Feb 21
Detroit outlines a plan to get itself out of debt, salt shortages are making a snowstorm near you even worse, and another week of violence is igniting in Kiev. It’s this week’s look at What’s Ruining Our Cities.
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Nov 27
OCZ dropped off the radar shortly into 2013 as it struggled to correct dodgy accounting and stem ongoing losses. Unfortunately, it couldn’t turn things around quickly enough — the one-time legend in memory technology has declared bankruptcy. That isn’t necessarily the end of the story, though. Toshiba has offered to buy all of OCZ’s assets as long as the ailing company maintains its value. The bankruptcy represents a sad (potential) end for a firm that was once synonymous with speedy RAM and SSDs, but there’s a good chance that its work will live on in future products.
Filed under: Storage
Source: OCZ
Nov 24
Fisker, the company behind the Karma hybrid sports car, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this weekend. The company hasn’t had very good luck these past few years. The company originally set out to make green cars sexy, but it has been floundering for the better part of two years due to car fires, faulty batteries, […]
Nov 23
Fisker files for Bankruptcy, hopes selling company will restart Karma sales
Posted in: Today's Chili
The writing has been on the walls for awhile, but now the scrawlings read true: Fisker Automotive has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. For almost a year, the company’s been sliding down a slope of financial ruin. Production was halted, workers were furloughed, then laid off and the Department of Energy even seized $21 million from the company after becoming concerned it wouldn’t be able to pay of its $192 million federal loan.
The bankruptcy filing will help facilitate the company’s sale to Hybrid Technology, an investor group that has agreed to buy the remainder of the DOE’s original loan, now valued at $25 million. Hybrid says the deal is the first step to putting the Karma back into production (and back on the market), but notes that it still has a lot of work to do. “As we continue to examine Fisker’s opportunities, we will be making decisions about the structure and footprint of the new business,” a Hybrid spokeswoman told the Reuters. It’ll likely take some time for the hybrid sports sedan to make it back to the showroom. Hopefully, it’ll give the firm time to work out some of the original Karma’s faults.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Autoblog
Source: Reuters
Sep 03
After a year and a half of trials and tribulations, Kodak is finally in the clear — it just exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Now that the company has finished offloading its document and personal imaging groups, it’s free to pursue a recently court-approved reorganization plan that focuses solely on business products like movie film and packaging. The resulting firm is a far cry from the camera giant that we once knew, but we may hear about its work in the future. Kodak promises more details of “what’s next,” and it tells the AP that it’s working on technology like printable touchscreen layers and smart packaging.
Filed under: Cameras
Via: Wall Street Journal
Source: Kodak
May 27
Better Place’s plan for electric cars with swappable batteries is coming to an end. Despite a change in leadership and a streamlining effort over the past six months, the Israeli EV maker has filed a court motion for liquidation, citing insufficient cash to continue operations and a failure to raise the necessary funds. According to Israel Corporation, the firm’s controlling shareholder, other investors willing to pitch in the vast amount of money needed couldn’t be found. With approximately $812 million lost in operations and deploying battery exchange stations since 2007, and $454 million of that within 2012 alone, it’s estimated that just recouping those loses would take $500 million and four years.
“Unfortunately, after a year’s commercial operation, it was clear to us that despite many satisfied customers, the wider public take up would not be sufficient and that the support from the car producers was not forthcoming,” said Better Place CEO Dan Cohen. Sure, it might be curtains for the company, but the existing battery network looks like it might live on, as the liquidator is being asked to “maintain the functioning of the network.”
[Thanks, Michael]
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Globes
Source: Better Place
May 02
We can’t say we were enthused with Coda Automotive’s ho-hum EV design, and we know the public wasn’t, either. Still, it’s hard not to lament the company’s fate now that its parent, Coda Holdings, is declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy and getting out of the car market. The firm has had enough of production delays and slow adoption, and now it’s planning to sell its Automotive division through an auction that should net at least $25 million. What’s left of Coda will focus on energy storage, if and when it emerges from bankruptcy — not nearly as exciting a field, but likely more profitable. While the exit was far from unexpected, it reminds us that the modern EV business is more often defined by its casualties than its winners.
Filed under: Transportation
Via: Bloomberg
Source: Coda Automotive
Apr 30
Now with a patent sale, new financing and asset offloads under its belt, Kodak’s homing in on when it might emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In January, the imaging giant predicted it might finally exit its financial default by mid-2013, and now it’s filed paperwork with a New York court indicating it’s on track to meet that goal sometime during its third quarter this year. In addition to the timeline update, the Plan of Reorganization and Disclosure Statement outlines how the firm’s debts have been settled and its future plans, which place heavy emphasis on its commercial imaging business. A hearing for the document and associated strategy is anticipated to be scheduled in mid-June, and creditors will arrange a vote afterwards to decide if everything’s to their liking. Kodak’s certainly not out of the woods just yet, but it’s plodding steadily towards the clearing.
[Image credit: Viktor Nagornyy, Flickr]
Source: Kodak
Apr 15
Kodak as we once knew it has been shedding its identity piece by piece, and today it’s selling off one of the more familiar cornerstones. The one-time photography legend has made an initial deal to offload its Document Imaging division to Brother for $210 million through a stalking horse bid. If no one else makes a sweeter offer, Brother is likely to take control of Kodak’s scanning hardware and software in an agreement that’s expected to receive bankruptcy court approval by June. It’s the end of an era for a company that’s all too familiar with ending eras — let’s just hope it gets around to starting one of them in the near future.
Filed under: Peripherals
Source: Kodak
Feb 06
The US Postal Service already doesn’t deliver on Sundays, and it’s been that way for a very long time. However, the USPS is also axing Saturday delivery as well, completely eliminating all weekend delivery. The company has announced that they will be halting regular Saturday delivery starting August 1, but will still do special deliveries for packages.
Of course, the USPS has been on the brink of defaulting for a while now, experiencing huge losses left and right. The company believes that by cutting out regular Saturday mail delivery, they’ll save a lot of money that will hopefully start putting them in the black. Specifically, the USPS says it will save about $2 billion a year.
Again, they’re only halting normal mail delivery, and will continue to stick with package deliveries on Saturdays. The USPS didn’t lay out their plan on how that will work exactly, but overall, there will be far less Postal Service trucks out on the roads during Saturdays starting in August.
The USPS has been discussing the possibility of switching to five-day delivery for the past couple years now, but it will finally go into affect this year. Approximately 170 billion pieces of snail mail flew through USPS facilities in 2011, which sounds like an insanely large and healthy number, but that’s actually down 22% from five years earlier.
US Postal Service to axe Saturday service is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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