Fabricato S.A.

What it is

Fabricato was incorporated under Colombian law on 26 February 1920; its purpose is the manufacture and marketing of textiles, clothing, and non-woven fabrics. Its business runs across nine product lines — including Kansas (indigo denim), Home (bed and kitchen linen), Tistauribe (industrial fabrics), knitted fabrics, and wool.

Its main plant sits in the municipality of Bello, with a second industrial facility in Rionegro, Antioquia. Shareholders voted in 2011 to shorten the name from Textiles Fabricato Tejicóndor S.A. to Fabricato S.A.

Who owns it

Fabricato has an authorised capital of COP $54,000M divided into 13.5 billion ordinary shares at a nominal value of COP $4 each. The ownership structure — who holds the largest blocks and what percentage — is not disclosed in available sources; the shareholder register is not publicly filed in a form that names a controlling party.

Parque Arauco, the Chilean mall operator, owns 51% of Parque Fabricato, the shopping centre on the company’s Bello land — a separate entity but an important source of income for the group. The free float on the BVC is wide and the stock is thinly traded.

Who runs it

Gustavo Lenis — a seasoned executive who previously led Avianca in the 1990s, directed Colombia’s civil aviation authority under President Juan Manuel Santos, and ran Hyundai Colombia — has been Fabricato’s CEO since 2020. He leads alongside a board that includes several businesspeople from Cali.

The CFO and board chair are not disclosed in available sources.

The money, in plain words

In the year to December 2024, Fabricato’s consolidated revenue from ordinary activities came in above COP $268,600M (~US$78.4M), a fall of 21% from 2023. The company lost COP $43,000M (~US$12.5M) on those sales — a net loss margin of −16.0% (our calculation) — driven by weaker demand, raw-material volatility, and what the company calls unfair competition: under-invoiced imports, open smuggling, and fabric linked to money-laundering that enters at prices below Colombia’s raw-material costs.

There is one sliver of progress: the operating cash-flow proxy — what the business earned before interest and depreciation, or EBITDA — turned positive at COP $13,900M (~US$4.1M), a recovery of 133% from a deeply negative figure in 2023. Total assets stand at COP $758,710M (~US$221.4M) against liabilities of COP $463,575M (~US$135.3M) — meaning creditors have a claim on more than 60 cents of every peso of assets.

What it is doing now

Colombia’s Superintendencia de Sociedades admitted Fabricato to a formal corporate reorganisation process in July 2024 — its second in 25 years. The key strategic move inside that process was exiting denim entirely: once C-jeans, Fabricato’s main denim buyer, left the market, the company was left selling to lower-margin distributors and the denim margin “went to the floor.”

To fill the gap, Fabricato signed a commercial alliance with Capricornio Textil, one of Brazil’s largest denim makers: Capricornio sells its denim through Fabricato in Colombia, while Fabricato’s drill fabrics reach the Brazilian market. Management says gross margin has improved by 15 percentage points since stopping denim production, though revenue will be lower in 2025 because denim was half the old top line.

In Q1 2026, Fabricato swung back to a small net loss of COP $556M (~US$162,000), suggesting the turnaround remains fragile.

What to watch

• Reorganisation exit. The company is working through the most complex phase — ranking creditor claims and then agreeing repayment terms. A creditor agreement is the gate to exiting Ley 1116.
• Revenue floor. With denim gone — previously 50% of sales — how far the remaining textile and institutional lines can grow sets the ceiling for any recovery in margins.
• Real-estate income. The Parque Fabricato shopping centre, operated by Chile’s Parque Arauco, currently delivers the best financial results in the group and is a material buffer against textile losses.
• Smuggling and dumping. Fabric enters Colombia illegally at prices that do not even cover local raw-material costs; any policy tightening or relaxation directly moves Fabricato’s competitive position.

This is news, not investment advice.