Film manufacturer Ilford on the way out?

Photo film maker Ilford set to split

Tue 24 August, 2004 14:50

By Gerard Wynn

LONDON (Reuters) – Ilford Imaging, the world’s biggest black-and-white film maker, is set to split its UK and Swiss businesses and sell them separately after filing for insolvency, administrators said on Tuesday.

Ilford, weighed down by more than 40 million pounds of debt, finally bowed to pressure from booming digital camera sales and called in accountancy firm Grant Thornton on Monday to oversee its sale.

As part of that process, the 125-year-old group is likely to separate its two businesses: the declining black and white films and photographic paper division, employing 740 people, and the profitable Swiss inkjet printing business.

“The Swiss business will continue and is trading normally,” said Mark Byers, joint administrator and receiver at Ilford and head of recovery and reorganisation services at accountants Grant Thornton.

“We have control over the business and in due course we’ll be marketing it for sale,” he added, saying that no sale timetable had been set.

But the British unit’s outlook is less certain.

The principal objective is to identify a buyer for the brand name and its assets, Byers said.

“Otherwise, there’ll be an orderly wind-down of the operation,” he added.

Byers did not rule out a sale of the entire business intact, but said this would be a more complex option.

The inkjet business — which is a major world supplier of dyes for inkjet photo printers — is likely to attract several bidders, given its profitability.

“The underlying business without gearing is good. If you could target additional print business, it would be interesting,” said Dominic Collier, board member of photographic retailer Jessops and a director at private equity firm ABN AMRO Capital, which bought Jessops in October 2002.

Collier declined to comment whether ABN AMRO Capital would be interested.

The appointment of Grant Thornton at Ilford comes a week after Belgium’s Agfa Gevaert AGFAt.BR , one of the best-known names in camera film, sold off its consumer unit to managers, due to pressure from digital cameras.

Ilford’s insolvency is also a blow to Doughty Hanson, the British private equity firm that owns the company. Doughty, which declined to comment, acquired the company in December 1997 for 70.3 million euros.

A source close to the situation said the business was part provisioned, or written off, by Doughty in 1999, with the remainder written off in 2000.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=570686&section=finance

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