Ilford up to speed
After some four months of highly geared activity
following the dramatic, and globally welcomed, announcements in February this
year that the world's best-known, and best-loved, black-and-white photographic
manufacturing company, ILFORD, had been saved from total annihilation, the newly
emerged organisation is now able to draw breath and assess its current
situation.
It was due to the swift and timely action of six of
ILFORD Imaging's management team - at some considerable personal financial risk
to themselves - that the UK-based company which headed the international group
avoided being split up, asset stripped, or otherwise totally lost. Via a
cleverly constructed operation, the liquidators were able to sell off the
considerable areas of land at the company's plant in Mobberly, Cheshire, to an
investment company on the basis that the plant would remain, thereby enabling
the rest of the business to fall within the capabilities of the
team.
What amounted to something of a
coup in the face of determined interest expressed by 21 potential suitors which
pursued the company through its most vulnerable stages saw the team able to
provide a more attractive solution to the liquidator. This included not only
satisfying the demands of the liquidation, but also ensuring the continuation of
a business which, over its 125-year history, had established itself as the
leading monochrome specialist.
Having had
the deal and the buyout accepted to much acclaim, the team then had to get the
company fully on track: manufacturing processes operating, stocks up to
appropriate levels, sales, marketing and distribution fully functioning,
staffing organised and relations with both the company's overseas distributors
and its worldwide customers being re-established on a progressive basis.
„It has been a pretty hectic four months,„ states chairman and
managing director Phil Harris, „but we now have the company on a strong
basis and ready to take on the world in our endeavours to revitalise the ILFORD
name.‰
ILFORD Photo is the trading
name of HARMAN technology Ltd, the company under which the new enterprise
trades, and is the brand which will be used for all monochrome products - film,
paper and photochemistry. The HARMAN brand (drawn from the name of ILFORD's
founder in 1879, Alfred Harman) will be applied to other aspects of the
company's business, such as thin-layer film and paper coating for the medical
sector, as it becomes further
organised.
The distributors in USA,
France, Benelux, Switzerland and Australia are no longer subsidiaries of ILFORD
UK, but since their former parent company's crash, they have re-organised
themselves, mostly as independent companies, and will continue handling the
supply of ILFORD Photo products to their respective markets, as do the many
other companies which make up the global network of suppliers. The ILFORD
digital products manufacturing base in Switzerland is still involved in
discussions concerning its future.
HARMAN
technology/ILFORD Photo now stands totally independent of any corporate ties to
the erstwhile group, and is concentrating on what it knows best, and to which it
is totally committed - black-and-white
photography.
„Black-and-white
analogue photography is the platform to which we are all dedicated,‰
explains Howard Hopwood, HARMAN/ILFORD Photo's marketing and business
development director. „Quite frankly, the rebirth of ILFORD as a brand
concentrating on this genre could not have been better
timed.
„The world imaging market
has been jumping through all kinds of hoops over the last few years as it has
come to terms with digital processes, just as much as it has with the progress
of colour photography. Having done that, and turned full circle back to its
roots, those who really care about expressive photography, and about preserving
images in all their beauty, still acknowledge that black-and-white is the one
true medium.
„Whereas colour images
provide a record of a scene, an event, a memory, black-and-white photography is
an artistic expression with which no other form can compete. One only has to
look at the tonal quality which can be achieved, the integration of light, shade
and mood, to recognise that this is the metier of true
artistry.‰
It is this dedication to
black-and-white, shared by Harris and Hopwood with their fellow HARMAN
technology directors: Andy Taylor (Finance Director), Steven Brierley (Sales
Director UK, USA and Australia), Simon Galley (Sales Director European and
Export Markets), and Peter Elton (Operations Director), which provides the
catalyst for the company's determined and carefully formulated assault on the
global market.
Nearly 400 people are now
employed at Mobberly, with technology and production capability up to full
capacity. Eighty-five per cent of output is being exported, and global
distribution channels are all open. The management is in place and fully
functioning, as are all sales departments and
personnel.
In view of the uncertainty
that has existed in the worldwide monochrome consumables field recently,
especially regarding availability of black-and-white paper, ILFORD Photo's
relaunch of its comprehensive range of top quality products, which includes a
variety of black-and-white paper types, and the company's assurances of
continued future manufacture, are especially timely for the many enthusiasts and
professional photographers concerned about future
supplies.
„In spite of being so
busy over these months,‰ comments Harris, „the process has been
cathartic, and great fun. Having structured the company into a fully operational
organisation, we now look forward to facing the challenge in all our
marketplaces. If the extremely positive reaction we have received so far is
anything by which to judge, we can expect to be in a very solid position very
quickly.‰
For full details of
ILFORD Photo products now available, telephone 01565 650 000, email:
sales@ilfordphoto.com .
Posted: Fri - June 17, 2005 at 01:56 PM