Imation NYSE: IMN is a US based multi-national corporation that designs, manufactures, sources or markets a wide range of recordable data storage media and consumer electronics products.
The company is a 1996 spin off of 3M and is headquartered in Oakdale, Minnesota. The company originally consisted of former 3M divisions involved in the design, manufacture and sales of data storage, medical imaging, printing, photographic film, optical and specialty paper products. Imation has since sold all but its core data storage media products business.
The company has been involved in the development of many technological improvements in data storage, such as the introduction of the first magnetic tape in 1947, the first quarter inch tape cartridge for data storage (QIC) in 1971 and the 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy diskette in 1984. The company now has a market presence in more than 100 countries.
Imation Corp. (Imation) is a global developer and marketer of branded products that enable people to capture, save and enjoy digital information. The Company’s portfolio of recordable optical media, magnetic tape media, flash products and consumer electronic products and accessories reaches customers in approximately 100 countries through its global distribution network. Its global brand portfolio includes the Imation brand, the Memorex brand, and the XtremeMac brand. Imation is also the exclusive licensee of the TDK Life on Record brand. Imation operate in two market categories: removable data storage products and accessories and audio and video consumer electronic products and accessories (electronic products). In March 2011, the Company acquired ENCRYPTX Corporation.
Data Storage Products
The Company’s recordable optical media products consist of compact disc (CDs), digital versatile disc (DVDs) and Blu-ray recordable media. It sells Blu-ray discs, which are used primarily for recording high-definition video content. Its recordable optical media products are sold through a variety of retail and commercial distribution channels and sourced from manufacturers primarily in Taiwan and India. Optical storage capacities range from 650 megabyte CD-R (recordable) and CD-RW (rewritable) optical discs to 9.4 gigabyte (GB) double-sided DVD optical discs and Blu-ray discs with 25 gigabit to 50 gigabit of capacity. Its optical media is sold throughout the world under brands it owns or controls, including Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record, and under a distribution agreement for the Hewlett Packard brand.
The Company’s magnetic tape products consist of data storage tape media, audio and video tape products and floppy diskettes. Data storage tape media is used for back-up, business and operational continuity planning, disaster recovery, near-line data storage and retrieval and for cost-effective mass and archival storage. Major application areas for magnetic tape products include enterprise data centers, network servers, and for the data storage needs of small to medium sized businesses. Native capacity of its tape products range from less than 10 gigabit up to 1.6 terabytes (TB) per cartridge.
Imation’s flash products consist of USB flash drives, solid state drives and flash cards. Its flash media is sourced from manufacturers in Asia and sold through a variety of retail and commercial distribution channels around the world. USB flash drives have capacities ranging from 1 gigabit up to 32 gigabit and capacities continue to increase as new products are introduced. It sells a limited amount of flash cards. Its product portfolio also includes Imation brand solid state drives (SSD) with capacities up to 128 gigabit. Its flash products are sold throughout the world under its Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record brands.
Consumer Electronic Products, Accessories and Other
Imation’s consumer electronic products and accessories consist of CD and DVD players, alarm clocks, portable boom boxes, Moving Picture Experts Group Layer-3 Audio (MP3) players, Apple iPod and iPhone accessories, flat panel televisions, headphones, speakers, karaoke machines and gaming accessories sold under the Memorex, TDK Life on Record and XtremeMac brands. The portfolio continues to evolve with consumer demand and with development of our brands. Its consumer electronic products and accessories are generally sourced from manufacturers throughout Asia. Its other products include external and removable hard disk drives. The Imation RDX removable hard disk cartridge is a tape replacement solution that includes high-capacity, rugged and removable 2.5-inch hard disk drive cartridges with 160 gigabit to 500 gigabit capacities.
Marketing Research Group
The Market Research Group provides insightful solutions for businesses around the globe and uncovers answers to issues worldwide. It consists of businesses consolidated under Opinion Research Corporation (ORC). ORC has its worldwide headquarters in Princeton, N.J, and offices across the United States, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. ORC offers a portfolio of research products and services, which provide insight into the attitudes and needs of both consumers and business executives across a range of industries. ORC operates in Asia as NWC Opinion Research, with offices in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Kuala Lumpur; in Europe as ORC International with offices in London, Manchester and Edinburgh, and in the United States as ORC with offices in Princeton, New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, and Seattle. Macro International Inc. (Macro), an applied social research company and a former subsidiary within the Marketing Research Group, was divested during the year ended December 31, 2009.
Wall Street greeted Imation's stock with less than unbridled enthusiasm. From an initial price of $33 a share it had fallen to $20 by the end of July 1996, and after regaining the $33 mark in December it began a slow but steady decline to under $24 by July 1997. Analysts and investors alike were clearly waiting to see signs that the businesses that had been unprofitable for so long with 3M had discovered the secret of success. Imation's management set a goal of achieving 15 percent annual growth in earnings per share by 1998 and in 1996--97 confidently added offices in the Philippines, Singapore, and Russia to its existing presence in such emerging markets as China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil. In July 1996 it sold off its Italian offset plate plant, reached an agreement with Israel's Scitex Corp. to create a new large-format digital proofing system, and in February 1997 won an agreement with Germany's Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG to integrate Imation's LS-120 drive technology into some of its European computers. In April, Imation convinced Samsung Electronics of Korea Co. to preinstall LS-120 drives in two of its multimedia PCs, and in August 1997 Imation and Norway's Tandberg Data ASA agreed to jointly design and manufacture new data cartridge technologies for the growing network server segment of the data storage market.
Although Imation managed in its first three months to break the 11-quarter string of stagnant revenue growth that stretched back to its 3M years, in its second quarter it posted a $37.8 million loss. While its hoped-for penetration of the RDS market continued to rest on the uncertain fortunes of the LS-120 diskette, Imation turned to acquisitions, partnerships, and new product launches to solidify its business. In August 1996 it bought Seattle-based Luminous Corporation, a developer of digital desktop publishing software, to strengthen its line of prepress printing products for the growing digital segment of the printing industry. In May 1997 it announced the acquisition of Cemax-Icon Inc., a developer of software and systems integrator for the medical imaging and information management industry, and in June it acquired Minnesota web developer Imaginet, which resulted in the creation of Imation Internet Services, Imation's bid to gain a foothold in the exploding Internet/intranet market. It partnered with Presstek in April 1997 to develop new digital halftone imaging solutions and with TeraStor Corporation to manufacture the latter's 20-GB "near field" data storage system. It also closed cooperative agreements with ECRM Corporation of Massachusetts to develop dry film imaging technology for the graphic arts industry and with ATL Ultrasound Inc. to provide its DryView Laser Imagers for use in ATL's mobile ultrasound demonstration vans.
It also stayed true to its 3M roots by unveiling a slew of new products and services, including winning its first non-3M patent in October 1996 (for a Travan RDS minicartridge design). In 1996 alone, Imation introduced a digital proofing system for the printing industry under its Matchprint brand, won a multimillion-dollar contract from the defense department for its medical imaging equipment and X-ray film, and launched a large-format color proofing system that promised to eliminate two hours from the prepress process used in the printing of posters and other oversize printed materials. In the fall of 1996 it announced a further advance in its continuing contributions to the digital revolution underway in the printing industry by announcing that its Rainbow digital color proofing system had been integrated within an automated prepress workflow environment created by Luminous. In a flurry of year-end product launches, it also introduced a Windows-compatible version of its printing workflow productivity software, Rainbow, which had previously been available only in a Macintosh version; installed its 1,000th DryView Laser Imager (only nine months after the product's introduction); unveiled an improved version of its single-use disposable camera; introduced its Image Acquisition Manager Plus system for transmitting medical images across computer networks; and began shipping a compact film handling and processing system.
In 1997 Imation continued to act like a miniature version of 3M by unleashing a new torrent of products and features. In March, technology giant Hewlett-Packard announced that Imation's DryView Laser Imager was its choice for hospital demonstrations of its new ultrasound system. In April, Imation unveiled a software product for monitoring and improving the productivity and security of backup tape libraries in client/server environments, which it developed in a joint arrangement with Sterling Software of California. Later that month it announced the expansion of its Rainbow color proofing software to work with Adobe's widely used PostScript language and through Luminous it unveiled a new software program that would allow printers to send proofs of their printing work to clients via a remote phone line connection for their approval. It also introduced new features for its Matchprint Laser Proof product line that would enable it to move closer to its goal of providing a "total customer solution" for the new age of digital printing technology. Its new PrintersWeb software, for example, would enable printing firms to create an entire web site out of the box, which would allow them to offer clients job tracking, estimating, quotes, customer service, and even over-the-Internet transmission of completed printing jobs via the World Wide Web.
Though admitting that its earnings for the second quarter of 1997 would fall under analyst's estimates, Imation kept its new product juggernaut rolling with the introduction of a new family of RDS cartridges geared specifically to the business client/server and workstation environments, a tape library system that automates tape backup and data archiving for business computer networks, and a new generation of X-ray process films that use 50 percent less developer chemicals than existing products but with no loss of image quality.
Imation was meanwhile holding its own in its most visible and important product line: removable data storage for the business and consumer PC market. Although more and more vendors and computer manufacturers--including Hitachi-Maxell, Fujitsu, and Exabyte--were offering Imation's LS-120 backward-compatible disk drives, the pace of growth was slower than expected despite the fact that Iomega had partially fumbled its early market lead by being forced to recall thousands of its Jaz drives for defects. To jump start LS-120 sales, in June Imation renamed the product SuperDisk, wrapped it in a new snazzy package, and introduced a new external SuperDisk drive that would enable users to switch it from computer to computer. Major obstacles remained in Imation's path, however. It seemed unable to win Wall Street's confidence, and though Iomega had signally failed to make good on its claim that its Zip and Jaz drives would replace the tired-but-true 1.44-MB diskette, so too had the LS-120/SuperDisk. By the spring of 1997 only 15 percent of Compaq's computers came with the LS-120/SuperDisk preinstalled instead of the standard 1.44-MB 3.5-inch disk drive.
Principal Subsidiaries: Luminous Technology Inc.; Imation Australia New Zealand Pty. Ltd.; Imation Corp. Japan; Imation Hong Kong Ltd.; Imation Korea; Imation New Zealand; Imation Singapore Pte.
OVERALL
Beta: 1.29
Market Cap (Mil.): $361.10
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 38.66
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
IMN Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): -- 13.22 19.04
EPS (TTM): -380.49 -- --
ROI: -17.62 15.17 16.08
ROE: -19.32 17.08 17.75
Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1996
Employees: 9,700
Sales: $2.3 billion (1996)
Stock Exchanges: New York
SICs: 3679 Data Storage & Imaging Systems; 3695 Magnetic & Optical Recording Media; 3695 Computer Software Tape & Disks, Blank: Rigid & Floppy; 3555 Printing Machines & Equipment; 3861 Photographic Equipment & Accessories, Camera & X-ray Film; 3844 X-ray Apparatus & Tubes: Medical, Industrial, Research, & Control
Name Age Since Current Position
Lucas, Mark 56 2010 President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
Zeller, Paul 50 2009 Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President
Kulkarni, Subodh 47 2009 Senior Vice President - OEM and Emerging Business, Chief Technology Officer
Sullivan, John 56 1998 Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
Bosler, Greg 49 2010 Senior Vice President - Global Business Management
Robinson, Scott 44 2010 Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer, Corporate Controller
Williams, Ian 2011 Vice President - Global Marketing and Product Management
Ellis, James 53 2008 Vice President - Strategy and M&A
Leung, Raymond 54 2007 Director
White, Daryl 63 1996 Independent Director
LeMay, Ronald 66 1996 Independent Director
Taylor, Glen 69 2000 Independent Director
Matthews, L. White 65 2003 Independent Director
Haggerty, Charles 69 2004 Independent Director
Berg, David 49 2010 Independent Director
Rautio, Trudy 58 2010 Independent Director
Address:
One Imation Place
Oakdale, Minnesota 55128-3414
U.S.A.
The company is a 1996 spin off of 3M and is headquartered in Oakdale, Minnesota. The company originally consisted of former 3M divisions involved in the design, manufacture and sales of data storage, medical imaging, printing, photographic film, optical and specialty paper products. Imation has since sold all but its core data storage media products business.
The company has been involved in the development of many technological improvements in data storage, such as the introduction of the first magnetic tape in 1947, the first quarter inch tape cartridge for data storage (QIC) in 1971 and the 3.5-inch (89 mm) floppy diskette in 1984. The company now has a market presence in more than 100 countries.
Imation Corp. (Imation) is a global developer and marketer of branded products that enable people to capture, save and enjoy digital information. The Company’s portfolio of recordable optical media, magnetic tape media, flash products and consumer electronic products and accessories reaches customers in approximately 100 countries through its global distribution network. Its global brand portfolio includes the Imation brand, the Memorex brand, and the XtremeMac brand. Imation is also the exclusive licensee of the TDK Life on Record brand. Imation operate in two market categories: removable data storage products and accessories and audio and video consumer electronic products and accessories (electronic products). In March 2011, the Company acquired ENCRYPTX Corporation.
Data Storage Products
The Company’s recordable optical media products consist of compact disc (CDs), digital versatile disc (DVDs) and Blu-ray recordable media. It sells Blu-ray discs, which are used primarily for recording high-definition video content. Its recordable optical media products are sold through a variety of retail and commercial distribution channels and sourced from manufacturers primarily in Taiwan and India. Optical storage capacities range from 650 megabyte CD-R (recordable) and CD-RW (rewritable) optical discs to 9.4 gigabyte (GB) double-sided DVD optical discs and Blu-ray discs with 25 gigabit to 50 gigabit of capacity. Its optical media is sold throughout the world under brands it owns or controls, including Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record, and under a distribution agreement for the Hewlett Packard brand.
The Company’s magnetic tape products consist of data storage tape media, audio and video tape products and floppy diskettes. Data storage tape media is used for back-up, business and operational continuity planning, disaster recovery, near-line data storage and retrieval and for cost-effective mass and archival storage. Major application areas for magnetic tape products include enterprise data centers, network servers, and for the data storage needs of small to medium sized businesses. Native capacity of its tape products range from less than 10 gigabit up to 1.6 terabytes (TB) per cartridge.
Imation’s flash products consist of USB flash drives, solid state drives and flash cards. Its flash media is sourced from manufacturers in Asia and sold through a variety of retail and commercial distribution channels around the world. USB flash drives have capacities ranging from 1 gigabit up to 32 gigabit and capacities continue to increase as new products are introduced. It sells a limited amount of flash cards. Its product portfolio also includes Imation brand solid state drives (SSD) with capacities up to 128 gigabit. Its flash products are sold throughout the world under its Imation, Memorex and TDK Life on Record brands.
Consumer Electronic Products, Accessories and Other
Imation’s consumer electronic products and accessories consist of CD and DVD players, alarm clocks, portable boom boxes, Moving Picture Experts Group Layer-3 Audio (MP3) players, Apple iPod and iPhone accessories, flat panel televisions, headphones, speakers, karaoke machines and gaming accessories sold under the Memorex, TDK Life on Record and XtremeMac brands. The portfolio continues to evolve with consumer demand and with development of our brands. Its consumer electronic products and accessories are generally sourced from manufacturers throughout Asia. Its other products include external and removable hard disk drives. The Imation RDX removable hard disk cartridge is a tape replacement solution that includes high-capacity, rugged and removable 2.5-inch hard disk drive cartridges with 160 gigabit to 500 gigabit capacities.
Marketing Research Group
The Market Research Group provides insightful solutions for businesses around the globe and uncovers answers to issues worldwide. It consists of businesses consolidated under Opinion Research Corporation (ORC). ORC has its worldwide headquarters in Princeton, N.J, and offices across the United States, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. ORC offers a portfolio of research products and services, which provide insight into the attitudes and needs of both consumers and business executives across a range of industries. ORC operates in Asia as NWC Opinion Research, with offices in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Kuala Lumpur; in Europe as ORC International with offices in London, Manchester and Edinburgh, and in the United States as ORC with offices in Princeton, New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, and Seattle. Macro International Inc. (Macro), an applied social research company and a former subsidiary within the Marketing Research Group, was divested during the year ended December 31, 2009.
Wall Street greeted Imation's stock with less than unbridled enthusiasm. From an initial price of $33 a share it had fallen to $20 by the end of July 1996, and after regaining the $33 mark in December it began a slow but steady decline to under $24 by July 1997. Analysts and investors alike were clearly waiting to see signs that the businesses that had been unprofitable for so long with 3M had discovered the secret of success. Imation's management set a goal of achieving 15 percent annual growth in earnings per share by 1998 and in 1996--97 confidently added offices in the Philippines, Singapore, and Russia to its existing presence in such emerging markets as China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil. In July 1996 it sold off its Italian offset plate plant, reached an agreement with Israel's Scitex Corp. to create a new large-format digital proofing system, and in February 1997 won an agreement with Germany's Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG to integrate Imation's LS-120 drive technology into some of its European computers. In April, Imation convinced Samsung Electronics of Korea Co. to preinstall LS-120 drives in two of its multimedia PCs, and in August 1997 Imation and Norway's Tandberg Data ASA agreed to jointly design and manufacture new data cartridge technologies for the growing network server segment of the data storage market.
Although Imation managed in its first three months to break the 11-quarter string of stagnant revenue growth that stretched back to its 3M years, in its second quarter it posted a $37.8 million loss. While its hoped-for penetration of the RDS market continued to rest on the uncertain fortunes of the LS-120 diskette, Imation turned to acquisitions, partnerships, and new product launches to solidify its business. In August 1996 it bought Seattle-based Luminous Corporation, a developer of digital desktop publishing software, to strengthen its line of prepress printing products for the growing digital segment of the printing industry. In May 1997 it announced the acquisition of Cemax-Icon Inc., a developer of software and systems integrator for the medical imaging and information management industry, and in June it acquired Minnesota web developer Imaginet, which resulted in the creation of Imation Internet Services, Imation's bid to gain a foothold in the exploding Internet/intranet market. It partnered with Presstek in April 1997 to develop new digital halftone imaging solutions and with TeraStor Corporation to manufacture the latter's 20-GB "near field" data storage system. It also closed cooperative agreements with ECRM Corporation of Massachusetts to develop dry film imaging technology for the graphic arts industry and with ATL Ultrasound Inc. to provide its DryView Laser Imagers for use in ATL's mobile ultrasound demonstration vans.
It also stayed true to its 3M roots by unveiling a slew of new products and services, including winning its first non-3M patent in October 1996 (for a Travan RDS minicartridge design). In 1996 alone, Imation introduced a digital proofing system for the printing industry under its Matchprint brand, won a multimillion-dollar contract from the defense department for its medical imaging equipment and X-ray film, and launched a large-format color proofing system that promised to eliminate two hours from the prepress process used in the printing of posters and other oversize printed materials. In the fall of 1996 it announced a further advance in its continuing contributions to the digital revolution underway in the printing industry by announcing that its Rainbow digital color proofing system had been integrated within an automated prepress workflow environment created by Luminous. In a flurry of year-end product launches, it also introduced a Windows-compatible version of its printing workflow productivity software, Rainbow, which had previously been available only in a Macintosh version; installed its 1,000th DryView Laser Imager (only nine months after the product's introduction); unveiled an improved version of its single-use disposable camera; introduced its Image Acquisition Manager Plus system for transmitting medical images across computer networks; and began shipping a compact film handling and processing system.
In 1997 Imation continued to act like a miniature version of 3M by unleashing a new torrent of products and features. In March, technology giant Hewlett-Packard announced that Imation's DryView Laser Imager was its choice for hospital demonstrations of its new ultrasound system. In April, Imation unveiled a software product for monitoring and improving the productivity and security of backup tape libraries in client/server environments, which it developed in a joint arrangement with Sterling Software of California. Later that month it announced the expansion of its Rainbow color proofing software to work with Adobe's widely used PostScript language and through Luminous it unveiled a new software program that would allow printers to send proofs of their printing work to clients via a remote phone line connection for their approval. It also introduced new features for its Matchprint Laser Proof product line that would enable it to move closer to its goal of providing a "total customer solution" for the new age of digital printing technology. Its new PrintersWeb software, for example, would enable printing firms to create an entire web site out of the box, which would allow them to offer clients job tracking, estimating, quotes, customer service, and even over-the-Internet transmission of completed printing jobs via the World Wide Web.
Though admitting that its earnings for the second quarter of 1997 would fall under analyst's estimates, Imation kept its new product juggernaut rolling with the introduction of a new family of RDS cartridges geared specifically to the business client/server and workstation environments, a tape library system that automates tape backup and data archiving for business computer networks, and a new generation of X-ray process films that use 50 percent less developer chemicals than existing products but with no loss of image quality.
Imation was meanwhile holding its own in its most visible and important product line: removable data storage for the business and consumer PC market. Although more and more vendors and computer manufacturers--including Hitachi-Maxell, Fujitsu, and Exabyte--were offering Imation's LS-120 backward-compatible disk drives, the pace of growth was slower than expected despite the fact that Iomega had partially fumbled its early market lead by being forced to recall thousands of its Jaz drives for defects. To jump start LS-120 sales, in June Imation renamed the product SuperDisk, wrapped it in a new snazzy package, and introduced a new external SuperDisk drive that would enable users to switch it from computer to computer. Major obstacles remained in Imation's path, however. It seemed unable to win Wall Street's confidence, and though Iomega had signally failed to make good on its claim that its Zip and Jaz drives would replace the tired-but-true 1.44-MB diskette, so too had the LS-120/SuperDisk. By the spring of 1997 only 15 percent of Compaq's computers came with the LS-120/SuperDisk preinstalled instead of the standard 1.44-MB 3.5-inch disk drive.
Principal Subsidiaries: Luminous Technology Inc.; Imation Australia New Zealand Pty. Ltd.; Imation Corp. Japan; Imation Hong Kong Ltd.; Imation Korea; Imation New Zealand; Imation Singapore Pte.
OVERALL
Beta: 1.29
Market Cap (Mil.): $361.10
Shares Outstanding (Mil.): 38.66
Annual Dividend: --
Yield (%): --
FINANCIALS
IMN Industry Sector
P/E (TTM): -- 13.22 19.04
EPS (TTM): -380.49 -- --
ROI: -17.62 15.17 16.08
ROE: -19.32 17.08 17.75
Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1996
Employees: 9,700
Sales: $2.3 billion (1996)
Stock Exchanges: New York
SICs: 3679 Data Storage & Imaging Systems; 3695 Magnetic & Optical Recording Media; 3695 Computer Software Tape & Disks, Blank: Rigid & Floppy; 3555 Printing Machines & Equipment; 3861 Photographic Equipment & Accessories, Camera & X-ray Film; 3844 X-ray Apparatus & Tubes: Medical, Industrial, Research, & Control
Name Age Since Current Position
Lucas, Mark 56 2010 President, Chief Executive Officer, Director
Zeller, Paul 50 2009 Chief Financial Officer, Senior Vice President
Kulkarni, Subodh 47 2009 Senior Vice President - OEM and Emerging Business, Chief Technology Officer
Sullivan, John 56 1998 Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary
Bosler, Greg 49 2010 Senior Vice President - Global Business Management
Robinson, Scott 44 2010 Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer, Corporate Controller
Williams, Ian 2011 Vice President - Global Marketing and Product Management
Ellis, James 53 2008 Vice President - Strategy and M&A
Leung, Raymond 54 2007 Director
White, Daryl 63 1996 Independent Director
LeMay, Ronald 66 1996 Independent Director
Taylor, Glen 69 2000 Independent Director
Matthews, L. White 65 2003 Independent Director
Haggerty, Charles 69 2004 Independent Director
Berg, David 49 2010 Independent Director
Rautio, Trudy 58 2010 Independent Director
Address:
One Imation Place
Oakdale, Minnesota 55128-3414
U.S.A.