Compañía de Empaques S.A.

What it is

Compañía de Empaques designs and manufactures packaging products, focused on natural and synthetic fibre solutions for the agro-industrial, oil and gas, mining, construction, and infrastructure sectors. Its range runs from sacks made with natural fibres and synthetic fabrics, to threads, ropes, braids, agricultural support systems, cartonplast sheets for perishable goods, plastic meshes, and polypropylene straps.

In nearly 87 years of operation the company has built a position as Colombia’s leader in packaging manufacture, with a portfolio spanning natural and synthetic fibres for the agricultural, construction, and paper and automotive sectors. The company was founded on 7 September 1938 and is headquartered in Itagüí, Colombia.

Who owns it

The company is listed on the BVC and is structured as a sociedad anónima (public limited company). Its code of ethics and good governance is addressed to the shareholders of Compañía de Empaques S.A. and its subordinate companies, as well as its service and goods suppliers and the state regulatory bodies with authority over the group’s activities.

Not published: the beneficial ownership breakdown — who holds what percentage and the size of the free float — is not disclosed in the sections of the 2024 consolidated annual report, the September 2025 periodic report (both on grupoexcala.com), or the BVC filing excerpts reviewed. Colombian securities law (Decreto 2555 de 2010 and Superintendencia Financiera circular CE 030 de 2021) requires listed issuers to identify controlling shareholders and beneficial owners above the 10% threshold in their periodic reports; the numeric breakdown for this company was not accessible in the public documents obtained for this profile.

Who runs it

The board of directors is chaired by Pedro Miguel Estrada Londoño, with Ignacio Vélez Londoño, Andrés Restrepo Isaza, Guillermo Gutiérrez Restrepo, and Luis Javier Zuluaga Palacio among the principal directors, and a parallel set of alternates. Day-to-day management sits with Juan David Garcés Arbeláez as President (CEO), Luis Fernando Correa Velásquez as Administrative and Financial Vice President (the CFO-equivalent role), and Natalia Escobar Mazo as Operations Vice President.

The external auditor is Olga Liliana Cabrales Pinto, designated by Deloitte & Touche S.A.S., whose clean opinion on the 2024 consolidated statements was issued alongside the annual report.

The money, in plain words

Sales in 2024 reached COP $424,950 million (~USD $128.8 million), a 6.3% rise on the prior year; yet the bottom-line profit came in at COP $7,884 million (~USD $2.39 million), down 49.6% from the COP $15,635 million earned in 2023. That translates to a net profit margin of 1.9% (our calculation) — thin for an industrial manufacturer, and far below the prior year’s 3.7% (our calculation).

The fall was driven mainly by the subsidiary companies, particularly Exc Packaging México, whose loss reached COP $5,072 million. The company also applied a conservative accounting policy and recognised an impairment of COP $18,718 million on an asset linked to a fique-crop supply contract — a write-down that depressed reported profit but did not affect cash or operating earnings.

Strip that one-off out and the picture brightens: operating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (a measure of cash-generating power before financing costs and accounting adjustments) rose 22.3%, from COP $50,108 million to COP $61,293 million, lifting the operating margin to 14.4%. That gap between a 14.4% operating margin and a 1.9% net margin tells investors that financing costs, the Mexico losses, and the write-down are the story — the Colombian core is healthy.

The company pays dividends monthly; the latest was COP $75 per share, giving a trailing dividend yield of 5.43% — notably generous for a stock trading at COP $14,700 and more than adequate compensation for a patient income investor.

What it is doing now

The company is pursuing international growth, including replicating in multiple countries the experience of its Mexican operation, which started in 2021. In 2024 the Guadalajara facility was relocated and its industrial footprint tripled, though currency depreciation of the Mexican peso against the US dollar dented that unit’s results.

On the product side, the company launched its “Slim” line — polypropylene sacks with thinner walls and the same load capacity, reducing material use — and introduced an “Eco” line incorporating up to 20% recycled content. The group’s 2024 board report to shareholders covered strategies for growth and sustainability across the countries in which it operates.

The traditional retail channel grew sales 14% and added 2,550 new points of sale during the year.

What to watch

• Mexico turnaround. The Guadalajara unit lost COP $5,072 million in 2024 after a costly relocation; whether it reaches breakeven in 2025 is the single biggest swing factor for group profit.
• Fique asset recovery. The written-down asset relates to funds advanced under a fique-crop supply contract, under which the parties agreed to plant and harvest the fibre. Any cash recovery would reverse the 2024 charge.
• Currency exposure. The peso–dollar rate showed high volatility in 2025, driven partly by the political risk premium on the Colombian currency, which affects the cost of imported raw materials and the translation of overseas results.
• Ownership transparency. The beneficial ownership structure is not publicly available in the filings reviewed; clearer disclosure would improve investor confidence in this thinly traded stock.
• Dividend sustainability. With net profit halved in 2024, investors should verify whether the monthly dividend of COP $75 per share is covered by cash flow rather than reserves.

This is news, not investment advice.