CEWE acquires Kodak Alaris’s global Kodak Moments business

CEWE Stiftung & Co. KGaA signed an agreement with Kodak Alaris, a portfolio company of Kingswood Capital Management, to acquire the KODAK MOMENTS Retail Photo Solutions business unit. With this acquisition, CEWE said it is expanding its core Photofinishing business internationally, improving its position in physical retail, and expanding its presence at the point of sale. KODAK MOMENTS Retail Photo Solutions operates approximately 37,000 connected in-store photo kiosks in 16,000 retail locations and 500 employees in 54 countries. The business unit currently generates annual revenue of approximately 200 million euros.

CEWE is acquiring the business unit, including a consumables production facility in Windsor, Colorado, at an agreed enterprise value totaling approximately 88 million euros. The purchase price is calculated based on the net debt and the net working capital to be assumed at the time of closing. Based on the figures as of March 31, 2026, an illustrative calculation indicates a purchase price payment of approximately 72 million euros. However, this amount may still vary depending on the figures as of the closing date.  The completion of the transaction (closing) is subject to various closing conditions, including antitrust approvals, and is expected in the first half of 2027.

Kodak Alaris is retaining its photographic film business. According to a LinkedIn post by Kodak Alaris CEO Jon Bostock: “To be clear about what’s changing: Kodak Alaris runs two global businesses, document capture and Kodak Moments consumer photo. This sale covers the retail kiosk operations inside Kodak Moments. Our document capture business and our Film business both remain within the entity backed by Kingswood Capital and are built to succeed on their own.

“This acquisition is a clear recognition of the strength of the business and everything the Kodak Moments team has built. CEWE is a proven, successful leader in this industry. They intend to run the business as an independent operation, retaining its people, operations, and brand, and they bring a long-term commitment to investment and growth. You could not ask for a better home.” (Bostock added he is not joining CEWE: “My commitment now is threefold: lead a clean, successful transition for the RPS team and our customers; structure Film as a strong standalone business; and support Michael Neyrey as he leads the Kodak Alaris segment forward. Once that work is done, I’ll be looking ahead to my next chapter, and I’m genuinely excited about what comes next.”)

With Eastman Kodak Co. increasingly taking over distribution of its consumer-facing brands, Kodak Alaris is facing competition in that category from its own supplier.

CEWE moves emphasize the photofinishing future

The acquisition comes on the heels of CEWE’s recent divestiture of its commercial printing business to Cimpress, which the company said would help fund ” selective, value-enhancing acquisitions.”

“With the acquisition of Kodak Alaris’s global instant photo business, we are improving our Photofinishing business and significantly expanding our international retail presence,” says Thomas Mehls, CEO of CEWE Stiftung & Co. KGaA. “Instant photography is already a valuable, customer-focused business segment for CEWE, with high visibility at the point of sale. The acquisition brings together the international reach, retail proximity, and operational excellence and efficiency of two trusted brands under one roof: KODAK MOMENTS and CEWE. We are making targeted investments in the global expansion of the instant photo business because we are convinced that we can achieve profitable growth in this area over the next few years.”

 The acquisition enables CEWE to enter key international markets such as the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Australia, the company says. While mostly known for its online photobook business, CEWE operates its own kiosks within leading retailers.

“KODAK MOMENTS is far more than just an iconic brand,” says Mehls. “It is highly trusted by consumers and retailer partners. For the CEWE Group, the brand is a clear differentiator for the expansion into new markets, combined with our ability to further develop photo products – technologically, operationally, and in collaboration with strong retail partners.”

The company said the acquisition also supports the further development of CEWE’s omnichannel model. This will integrate the instant photo business on an international scale into a business model that ideally aligns customer access, marketing, and operational implementation. The goal is to engage customers across relevant channels, expand collaboration with retail partners, and further develop the instant photo offering internationally. Part of the transaction is the Kodak Alaris production facility in Windsor which manufactures consumables needed for the instant photo business.

“With this production site, we gain additional capabilities in the value chain,” says Mehls. “Especially in times of geopolitical uncertainty, this increases the resilience of our instant photo business and lays the foundation for further improving quality, availability, and efficiency in the long term.”

A positive contribution to earnings is expected as early as 2027. CEWE management estimates the transaction and pre-closing costs for fiscal year 2026 to be in the low to mid single-digit millions of euros. The CEWE Group’s existing operational business plan for fiscal year 2026 remains unaffected by this and continues to apply unchanged. Starting with the first full fiscal year following completion (expected to be 2027), the Executive Board anticipates a mid-single-digit EBIT margin for the acquired business. The planned realization of all operational cost synergies is expected to increase the earnings contribution gradually in subsequent years. The transaction is in line with CEWE’s capital allocation principles: It improves the core Photofinishing business, expands the group’s international market position, and is expected to make a positive contribution to the Group’s sustainable value creation while generating attractive returns. 

The long, strange trip that has been Kodak Alaris

Kodak Alaris was created in 2012 out of the ashes of the Eastman Kodak Co. bankruptcy case. The company was created to generate income for the U.K. Kodak Pension Plan (KPP), which had filed a $2.8 billion claim against the Rochester, N.Y. company. The claim was resolved, and Kodak Alaris was formed when KPP paid $325 million for Kodak’s personalized imaging (photo film, paper, and chemistry, retail kiosks, and mobile photo apps businesses) and document imaging businesses. The concept was that the on-going business would shore up the underfunded pension plan through on-going business activities. The Kodak Moments business would generate cash flow to pay into the pension and to seed money to the Alaris division, which was focused on business information capture (scanners) and management. It was widely perceived that Kodak Moments was being used as a cash cow to feed the development of the Alaris division, with the intent that that be the future on-going business.

This didn’t materialize in any appreciable way; by 2023, the bulk of Kodak Alaris’ business was still film sales. The photographic paper and chemicals business collapsed. Over a decade, Kodak Alaris has struggled to maintain its financial obligations. For example, in 2020, Kodak Alaris secured a three-year $50 million credit facility from the U.K. Pension Protection Fund (PPF), according to Australia’s Inside Imaging. The move was made just weeks before PPF became a part-owner of the business through the acquisition of the failing Kodak Pension Plan (KPP2).

Under Kodak Alaris’ watch, the workhorse high-speed Kodak Picture Saver photo scanners, which laid the groundwork for much of today’s digitization and family heritage preservation industry, were discontinued in 2018.

Kodak Alaris was not “Kodak” in the sense that it was a reformulated Eastman Kodak Co.; it was a British company with a license to use the Kodak name, trade dress, and technology for its consumer and professional businesses. This led to customer confusion, as Eastman Kodak Co. continued in the marketplace, primarily in the graphic arts and coating business, but in a diminished capacity. To the consumer, the Kodak name was everywhere; to the trade, there were numerous “Kodaks” in the market. If you wanted to sell Kodak cameras, that may be a Chinese licensee. Do you want to sell Kodak film? That would be Kodak Moments (at least until recently, when Eastman Kodak Co. began direct selling Kodak film). Kodak kiosks were also sold by Kodak Moments. Eastman Kodak Co. licensed the “Kodak” name to other companies, which made a dizzying array of Kodak-branded products, like portable printers, televisions, and retail stores in Korea that sell Kodak-branded clothing.

A glaring omission was any kind of Kodak Moments online printing portal. When Shutterfly bought Kodak Gallery online photo services business for $23.8 million in 2012 (part of EK’s bankruptcy), this effectively prevented any non-Shutterfly entities from offering online photo services under the Kodak name. So, while Kodak Moments could offer a photo printing app that would print to its own kiosks, it could not offer an online printing portal. This, incidentally, led to the development of a widely used “print to kiosk” platform widely used by app developers to print to mass merchandisers like CVS.

By the summer of 2024, the British pension fund had had enough. After shopping Kodak Alaris for a few years, the company was finally sold to Kingswood Capital Management, LP, a Los Angeles-based private-equity firm focused on buyouts of middle-market businesses. With the new ownership came the departure of numerous long-standing Kodak Moments employees, some of whom dated back to Eastman Kodak Co.’s consumer imaging business.

Ironically, as Kodak Alaris struggled, Eastman Kodak Co. has risen from the ashes of its bankruptcy with renewed vigor. In addition to graphic arts materials, Eastman Kodak has retooled and improved its factories to keep up with the renewed demand for photographic film. The company is also recognized for its world-class coating expertise, which has opened markets in printing, pharmaceuticals, advanced materials and chemicals, and more.