The U.S Bankruptcy Court has approved Kodak’s previously announced financing deal, authorizing the company to borrow up to $844 million from investors.
The deal was contingent upon a number of things, including the sale of the company’s imaging patent portfolio for no less than $500 million, a condition recently met by Kodak.
Kodak spokesperson Krista Gleason says the company is not out of the woods yet, but they are well on their way to exiting bankruptcy on schedule, by the first half of this year.
“We do have work to do, but we’ve made significant progress and that’s been recognized by our creditors who certainly with this financing commitment see the future of Kodak and our commercial imaging business.”
Gleason says the court’s decision to approve the financing marks a major step towards emergence for the company.
“The key here with this financing agreement is that it gives Kodak the ability to successfully execute our remaining objectives. To convert the interim financing piece to exit financing there are certain conditions we must meet which include the sale of two of our businesses - Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging - as well as those pertaining to our UK pension obligations. But we are making progress towards those objectives, we do have momentum and we remain very confident.”
If conditions are met, Kodak will have the option of converting up to $644 million of the loans into exit financing, due five years after emergence.
Gleason would not comment on the progress of Kodak hitting the benchmarks that will guarantee it's emergence, except to say the company is making headway and remains confident.
