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Sorry - Phase One sold to a Capital fund for 150 mio. US

Thorkil

Well-known member
Sorry to tell - the danish company Phase One is sold to a Danish Capital fund Axcel for 150 mio. US doller.
My "national enthusiasm" has thereby decreased while Capital Funds are known for not paying tax (in contrary to our nearby all other national company's) to the welfare system in which they operate, and here Denmark.
And known for pumping the finances up and thereafter selling again, often with big untaxed profits - and sometimes with an uncertain life in the future (because of "overdone" value).
That is a shame, but is unfortunately taking place all over.
A very bad choice of direction to chose such a buyer - for such an else good company.
Thorkil
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Assuming the fund acts according to the law I ask myself "who is to blame"? The fund for using the legal options or the Danish legislator establishing a law that allows this?
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Assuming the fund acts according to the law I ask myself "who is to blame"? The fund for using the legal options or the Danish legislator establishing a law that allows this?
Laws are mostly designed for "normal" businesses. There will always be loopholes, and some categories of businesses are designed to utilise those loopholes to the maximum. Equity funds have only one purpose: To maximise the profit for their investors. Designing laws to tax those funds would make life very complicated for ordinary businesses.
 

vjbelle

Well-known member
As someone who has been in the M&A business it is rare for a seller to pick a buyer but almost always the case that an entity is on the block and it's a buyer who determines the final acquisition price. The purchase price, if true, shows just how small Phase is.

Victor
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I'll trade you two of your political problem children for one of ours :)
 

Thorkil

Well-known member
without being an expert - there are work being done in EU to create a commen unity against hosting tax-fugitives. Luxenburg, Ireland, Holland and ranking high on the list as "problem-kids" so to speak in EU. I don't remember the excact word in our tax-laws in Denmark, but there is a general a bit floffy rule saying something like If kapital are moved to or there are made constructions which have no obvious purpose according to the normal work or behavior in the company, it is a deliberate action only made to avoid paying tax. So the leak of the Panama papers made many companys and privatpersons involuntarely gettinng out in the spotlight to be investigated by the tax-outhorities, and some of them has been taking action against by now.
But we have problem getting people who are doing fraud against the state Denmark delivered by authorities in England where he/they live.
I'm not claiming that all of the capital fund are doing unlegal actions, but its a huge grayzone, which the politicians unforthunatly carefully are avoiding doing something about, even though its giving unfair compition the countrys between, which is against the intention and rules in generel in EU itself - and where a lot of the capital funds are looking the slip through all the small holes they can find.
In general its a problem for welfarestates with high standards, if the companys avoid paying tax and the citicens are moving lets say to Spain also to avoid pay tax, lets say in Denmark (and they are even though allowed to stay in Denmark half of the year without paying tax). If we all did so, who would then be back to finance the welfaresystem?
So yes its unforthunatly a commen action to see in the capital market, floding towards country with the biggest holes and where the mainoffice in a company can stay unnoticed in an empty rusty mailbox somewhere in a foreign country. But this are actions where the welfarestates and thereby the commen citicens are the loosers.
But here I was just naiv giving Phase One high credits previously, but now it seeems they just act as all the other bad boys...
Just therefore I was a bit dissapointed by reading the news.
Well its about being a bit offtopic now I know...
best Thorkil
PS. but I have to still use C1 in the future...
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
...
Equity funds have only one purpose: To maximise the profit for their investors.
....
On our side of the pond, ALL companies with multiple investors have that single purpose. Indeed, they can be, and regularly are, sued for failing to adhere to that principle. It sounds better when it's called "fiduciary duty". It was originally intended to protect investors against, e.g., the majority stockholder CEO selling the entire company to himself for $1.

When things like quality, reputation, and customer service align with profit, we are happy with the results. But make no mistake - profit wins. This is barely a controversial point of view. The vast majority of Americans, left and right, accept it as an axiom.

Matt
 
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pegelli

Well-known member
Designing laws to tax those funds would make life very complicated for ordinary businesses.
I don't think so, closing these so-called loopholes can be done in a way that they only effect those that use the loopholes. It just needs to get higher on the political radar. For a short time (during the Panama papers disclosure) it was but I think it slipped below the radar again. It's noty a sexy subject and doesn't get you many votes, so it will take a long time to change (if it will at all)
 

Thorkil

Well-known member
The other day in the paper one company owner among the teen riches in Denmark declared that he was very very happy to pay the company-tax here (22%), and encouraged other copmpany-owners to be so, because, for that amount it provide him skilled and well educated workers, it provides free children care, free schools of good standard, free higher education, free healthcare, free hospitals, a well coordinated society, without exceptionel powerty, relativ low criminal rate ands so on. Other company-owners has declared same way, by the way nr. 4 on the "rich-list"..
so its often just a matter of decent relation of ones role in the society, and what the society provide for you, and not a matter of how much can I cheat without being noticed...or at least it ought to be so in general - decent behavior and humble recognition of what the society with "high" tax pay back for you, and what you owe to it - and it can't be underestimated.
 

Thorkil

Well-known member
So bottom line what does this mean to Phase owners and the entire Phase line such as C1?
hopefully nothing, both in the short run, and in the future. But I fear the future, because perhaps, even though I don't know the company inside, there could be a risk for the "united-spirit" to leave,
and that could be followed by a decrease, and that the most importent people could be in risk leaving. But it depends on how the mood will go on, but with the new owners I fear...
but of course one must give it a chance, the possibility tgo be possitive surprised, but...time itself are the hard judge
 

dave.gt

Well-known member
hopefully nothing, both in the short run, and in the future. But I fear the future, because perhaps, even though I don't know the company inside, there could be a risk for the "united-spirit" to leave,
and that could be followed by a decrease, and that the most importent people could be in risk leaving. But it depends on how the mood will go on, but with the new owners I fear...
but of course one must give it a chance, the possibility tgo be possitive surprised, but...time itself are the hard judge
Sounds like business as usual over here. :banghead:
 

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
Since the majority on this forum come here for discussions about Gear and sometimes photography ..in that order...most of us do not concern ourselves with the fairness of VC firms in Denmark . Suggest we drop the political discussion for which almost all of us know very little and care even less.

The question is what does this imply for Phase One ?

The past five years have been very good to P1 and their VC ..plenty of growth and even some profits . It appears that the VC picked a reasonable time to exit .

The next five years look much more difficult ..Fuji has come through as a major competitor with exceptional products and a massive market price advantage . The MF market appears to have limited potential for improvement in IQ without a break thru approach . The physical size of the pixel is limiting the upside in MPs if you want a balanced performance . So why upgrade .

Looking at P1 today the value is in the software ..Capture One is on a roll and could be expanded into the defecto standard for best image quality (if its not already there). I would expect that the new VC firm is looking at the break up value of P1 .

Continuing to run P1 as it has been for the last five years looks to be a strategy of no return .
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
Just read these new thread and ...

if this is real true then I could not be happier to have mainly stayed with Adobe solutions over the past 2 years already. While C1 Pro was my first RAW developer some 16 years ago and I still kept updating till today I find myself constantly using LR Classic and LR CC today as it makes my workflow so much easier. And with some knowledge and some work I achieve similar or even better results compared to C1Pro.

Ok I know that C1Pro is only one part of the story as Phase One also sells their cameras and backs. I have been a fan of these for years and maybe technically they are still the top of the line one can get today, but the release of the Fuji GFX100 marks a real change in the world of digital medium format camera systems. I am no pro user anymore and doubt if I would go back into MFD anytime in my life but if I would I definitely would go with Fuji GFX. They simply rock digital MFD today and I guess also in the future.

Why I mention all this? For me it is obvious that finally the successful release of the GFX100 at least started some very hard times for Phase One. This may be one of the reasons why all these transformations start happening right now.

Well don't cry - IMO we have more options today and in the future than in the past and also IMO these options are much more delightful :thumbs:
 

Thorkil

Well-known member
Why is a Phase One thread on the Nikon forum?:shocked:
That is solely my fault Dave :)
But the reason is that I'm only "connected with" Phase One trough the C1 software, so in that light it could as well be anywhere.
But as I'm not posting in the Medium Format Forum I thought it would be more familiar for me posting here..
But the right place then could have been "Image processing" where I also don't post...:angel:
 

pegelli

Well-known member
Suggest we drop the political discussion for which almost all of us know very little and care even less.
That's funny, the person who started this thread thought very different about that.

It might be a good idea to drop the political discussion, but not because "almost all of us know very little and care even less". Assuming what others know and think is not a good strategy for a valuable discussion here imho.
 

dave.gt

Well-known member
That is solely my fault Dave :)
But the reason is that I'm only "connected with" Phase One trough the C1 software, so in that light it could as well be anywhere.
But as I'm not posting in the Medium Format Forum I thought it would be more familiar for me posting here..
But the right place then could have been "Image processing" where I also don't post...:angel:
No worries from me. It is just disorienting when I click on the Nikon Forum and see Phase One, as a business, being discussed. Phase One is of course, MFD and it just seems an odd thread for the Nikon forum.:)

As an aside, I was looking at your splendid "Deer in the Forest" images today. Again!

Whatever it took you to get those images, I only wish I could borrow the fortune that you used so well to capture them. Still loving them and I still have no idea which software you used, but keep doing what you are doing and share with us!!!:thumbup:
 

bab

Active member
So not owning any P1 gear I have a question does P1 owe promised firmware updates to new cameras that have been sold to users based on these promises...if so then it makes sense that the sale of the company has been in the works for sometime.
 
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