt on Friday last week.
Not for sure is if the b/w production will really stop.
Even though this was communicated by Ilford employees I think the last decision will be made by the new management and one week is too short to make a definite decision on such an important aspect.
We will see what happens. If they are able to lay off workers under bankruptcy protection without social plans they might be able to continue.
If they have to pay off the workers with social plans that will be it for Ilford.
It is like this in our semi-sozialistischen europäischen Demokratien. In der zeitlichen Anpassung von Unternehmen an neue Marktsituationen ist gesetzlich unmöglich.
A market reduction of 25% per year will force any labour intensive company located in Europe into bankruptcy - even though technically it could survive because it is impossible to reduce costs at the same speed. You have to keep paying excess staff until they retire or you have to pay them 1,5 years of wages to compensate them. Where to take this from if you are already struggling to survive?
No bank will give you a credit for paying off excess staff as it makes no economical sense.
On the day where your debt to your employees and suppliers exceeds your capital you have to declare bankruptcy.
So this is more of a technical thing than really the end.
I suppose Ilford saw this bankruptcy as their last chance.
We wish them all the best. Hopefully some jobs and parts of the factory can survive.
We saw this coming so we have stocked HP5 and FP4 raw material for 35mm and 120 for at least a two years supply.
So in case there will be some months without deliveries we can constantly supply film.
Unfortunately things developed much faster than we thought so it will take us a few weeks as well to have the first ready made films available.
Mirko
