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Mixed picture for Kodak's 2019 financial results

kodak.com

Eastman Kodak is reporting its earnings and sales for 2019, and it’s a mixed picture. Earnings of $116 million were reported on Tuesday, compared to a loss of $16 million a year ago.

Revenues totaled $1.2 billion, a drop of 6% compared to last year.

Kodak’s Executive Chairman, Jimi Continenza, said that,  “In many ways, 2019 was a transformative year for the creation of One Kodak. We consolidated our divisional structure, strengthened our financial position and returned our focus to our core print and advanced materials and chemicals businesses. For 2020, we’ll continue to become more customer-centric, launch groundbreaking print products and, most important, focus on generating cash.” Kodak executives say the company delivered strong performance in key growth areas.

At Brighton Securities, Chairman George Conboy said the news about the earnings doing better needs to be taken with some context. He said that the sale of Kodak’s Flexographic Packaging Division last year helped the earnings picture.

“If you look at the very bottom line, the sale of Flexographic, makes it look like a profit . But if we take away that one time gain from the sale, the company actually lost considerably more money this year, than they did last year,” Conboy said.  He noted that Kodak saw a loss from ‘continuing operations’ in 2019 of $91 million, a larger loss than the $9 million loss a year ago.

Conboy says one positive may be that at least in terms of the decline in revenues, that decrease slowed somewhat.

Kodak’s Chief Financial Officer, David Bullwinkle, said that looking ahead, the company, “will continue to executive on opportunities to operate more efficiently and grow profitable revenue to achieve our goal of generating cash on a consistent basis.”

On Tuesday, Kodak also announced it made some changes earlier this year in its organizational structure.

Kodak now mostly concentrates on commercial printing and packaging, although it still manufacturers some film, particularly for the motion picture industry, and its brand name has also been licensed to other manufacturers to produce photographic products.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.