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.)
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
