Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/04/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Back to the film is dead, dying or forever debate, this hit my attention: *Agfa developments: Schroder Ventures <http://www.sviit.co.uk/html/home.htm> popped up today as the latest bidder for Agfa¹s <http://www.agfa.com/> photo business. The board of Mortsel, Belgium-based Agfa-Gevaert N.V. announced that it¹s in ³intensive negotiations² with Schroder to sell the film, finishing, lab equipment and consumer digital imaging divisions. Agfa announced that it planned to sell the film, finishing and lab divisions last month. At that time, Bayer AG Agfa¹s former parent company also tried to sell its 30-percent ownership, but pulled the plug on the plan before the end of March.* Now if Agfa is going the way of Ansco, DuPont and European makers of film I tink it is safe to say that, with regrets, in time b&w will become a limited arts commodity. Oh, before the retorts start...IMHO this doesn't mean that a viable business is up for sale but that a nongrowth unit is for sale. If Schroder buys it it will be acquire valued assets(notable the consumer digital imaging parts) not to produce film (b&w or color) for the photographic community. Happy snaps, Steven Alexander