Kodak Shares Surge After $793M Bankruptcy Funds Gained

Shares of bankrupt imaging giant Eastman Kodak Co. (PinkL EKDKQ) surged Tuesday after the company announced it raised $793 million in debt financing.

In late trading, shares of the Rochester, N.Y.-based company that filed for bankruptcy in January rose as much as 5 percent to 23 cents before easing back to 21.5 cents in late trading, valuing the company at $58.6 million. In its heyday, Kodak was valued above $200 billion.

Kodak announced JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), UBS (NYSE: UBS), Centerbridge Capital Partners and GSO Capital Partners were among creditors supplying the new funds. The company said it hopes to emerge as a printing specialist by mid-2013, divesting all its photography assets.

One condition of the financing: Kodak must finally sell a block of imaging patents, once valued as high as $3 billion, for at least $500 million. Kodak hired Lazard (NYSE: LAZ) to sell those patents in August 2011.

Another group of Kodak creditors advised U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Allan Gropper in Manhattan they'd “lost all faith” in the ability of CEO Antonio Perez to turn the company around, they said in a filing.

As with any matter involved with the bankruptcy, the judge will have to OK the financing and could reject the $793 million deal.

Earlier, Kodak's imaging patents were believed to be of interest to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), the most valuable technology company; Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), the top company in search and owner of the Motorola brand, and Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), the No. 1 chipmaker, which was involved in an auction for patents from defunct Nortel Networks of Canada in 2011.