Last week I wrote an article concerning the request by USA regulatory bodies for further information from Kodak and Creo concerning the planned acquisition of Creo by Kodak. In this I suggested that one reason for this request was the possible problem area of newspaper CtP. This was that the two current selling newspaper CtP engines imaging thermal plates came from Creo and Kodak, and that if these were under one company it was likely that Kodak’s Thermal News plate would get preferential sales treatment. This could be to the detriment in terms of sales of other thermal newspaper CtP plates from Anocoil, Southern Litho and others. I also suggested that one solution may be for Kodak to release their Newsetter CtP range into the hands of another company for ongoing sales.

Following this I received comments from both Kodak and Creo stating that they believed I was misreading the situation. Kodak’s response was “It is not uncommon for the Department of Justice to make second requests in transactions of this kind. We remain confident that we will complete the transaction.” Creo commented “Nobody at Creo has any knowledge of an investigation homing in on the newspaper market. Actually, the reason for the Second Request is likely much more mundane. If you read the Creo and Kodak releases of last week on this topic you will notice that we filed in the US on February 24th but the DoJ was only appointed on March 22nd to examine our filing, and this only gave them 6 days to analyze our filing before the end of the original waiting period - so it is not surprising they asked for an extension. Initially there was some uncertainty as to who - the FTC or the DoJ - would take the lead in the investigation and this was only resolved on March 22nd. At this point any other explanation would be speculation.”

My comments were speculative, but were based upon discussions I had with specialized industry analysts in Washington who were following the Kodak/Creo situation closely on behalf of their investors. These comments reflected their feelings on what may be a possible scenario.