The sale of Kodak’s patent portfolio has been approved by the U.S Bankruptcy Court.
Under the approved deal, the company will receive $525 million for the imaging patents from Intellectual Ventures, a major holder of US patents, and a group of 12 licensees.
Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are among the list of companies involved in the agreement.
Kodak officials said in December that the sale is a key step in their bid to emerge from bankruptcy in the first half of this year.
In a statement Friday Kodak officials reiterated this message.
“With the Court’s approval of the sale of our digital imaging patent portfolio, we have achieved one of Kodak’s key restructuring objectives, while positioning our Commercial Imaging business for further growth and success, and enabling Kodak to repay a substantial amount of its initial lending.”
The sale of Kodak’s patents was a condition in the recent funding agreement which saw the company receive an extra $830 million from investors to help it emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Now it has been approved, the money from the sale will be used to partially repay Kodak’s loans, with at least a portion predicted to go to the company itself.
U.S Bankruptcy Court Judge Allen Gropper also approved the sale of Kodak’s Eastman Business Park utility operations for $8.5 million on Friday to an Illinois-based company.
The sale will see the Business Park’s power plant converted to run on natural gas, a cleaner alternative to the current coal power used.
Kodak officials said in their statement that they were pleased that the handover of utility services would go ahead.
“We also welcome the Court’s approval of the sale of Eastman Business Park’s utilities to Recycled Energy Development, which marks a major step in the Park’s revitalization and provides stability for the Park and its tenant companies.”
