Kodak Acquires the Assets of ECRM Incorporated’s CTP Business

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Press release from the issuing company

Rochester, N.Y. – Eastman Kodak announced today it has acquired the assets of ECRM Incorporated’s CTP (computer-to-plate) device business for the graphic arts and newspaper industries. Based in Massachusetts, ECRM is a world-class manufacturing company and a global leader in imaging technologies for the graphic communications industry. The transaction includes the equipment, contracts, inventory and intellectual property of the acquired business. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Kodak is a leader in commercial print, offering a comprehensive portfolio of traditional and digital solutions that help printers increase their productivity and profitability. The acquisition will further strengthen Kodak’s position in the CTP segment of the commercial printing industry.

“This acquisition reflects Kodak’s commitment to the printing industry and our focus on investing in growth,” said Jim Continenza, Kodak’s Executive Chairman and CEO. “Acquiring these assets of an impressive company like ECRM makes us an even stronger player in the CTP category and we will continue to look for ways to better serve customers across the spectrum of traditional and digital print.”

“In the wake of a challenging pandemic year, and on the anniversary of ECRM’s 50th year, we decided that this is a good time to rest on our past successes, yet protect and service our many long-term customers with an established company of appropriate size, CTP competence, and resources. We are pleased today to place our company assets with Kodak.”, said Rick Black, Chairman and CEO of ECRM.

Discussion

By Craig Kevghas on Apr 20, 2021

With the absorption of ECRM into Kodak, we say goodbye to an industry player that began in 1969 and remained strong until very recently. I had the pleasure to work at ECRM from 1987 until 1990, and was there when the company almost went public. ECRM was supposed to go public on a Friday, it was delayed until Tuesday, and the market crashed on Monday. In its heyday, it was the OEM partner for many of the leading CTP and imagesetter providers, often only the skins and the RIPs were different. And of course, their Autokon scanner was huge with newspapers and trade shops all over the world. They were a leader in making the digital dot acceptable when only round dots were popular. For more than six decades ECRM meant Every Customer Really Matters, or so we used to say. I think originally it stood for Electronic Character Recognition Machines, but that's not here or there now. God Bless ECRM and their families... I for one will miss this intitution.

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