Agfa-Gevaert N.V. (Agfa) is a Belgian-German multinational corporation that develops, manufactures, and distributes analogue and digital imaging products, software, and systems. The company began as a dye manufacturer in 1867. In 1925, the company merged with several other German chemical companies to become chemicals giant IG Farben. IG Farben would go on to play major role in the economy of Nazi Germany. It extensively employed forced and slave labor during the Nazi period, and produced Zyklon B poison gas used in the Holocaust. IG Farben was disestablished by the Allies in 1945. AGFA was reconstituted (as a subsidiary of Bayer) from the remnants of IG Farben in 1952. Agfa photographic film and cameras were once prominent consumer products. In 2004, the consumer imaging division was sold to a company founded via management buyout. AgfaPhoto GmbH, as the new company was called, filed for bankruptcy after a year, and its brands are now licensed to other companies by AgfaPhoto Holding GmbH, a holding firm. Today Agfa-Gevaert's commerce is 100% business-to-business.

History

Company structure

Agfa is headquartered in Mortsel, Belgium, with sales organisations in 40 countries. In countries where Agfa does not have its own sales organisation, the market is served by a network of agents and representatives. At the end of 2011, the company had 11,728 employees (full-time equivalent permanent) worldwide. Agfa has manufacturing plants around the world. The largest production and research centres are based in Belgium, the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and China. Net sales for 2011 totalled 3,023 million euros. Since January 1, 2019, two new entities emerged within the Agfa-Gevaert Group: Agfa HealthCare (ITCo) and Agfa (MainCo). Agfa HealthCare groups all IT-related activities of the former Agfa HealthCare business group. The newer Agfa includes the activities of the former Agfa Graphics and Agfa Specialty Products business groups, as well as the Imaging activities of the former Agfa HealthCare business group.

Agfa Healthcare

Agfa Healthcare is a developer of medical imaging information systems, with main offices in Mortsel (Belgium), Ghent (Belgium), Waterloo (Ontario, Canada), Shanghai (China) and Vienna (Austria).

Agfa division business groups

The activities of the Agfa division have been subdivided into three groups: Offset Solutions (the prepress business of the former Agfa Graphics business group), Digital Print & Chemicals (the inkjet business of the former Agfa Graphics business group and the activities of the former Agfa Specialty Products business group) and Radiology Solutions (the imaging activities of the former Agfa HealthCare business group).

Products

In 2004, Agfa-Gevaert withdrew from the consumer market, including photographic film, cameras and other photographic equipment. Because Agfa-Gevaert still produce photographic films for the aerial photography market, it is still possible to buy fresh, Agfa-produced photographic films for use in consumer cameras. They are sold by the Lomography Society and Rollei and are branded accordingly. This is because those companies purchase the aerial photography film from Agfa-Gevaert, and then cut and package it into consumer photographic formats. As of 2012, such products carry a small Agfa logo discreetly on their packaging, but are not sold as Agfa branded products. By contrast, Agfaphoto branded photographic films are not made by Agfa-Gevaert at all, originally having been made by the now closed Ferrania plant in Italy. Agfaphoto films are now produced by Fujifilm in Japan for Lupus Imaging Media.

Agfa cameras

Agfa produced a range of cameras which included:

SLR

Agfa slide projectors

Including, roughly in chronological order:

Agfa consumer and professional films

Black & White films: Colour reversal (slide) films: Colour negative films: While Agfa has retired from the photography branch, and the Agfaphoto brand was sold to a reseller named Lupus Imaging, the surviving Belgian industrial branch of Agfa continues to produce, among other things, B/W, colour negative and colour reversal materials for aerial photography. Some of these are cut to the usual 135 and 120 formats by Maco and distributed under the brand name Rollei. Specifically, these re-branded Agfa materials include Rollei Retro 80S, 200S and 400S, Digibase CN200 and CR200.

Scanners

Agfa produced many image scanners in the Arcus, DuoScan, SnapScan, StudioScan and StudioStar ranges. While they have all been discontinued and up-to-date drivers for them are not available from Agfa, Vuescan software supports many Agfa scanners on current computer operating systems.

Agfa darkroom equipment

Agfa papers

Agfa photographic papers were of very high quality; lines included: The production of material identical to the last generation of fibre-based and resin-coated photographic Agfa Multigrade papers has been resumed by Adox.