This is my opinions on the state of Eastman Kodak (at this moment in time).

On Monday Kodak filed a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as annually required by law. The document stated there is “substantial doubt” about the company’s ability to continue. That really was bad wording based on the fact that they have $470 million in debt. But that was based on their current finances. They do expect some major influx of cash from the former pension fund.

We have to go back a long time… I think it was in the 1990s when some other corporations raided their pension funds and then left their retirees without any further income. The US government passed laws stating that corporations had to put their pension money into completely separate accounts that they could not tap into.

Kodak has had a pension fund that had been around for a very long time and had a lot of money set aside for retirees (including me). When Kodak went broke in 2012 they couldn’t touch the pension money, otherwise that money would have gone to pay corporate debts and us retirees would be without any future payments.

In the last year Kodak executives heard that a few corporations had found a way to legally wrangle money out of pension funds. Late last year Kodak sent notices that they would terminate the pension fund and then set up annuities with an insurance company to pay the pension payments. Pension payments would remain the same as retirees currently receive. But the price of the annuities would be less than the amount currently in the pension fund. So who gets to keep the difference? Kodak!

The Kodak pension plan officially ended March 31, 2025. As of yet Kodak still hasn’t selected an insurance company to get the annuities from. They are saying it might happen as soon as Friday but don’t count on it.

In notices received early in this year, Kodak said they would probably receive $1.2 billion. Some reports this week say the amount will $500 million while other reports say as little as $300 million. The truth is no one really knows for sure. It does depend on a lot of economic factors that change daily.

In 2020 Kodak was selected by the US government to transition into producing pharmaceutical ingredients. To get the US loan they took a $765 million loan which is most of their current debt. Income from manufacturing pharmaceutical ingredients is just starting to come in.

Kodak has spent the last couple of days trying to reassure everyone, especially the stock market, that they will survive and flourish again. It all depends on how much money they get out of the old pension fund.