Posted on 04/02/2009 7:31:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Private equity firm Patriarch Partners snapped up the assets of the photography pioneer with a cult following.
New York-based private equity firm Patriarch Partners won the auction for bankrupt Polaroid Corp's assets, both companies said Thursday, with Patriarch winning over three rival bidders.
The result of the auction, which ended Tuesday, is subject to court approval at an April 6 hearing. The assets Patriarch is buying include the company's name, intellectual property, and photography collection.
It beat bids from PHC Acquisitions, Hilco Consumer Capital Corp and Ritchie Capital.
Patriarch's bid totaled $59.1 million, the company said.
"We look forward to reconnecting Polaroid with its history of innovation in photography," Lynn Tilton, chief executive of Patriarch Partners said in a statement.
"We intend to continue rebuilding the brand of this great American company on a worldwide scale and to re-establish Polaroid as a globally acknowledged innovator."
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
What could Polaroid bring to the modern world of photography that isn’t there already? No one cares about instant print photography anymore.
I suppose that you don’t like Studebaker automobiles either?
Especially now that we have so many other ways to produce amateur naughty photos that don't require a trip to the drugstore.
Not sure what they could bring to the table these days that is truly innovative, in their core field. The only thing they had going for them in photography was really the instant film processing. Their cameras weren't anything special. The German's and then Japanese blew them away in that category. And the Germans still rule in the area of specialized, high end photographic glass.
They still have a “name”... for 59 mil, this is a steal. Just slap the Polaroid name on cheap chinese-made throw away cameras...
Polaroid, for a long time, was great at incrementally advancing the technology of instant print cameras and then viciously defending the patents. I had a Kodak (I believe it was Kodak) instant camera in the early 1980s. It was litigated out of existance by Polaroid. World history is full of instances where all of the rules changed. The dawn of digital photography was one of those and changed Polaroid from a stock to acquire into a worthless company.
It was a Kodak. I had one.
What might be cool would be to mate the digital capture with an instant print.
There is still a market, albeit small, for polaroid instant film in the photographic community. I’m going to miss it.
The paperwork for this deal was ready in ninety-seconds.
I could see that, a few years back, maybe. But today, the consumer market is all about small cameras/camera phones, and there's no room for a decent sized print medium, when most just e-mail their picture to their friends anyway.
For serious photogs, amateur or pro, instant film was never really an option, except maybe as a shot setup tool for the real camera, but with digital SLR's, no need for it.
Polaroid's time has come and gone.
One of the coolest cameras ever made. And I speak a a former professional photog who made money at the game.
Polaroid 4x5 and 8x1o film was a studio essential.
Sorry... I think many like myself, have a love art in photography. There is a quality and unique ability that film photography in all of it forms has to offer.
It will become a hobby of those who can afford to purchase it.
Funny... it was introduced at a price level that was well above the average family and progressed to a popularly priced item that all families could afford, only to be relegated back to the pleasure of those who will be able to afford this technology.
It will continue to be used in art, graphics and other media realms where it can be respected for what it is.
“They still have a “name”... for 59 mil, this is a steal. Just slap the Polaroid name on cheap chinese-made throw away cameras...”
That’s what they’ve been doing for quite a while. The name has as much equity nowadays as RCA and Zenith.
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