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In light of media reports and speculation, Agfa-Gevaert has been moved to make public a statement regarding the now insolvent company, AgfaPhoto GmbH, in Germany. The statement is published below in full. The German and international press have recently published various articles on an alleged payment due of 55 million Euro by Agfa-Gevaert to the insolvent AgfaPhoto GmbH in Germany.Immediately after the insolvency filing of AgfaPhoto in May 2005, Agfa-Gevaert has, in order to support the preliminary receiver and the new management in the objective to preserve the operations and employment of AgfaPhoto, agreed to continue to perform certain distribution, invoicing and collection activities for the account of AgfaPhoto and its subsidiaries. To this end an agreement was signed with AgfaPhoto GmbH’s preliminary receiver, Dr. Ringstmeier, and the new management of AgfaPhoto GmbH according to which Agfa-Gevaert is to pay for the goods supplied by AgfaPhoto GmbH only when the end customer has paid its invoices and to the extent that Agfa-Gevaert itself is not exposed to additional commercial and financial risks.
Today a substantial amount of receivables against end customers is still outstanding, meaning that these still need to be collected. Other, less significant amounts have been collected but it is unclear whether these are wholly or partially due to AgfaPhoto GmbH’s receiver or to other parties.
Agfa-Gevaert remains willing to co-operate with all parties concerned in order to resolve the pending issues under the distribution arrangements; Agfa-Gevaert is also prepared to simply put the collected amounts in an escrow account until a court decides on the allocation of these amounts.
The company regrets having to express itself on this issue through the media and expects that the matter be discussed in a constructive way where it belongs, that is among the parties concerned.
