biglouis Posted October 23, 2011 Share #161 Posted October 23, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Blackstone? Blackstone? Where did I hear that name before? Wasn't it something to do with the Bourne Supermacy? Oh no! That was Treadstone... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 23, 2011 Posted October 23, 2011 Hi biglouis, Take a look here Blackstone. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
RPS Posted October 23, 2011 Share #162 Posted October 23, 2011 ... right ... and 'Blackbriar' Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posto 6 Posted October 24, 2011 Share #163 Posted October 24, 2011 Maybe new purchasers of Leica equipment above a certain level can also have the choice of purchasing options or warrants, with a 2014 exercise date. Seriously- this could work very well in Asia once Leica production starts being ramped up! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
k_g_wolf ✝ Posted October 24, 2011 Share #164 Posted October 24, 2011 Ernst LEITZ I or II ect. would most likely rotate in their graves if they could have a look at the Ecaton-sketch above and see what happened to their ownership. How on earth can this lead to sensible results for employees and customers ? Best GEORG Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posto 6 Posted October 24, 2011 Share #165 Posted October 24, 2011 Look at all the luxury brands controlled by similar predatory French groups- PPR and LVMH. While the quality may have dropped, sales continue expanding, quite aggressively in the Emerging Markets Leica are targeting. The markets have changed- Leica's legacy may be in professional photography, the same way that Hermès' is in saddlery, but that does not mean that this is where their growth will come from. You can still buy Hermès' traditional items, but what keeps the company afloat is their range of knick-knacks for the aspiring and emerging consumer classes. This is a very successful model- can you blame Leica for thrying their luck as well? As an aside (and only slightly tongue in cheek), perhaps a few "celebrities and footballers' wives" can be convinced to be seen sporting (or fondling) their R-cameras (preferably with DMRs). This could be a good basis to bring the range back into production, even if this required covering with Hermès "Barenia" leather trim. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted October 24, 2011 Share #166 Posted October 24, 2011 Ernst LEITZ I or II ect. would most likely rotate in their graves if they could have a look at the Ecaton-sketch above and see what happened to their ownership. How on earth can this lead to sensible results for employees and customers ? Best GEORG Yes... but same could happen to the late David Brown seeing Aston Martin in the hands of people from a former British Colony (India) or to Henry Royce and Charles Rolls seeing their creature in the hands of Germans.... (on the contrary, Giovanni Agnelli "the old", a strong admirer of US auto industry, should be very happy to see that Fiat, at the end, OWNS a US car company.... even if the results could indeed worry a bit him... ) Btw, the chart which illustrated how Zeiss Ikon was formed at first years of '900 was even more complicated... it didn't include entities like Blackstone, but some financial backing was surely active within the plot... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_w_davies Posted October 24, 2011 Share #167 Posted October 24, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Yes... but same could happen to the late David Brown seeing Aston Martin in the hands of people from a former British Colony (India) Aston Martin are owned by a Kuwait based investment company. Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by Tata. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted October 25, 2011 Share #168 Posted October 25, 2011 Aston Martin are owned by a Kuwait based investment company. Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by Tata. Sorry, I didn't know... thought that Tata bought from Ford both Jag+Aston.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevelap Posted October 25, 2011 Share #169 Posted October 25, 2011 Sorry, I didn't know... thought that Tata bought from Ford both Jag+Aston.... IIRC, David Richards (Prodrive) put together a consortium, including Middle East money, to buy Aston Martin from Ford in spring 2007. This pre-dated Tata's acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover, also from Ford, by about a year. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted October 25, 2011 Author Share #170 Posted October 25, 2011 Here, Wikipedia is probably more or less correct Aston Martin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhsimmonds Posted October 25, 2011 Share #171 Posted October 25, 2011 Meanwhile Charles Morgan has ignored advice from so called business guru's to add external financing to develop and expand Morgan cars. Yes, there is a two year waiting list for their excellent sports cars but they survive in the ownership of the Morgan family. Something of a lesson here in the business classrooms of Harvard and Ashridge! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
*j-w-m* Posted November 15, 2011 Share #172 Posted November 15, 2011 And now this news: Kodak debtholders name Blackstone adviser http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSN1E7AD1NP20111114?irpc=43 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted November 15, 2011 Share #173 Posted November 15, 2011 A smell of some asset stripping in Kodak's future? It is always sad when a great icon of industry falls prey to progress. It irritates me when commentators say "Kodak did not wake up to the digital revolution". They were the inventors of the digital sensor and made some of the earliest digital cameras. Kodak's main business was film not cameras. Now one could argue that they should have been making and selling SD cards instead (they did sell rebranded ones made by????) but that would not have replaced the turnover of film. Sadly their digital cameras were never very good and got poor write ups. One got the impression in the last 10 years that their P&S cameras were always a generation behind the competition or inadequately developed. What a great camera the 14N/C could have been with a bit more commitment and development. Rather like Contax, they got cold feet and gave up too early, with some potentially great cameras in the pipeline. I think instead of carping, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kodak for keeping the loss making Kodachrome going for as long as they did and continuing research into modern films, providing us with a very wide range of excellent film stock. Sadly this service to us photographers may be one of the causes of their current troubles. Wilson Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alberti Posted November 15, 2011 Share #174 Posted November 15, 2011 Kodak, once a market leader with a high grand value has never made the shift to the New Economy. Though the book-printing quality beats Blurb, Kodak have failed to grab the market. Cause: low quality on-line handling, no customer friendly software, and bad customer service. Equally the photo printing, highest quality, but dummy method of using on-line albums. The services were released five to eight years ago, never revamped, not renewed. The Kodak camera's are equally lagging in growth, not the innovator it once was. So something is wrong in the company, I would say. Small kingdoms, fiefdoms, whatever you might call islands that are independent. Blackstone will advise an entrepreneur that has the track-record of turning around, some PE, much leveraged capital and then to grow the still >>1% market share ! It is different though from the published Leica strategy of growing through Flagship stores . . . This is a very amateur view of course, not even a penny worth. albert Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted November 15, 2011 Share #175 Posted November 15, 2011 .... It is always sad when a great icon of industry falls prey to progress. It irritates me when commentators say "Kodak did not wake up to the digital revolution". They were the inventors of the digital sensor and made some of the earliest digital cameras. Kodak's main business was film not cameras. Now one could argue that they should have been making and selling SD cards instead (they did sell rebranded ones made by????) but that would not have replaced the turnover of film. Sadly their digital cameras were never very good and got poor write ups. One got the impression in the last 10 years that their P&S cameras were always a generation behind the competition or inadequately developed. What a great camera the 14N/C could have been with a bit more commitment and development. Rather like Contax, they got cold feet and gave up too early, with some potentially great cameras in the pipeline. I think instead of carping, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Kodak for keeping the loss making Kodachrome going for as long as they did and continuing research into modern films, providing us with a very wide range of excellent film stock. Sadly this service to us photographers may be one of the causes of their current troubles. Wilson I agree : Kodak decline is sad to see for photo lovers, and we always have to be grateful to them : at the (old) film days, I was stunned by their effectiveness in terms of distribution logistics... several times happened to me to be "filmless" in odd places, holydays periods and so... well, one could be rather confident that in a decent radius around you, you COULD find somewhere a Kodak film to buy... was it in a mountain hut, a gas station, a newspapers' shop, a tobacco shop, a kiosk on a plage... they were great in this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posto 6 Posted November 16, 2011 Share #176 Posted November 16, 2011 Kodak's problems precede the arrival of digital- if you remember, in the 1980's and 1990's, there was intense pressure from the USTR to prevent Fuji from continuing to expand it's share of the film market, particularly in the US. Kodak, unfortunately, had by then lost it's dynamism already, and was resorting to protectionist measures for assistance. Sad to say, but it also appears that their one remaining big film market, 35mm movies, are also in sharply accelerating decline since the recent release of Rupert Murdoch's Avatar. According to recent reports, it is now anticipated this market will totally dry up by 2015- see The End of an Era Arrives as Digital Technology Displaces 35mm Film in Cinema Projection - Media Market Research at iSuppli . Leica/Blackstone should feel free to cannibalize what remains as required if this yields benefit to them. Kodak appear to have no future-rather sad, but c'est la vie! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted November 16, 2011 Share #177 Posted November 16, 2011 The problem will also arrive for those still wishing to use 35mm film that they will not be able to get it processed and printed. We have already seen this in 16mm in the UK, where the last commercial lab ceased its 16mm service a few months ago. Getting my 8 x 11mm Minox films processed and printed or scanned at anything other than exorbitant prices is now impossible. I have a fairly large collection of cameras but they are pretty much users or could be if I could get the media. It is 15 years now since I found my last box of unexposed 9cm x 6.5cm plates and they were well past their use by date. I can no longer find a source for unperforated 35mm film for use in my old stereo cameras. I am afraid this is "progress". I cannot see Blackstone showing much interest in maintaining the current range of films and formats from Kodak. My guess is that 135/200 ISO colour negative and Tri-X 400 ISO black and white cassettes may well be all you will soon be able to buy in the Kodak brand. I would not be surprised to see 120 and 4" x 5" cut film disappearing in a very short time. Wilson Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posto 6 Posted November 16, 2011 Share #178 Posted November 16, 2011 Luckily, there are more specialist suppliers than Kodak, who will be able to continue making film, although this will undoubtedly be a more expensive niche product. Think 1920's and 1930's for pricing (inflation adjusted) and volumes to get an idea of the type of market. Kodak are a dying behemoth, and have far greater problems than looking at residual markets like 35mm photographic camera film. Maybe we can make a case fort Blackstone to start up a Leica Film brand- this is not, by the way, such an outlandish idea subject of course to a reasonable likely volume of demand from this forum! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted November 16, 2011 Share #179 Posted November 16, 2011 Posto, Leica film is an idea that I am surprised they have not done already. Rollei cameras have pretty much died other than some ex-employees of F&H assembling a few in a converted garage from spare parts but the films are going strong. I use more Rollei film than anything else. It would be a very low risk stratagem for Leica only involving finding a supplier of good base film (? New Agfa, who make pretty good film) and getting some boxes printed. Wilson Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posto 6 Posted November 16, 2011 Share #180 Posted November 16, 2011 And it would nicely complement (and be wonderful in marketing terms) Leica's continued high-end film camera production, helping to perpetuate their reputation as top-end specialist craftsmen. They could learn some interesting lessons by looking at the strategy adopted by Blancpain in the '80's for watches. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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