Forte Situation

0 Replies, 18214 Views

Dear Mirko,

many rumors about Forte production......and also many guess for the future of Forte.

Which is the real situation? Are they still producing film and paper?

If not, this will be forever or for a limited period?

Since I use papers and films I want to know if in the near future it will be possible to have Forte supplies.

Have you some replacements for papers or films?

That's all

Thanks

Daniele
Hi Daniele,



with Forte it is like with Ilford: One can?t really say.



The people who were in charge before are not anymore and the insolvency

protection protects them from their creditors but still does not shoot in

fresh cash.



So at this point there is no reason to give up on both of these companies

but for sure I also cannot promise you that they will be coating again.



All I can tell you is what happens if.



If the adminsitrator decides to carry on the production and if they can

recrute some capital somewhere and if their customers (people like you) are

willing to finally pay just a little bit more for the paper so at least the

production costs are covered (B/W paper did not increase in price since 1985

if you subtract inflation) then they can be coating again in about 3 months.



About the same applies to Ilford only on a much larger scale. Forte needs a

few 100 000 euros, Ilford needs 80 Millions.

Both companies have been underbidding each other over the last 3 years on the market to get

sales of one big customer from California.

As a result both went into liquidation.

I also hope that this large american supplier who has been kicking off this

price-war into absolut hopeless regions will come to the conclusion now

that american business is not always the best.

Especially if we are not dealing with a mass market anymore. Their business model always focuses on

the strategy to dump as long as necessary to get rid of all competitors and

then use the monopoly to raise prices and make megabucks. This company was the largest customer for both Ilford and Forte and they

have played both of them for years against each other to squeeze even lower

prices. Now they are left without any supply. I hope they see this and

change their strategy in the future so we do not have such a situation

again.



We expect Forte to make it and hope that our stock gets us all over the coming

months of interrupted supply.



If for some reason they will not be coating again ever then we certainly

will try to rebuild their recipes on different machines and carry on their

papers in another factory.



Cheers from Berlin,



Mirko
(Dieser Beitrag wurde zuletzt bearbeitet: 22-10-2004, 06:43 PM von Mirko Boeddecker.)
Thank Mirko,

for your clear and complete explanation.

Any comment about the last years American films market is needless!

Every photographers using medium and large formats saw on the web the USA unlabelled films price battle and all the suppositions about WHO made films and the bad consequences for the original brands.

I hope that both Forte and Ilford will be operatve again with others purposes for their core business.

Pay more for good and reliable BW products is not a problem until they became overpriced as in the last years some Kodak items. Improved technology is not so important in BW films and paper to justify more money for every new item out newly on the market. For the 80% of uses "old" films and papers work as well as the last "miracolous" discovery show on the market. In this market (medium and large format) that weakens, for me customer, get a huge importance to find a variety of good, realiable and available products with market prices, no deep disounts and neither jewels price!

The discussion could go on...with others comments by forum partecipants.

Ciao

Daniele
My previous post was from an unregistered user.

This is my fault

I apologize

Daniele
OOPS

The last two post coming from ongarine........a little bit confuse.

It could be the gray day.

Daniele

PS I WILL WAIT FOR BW CUSTOMERS COMMENTS ABOUT CURRENT FILMS AND PAPERS AVAILABILITY
[quote name='Mirko Boeddecker' date='Oct 22 2004, 06:41 PM']Hi Daniele,



with Forte it is like with Ilford: One can?t really say.



The people who were in charge before are not anymore and the insolvency

protection protects them from their creditors but still does not shoot in

fresh cash.



So at this point there is no reason to give up on both of these companies

but for sure I also cannot promise you that they will be coating again.



All I can tell you is what happens if.



If the adminsitrator decides to carry on the production and if they can

recrute some capital somewhere and if their customers (people like you) are

willing to finally pay just a little bit more for the paper so at least the

production costs are covered (B/W paper did not increase in price since 1985

if you subtract inflation) then they can be coating again in about 3 months.



About the same applies to Ilford only on a much larger scale. Forte needs a

few 100 000 euros, Ilford needs 80 Millions.

Both companies have been underbidding each other over the last 3 years on the market to get

sales of one big customer from California.

As a result both went into liquidation.

I also hope that this large american supplier who has been kicking off this

price-war into absolut hopeless regions will come to the conclusion now

that american business is not always the best.

Especially if we are not dealing with a mass market anymore. Their business model always focuses on

the strategy to dump as long as necessary to get rid of all competitors and

then use the monopoly to raise prices and make megabucks. This company was the largest customer for both Ilford and Forte and they

have played both of them for years against each other to squeeze even lower

prices. Now they are left without any supply. I hope they see this and

change their strategy in the future so we do not have such a situation

again.



We expect Forte to make it and hope that our stock gets us all over the coming

months of interrupted supply.



If for some reason they will not be coating again ever then we certainly

will try to rebuild their recipes on different machines and carry on their

papers in another factory.



Cheers from Berlin,



Mirko[/quote]

I hope Forte will go on because all my production is based on it, by the way is there any supplier

in belgium and holland
"Unknown",



you can buy those products from us. They are called Classic or ADOX Fine Print.



Mirko
Hi everyone,



Good news: Forte will continue.



The administrator has decided to pick up the production again.

They are allowed to fulfill all outstanding orders in the first quarter of 2005. The only string attached for them is that it has to be a profitable production and that they have to generate the necessary funds by themselves.



Thus we have to prepay this production which restricts us in our order size and prices will go up by about 10%.



If all goes well and they manage to sell at profitable pricres and if all other customers are willing to prepay as well then it can go into a second round in March even under administration.



As for us we have decided to focus with our limited funds to Fortes best papers: Polywarmtone Fibre and RC.

We invested all spare money in a huge stock of these papers and hope to be able to serve you best during the times of transison until Forte has found a new structure/owner.



Polykaltton will be replaced by ADOX Fine Print Vario Classic whereas this paper is also better (thicker support, more silver, deeper black and bout one grade harder if filtered with full magenta).



If there is anyone out there with excess cash <img src='http://forum.fotoimpex.de/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> willing to help/acquire shares- please contact us.



Cheers from Berlin,



Mirko



FOTOIMPEX
(Dieser Beitrag wurde zuletzt bearbeitet: 28-12-2004, 12:51 PM von Mirko Boeddecker.)



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