Kodak, which invented the digital camera but had trouble adjusting to the digital age, was betting on an auction of its 1,100 patents to raise funds to repay money borrowed to finance its bankruptcy.

The company, which estimates its patents to be worth between $2.2 billion and $2.6 billion, received only sub-$500 million bids from investor groups, including Apple Inc and Google Inc, according to media reports.

Kodak has declined to comment on the sale and has delayed several times a bankruptcy court hearing during which it would reveal the details of the sale. The hearing on the sale was first set for August 20 and is now scheduled for September 19.

If the sale falls flat, the company will need to find other ways to raise the money to pay creditors as it looks to exit bankruptcy by early 2013.

Kodak's employee base has shrunk to about 17,100 at the end of last year from about 145,000 during the 1980s.

The company, which at one point employed more than 60,000 people in its hometown Rochester in upstate New York alone, did not disclose where the latest cuts would be made.

It has already reduced its workforce by about 2,700 worldwide since the beginning of 2012, and expects to save about $330 million from these fresh job cuts.

Kodak also said its Chief Financial Officer Antoinette McCorvey and its Chief Operating Officer Philip Faraci will leave the company.

The company named Rebecca Roof as interim CFO. Roof has helped other companies successfully emerge from bankruptcies.

Kodak, which said last month that it would sell most of its consumer and document imaging businesses, will retain the services of the presidents of these divisions until they are sold off in the first half of 2013.

(Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan and Sayantani Ghosh in Bangalore, Additional reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Sriraj Kalluvila)

• A Permanent Economic Emergency