Minority Interest
The term minority interest in the balance sheet of Eastman Kodakappears in the balance sheet as reported by all the major sources. The termis used with a meaning not common in most other applications. In thefinancial world, the term minority is normally used to mean a group ofshareholders who are not associated with the group who are running thecompany. Often enough this group is just interested in the dividends andother benefits that they can get from the company. Some companies also givelarge and regular dividends, and this stops the price
There may be an attempt to buy up theshares of the company and reducing the total number of outstanding sharesas even the balance cash is not declared. This is theexpected action of the "investors". of the share fromincreasing very much. However, any share will normally declare a dividend, as that is seen as oneof the obligations of the managers of the company. In the case of Eastman Kodak, the termminority interest is shown against the declaration under the heading ofliabilities, but not under current liabilities, and along with mortgages,deferred taxes/income, convertible debt, long term debt, non-currentcapital leases, and other non-current liabilities. The total number ofshares outstanding is also not shown. These shares are termed in the stock market as"widow's shares" as a person can depend on them for regular income. The important point to note is that the figure for this hasbeen shown as N/A for the year ended 31st December 2003, whereas for allearlier years from 1999, this has been shown as 0. The dividend normally does not yield as much as fixed deposits infinancial institutions as the shareholder can earn much more through theappreciation of the share price and selling it when the prices are highafter having bought the share when the prices were low. In short this is viewed as a long term liability to the minorityshareholders. Is it because the figures are stillnot available, or is something else the reason' One of course notes thatthe figure against all the other long term liabilities are also shown asnot available compared to nil in the previous years, except for long termdebt and other long term liabilities.
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