Kodak announced it has reached an agreement with Lucky HuaGuang Graphics Co. Ltd to establish a strategic relationship in the People’s Republic of China, including Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan. By partnering with one of the largest graphics players in a region that is seeing a growing demand for resource-efficient solutions, Kodak seeks to significantly increase the adoption of its Sonora plates in China.
The Kodak/HuaGuang relationship will be comprised of an agreement for Kodak to sell its offset printing plates facility in Xiamen, China to HuaGuang, a supply agreement for HuaGuang to help Kodak fulfill its existing customer demand, and an IP agreement under which Kodak licenses its technology to HuaGuang to expand the market in China. HuaGuang is a state-owned large enterprise that can manufacture offset printing plates, graphic-arts films and flexographic printing plates to serve printing industry from every aspect.
This relationship will leverage the combined strength of HuaGuang’s market leadership and world-class Kodak technology, which together are expected to accelerate the broad conversion to Kodak’s process free technologies in China.
“The endorsement of Sonora by one of the biggest players in the industry is a testament to the strength of Kodak’s technology,” said John O’Grady, senior vice president, Kodak. “We are excited to work with HuaGuang to advance the conversion of China’s print market to process free plates and help print industry customers – and those they serve – lower their environmental impact”.
Kodak and HuaGuang have successfully collaborated in a variety of different business models and cooperative ventures spanning decades, building a history of mutual trust and respect that underpins the current deal.
Mr. Zhang, Tao, president of HuaGuang, mentioned, “Kodak is a well-known company in the prepress field, the new cooperation with Kodak can speed up the conversion of offset plates to process free plates in China, which will promote the process of green environmental protection in the printing industry in China.”
Customers in the region will experience no interruption in supply, and the companies will work together to ensure the delivery of new, innovative products moving forward.
Kodak will maintain its current go-to-market structure in China, with expectations that SONORA volumes will continue to ramp up, alongside growing sales of the full portfolio of Kodak solutions.
The relationship is expected to be formally established at a closing in the third quarter of 2019, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
