Polaroid Names William Flaherty Executive Vice President and CFO
Dow Jones Newswires
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Struggling instant-photography concern Polaroid Corp. named William L. Flaherty executive vice president and chief financial officer.
Polaroid Will Unveil Two Ways to Print Digital Photographs (May 31)
Mr. Flaherty, 53 years old, replaces Carl L. Lueders, who served as acting chief financial officer since Jan. 24 when Judith G. Boynton resigned as finance chief.
Polaroid also said it has named Mr. Lueders vice president of finance.
Mr. Flaherty formerly served as finance chief at Avid Technology Inc., a digital video-editing equipment maker, and as finance chief at greeting-card company Gibson Greetings, Inc., Polaroid said.
"Bill's financial experience coupled with his knowledge of both consumer products and digital-imaging technology will be of great value to Polaroid," Gary T. DiCamillo, chairman and chief executive officer of Polaroid, said in a written statement Thursday.
Plummeting sales in instant cameras and film, along with intensifying digital competition, have hit Polaroid hard. It lost $38 million, or 85 cents a share, excluding one-time charges, in the first quarter ending April 1, and revenue fell 18% to $331 million.
The photography concern last month received breathing room from lenders as it tries to renegotiate a $350 million credit facility. Polaroid, which had borrowed $320 million of the credit line as of April 1, secured a waiver extension until July 12 that will enable it to avoid breaching terms of the credit line. The line comes from a group headed by FleetBoston Financial Corp.
Polaroid recently unveiled two high-speed technologies for digitally printing photographs that the company hopes will turn around its financial fortunes.
Opal, a self-service technology for customers in drugstore photo kiosks, prints color photos in 30 seconds, while Onyx, a hand-held system, prints monochrome photos in two to three seconds. The first Onyx products will be available to consumers by the end of this year, and Opal products will be available next year. |
