Enka de Colombia S.A.

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What it is

Enka was founded in 1964 by the Dutch group AkzoNobel together with major Colombian textile companies, to manufacture and sell man-made resins and fibres. Today its production capacity surpasses 100,000 tonnes a year, and it claims to be the leading recycler of post-consumer PET bottles and the main manufacturer of Nylon 6 High Tenacity Yarns in the Americas.

The company produces chemical polymers and fibres, as well as industrial raw materials in the form of resins, textiles, filaments, tire cord and polyamide and polyester yarns — things that end up inside bottles, tyres, fishing nets, conveyor belts and fabrics. Its factory sits in Girardota, in the department of Antioquia.

Who owns it

Grupo de Inversiones Suramericana — the Antioquia conglomerate — is Enka’s largest single shareholder, with 16.76% of the stock. The second block belongs to C.I.

Ayura, holding 11.87%, representing the heirs of Eliseo Restrepo, one of the founding Antioquian textile families that originally partnered with AkzoNobel to create Enka.

Inversiones CFNS — an investment vehicle linked to Valores Bancolombia — holds 6.6%, and roughly 22 further shareholders each hold less than 3.64%, including Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana at 1.54%. No single shareholder commands a majority; the stock is widely distributed across Antioquian institutional and family money, with a meaningful free float on the BVC.

Who runs it

Álvaro Hincapié is the company’s president (CEO). He is an electrical engineer from Universidad Bolivariana who has led Enka since 2003, driving the strategic pivot toward circular economy and PET-bottle recycling.

The board’s independent chairman is Rafael Ignacio Posada, a board member since 2011, who currently serves as Global Director of Sustainability — Consumer Products at Tekni-Plex Inc. Investor relations are coordinated through the company’s Administrative and Financial Vice-Presidency. A CFO title is not disclosed separately in available sources.

The money, in plain words

In full-year 2024, Enka brought in COP 475.4 billion (~US$138.7M) in operating revenues and earned a net profit of COP 10.2 billion (~US$2.97M) — less than half the COP 20.0 billion it made in 2023. That works out to just 2.1 cents of profit kept from every peso of sales — a net margin of 2.1% (our calculation) — thin even by commodity-manufacturing standards.

The revenue drop — roughly 17% year on year (our calculation) — was driven primarily by excess supply of low-price synthetics from China and India made with Russian raw materials, which undercut Enka’s conventional textile products. The company suspended its dividend entirely for 2024, having paid a yield of 7.06% the year before.

What it is doing now

Faced with pressure in commodity textiles from smuggling and rock-bottom import prices, Enka made the strategic decision to close its filament production line entirely. For 2025, management says it will concentrate on growing its “green” businesses — recycling and high-value-added products — targeting new export markets and benefiting from tightening sustainability regulations abroad.

At the March 2025 shareholder meeting, investors authorised a share buy-back of up to COP 15 billion (~US$4.4M), representing roughly 9.99% of the company’s shares, executable over three years. The board retains the right to halt the buy-back if market or internal conditions do not warrant it.

What to watch

• Asian import pressure: whether Colombia or export markets impose anti-dumping measures on cheap Chinese and Indian synthetics — the single biggest threat to Enka’s margins.
• Green-business growth: Enka has built a significant position in PET-bottle recycling, turning post-consumer bottles into recycled polyester fibres and resins for apparel and packaging clients. Revenue from this cleaner segment is the company’s own growth engine and the one investors should track separately.
• Dividend restoration: at a price-to-book ratio of roughly 0.41 (our calculation from available data), the shares price in pessimism; any revival of the dividend or evidence of margin recovery could move the stock sharply.
• Buy-back execution: management must decide whether internal conditions justify deploying the COP 15 billion buy-back — a signal of confidence the market will read carefully.

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This is news, not investment advice.