Productora Cartonera S.A.

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What it is

Productora Cartonera S.A. (PROCARSA) was incorporated in the city of Eloy Alfaro, cantón Durán, in the province of Guayas, on 19 March 1965. Its founding purpose was to produce corrugated cardboard packaging exclusively for banana exports.

Today PROCARSA is the country’s leading cardboard-box manufacturer, selling to food producers — with over 65% of volume going to banana exporters. Its plant spans 67,750 square metres and can process up to 180,000 metric tonnes of cardboard a year, serving more than 450 clients across industrial and agro-industrial sectors at home and abroad.

The company holds ISO 9001:2015, BASC, FSC, FSSC and ISO 14064-1:2018 certifications, placing it among the most certified manufacturers in Ecuador’s paper sector. In December 2022, PROCARSA became the first Ecuadorian company in the real sector to issue green bonds on the capital markets — a $15 million instrument earmarked for certified-paper suppliers.

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Who owns it

PROCARSA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo Surpapel, which purchased 100% of its shares in 2009. That year, Dole ran an open sale process, and a group of investors — acting through Comercializadora de Cartones y Papeles SURPAPEL S.A. — acquired the entire company.

Grupo Surpapel is an integrated conglomerate that also includes Surpapelcorp S.A. (paper mill), Incarpalm Industria Cartonera Palmar S.A., Soluciones de Empaques SDE S.A., and Repapers Reciclaje del Ecuador S.A. There is no public free-float in PROCARSA’s equity; the entire capital is held within the group.

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Who runs it

Damián Baeza serves as General Manager (Gerente General) of Productora Cartonera S.A. Christian Palacios holds the role of President (Presidente) of the company.

Not published: the names of the CFO and full board of directors are not disclosed in the company’s public filings on the BVG, BVQ, or the SCVS investor-disclosure portal. Ecuador’s securities regulations (Codificación de Resoluciones Monetarias, Financieras, de Valores y Seguros, Libro II) require bond issuers to file prospectuses and periodic rating reports, but do not mandate individual board-member disclosure beyond the legal representatives named above.

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The money, in plain words

Two years ago PROCARSA was a solidly profitable company. For the eleven months to November 2022 it earned $3.83 million on revenues that grew by nearly $48 million year-on-year — a thin but positive net margin of 1.84%.

Then 2023 hit hard: revenues fell 14.91% ($30.96 million) as Ecuador’s security crisis slowed operations across the country. The company swung to a net loss of $5.41 million — a net margin of –3.06% — and its return on equity collapsed to –11.12% (our calculation from disclosed ROE figure in PCR rating report, Nov 2023).

The cash-generation measure known as EBITDA (operating profit before depreciation) fell 45% to $11.98 million by November 2023, and its cover of financial debt dropped to just 0.18 times — meaning earnings were covering barely 18 cents of every dollar of debt service, a dangerously thin margin. Total liabilities stood at $154.59 million as of the most recent available balance-sheet period.

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What it is doing now

The defining event of 2025–2026 is a bond default. PROCARSA began missing scheduled payments on its bond obligations from 20 June 2025, and by January 2026 the December 2025 coupon of $698,687 remained entirely unpaid.

Ecuador’s credit-rating agency Class International Rating immediately downgraded the Twelfth Bond Issuance — worth up to $10 million — to category “E”, meaning the issuer has no capacity to pay capital or interest and payments are suspended.

Bond covenants prohibit the company from paying dividends while any obligations remain in default. EMIS data as at mid-2025 also shows net revenue falling a further 28.07% in the second quarter of 2025, confirming that the commercial deterioration continued well into the current year.

The company has stated an intention to present a repayment plan, but as of the January 2026 rating committee, no payments had been made on the outstanding default amount.

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What to watch

• Debt restructuring: Whether PROCARSA — and its parent Grupo Surpapel — can negotiate a credible repayment schedule with bondholders will determine the company’s near-term survival as a going concern.
• Revenue trend: The reported 28% further revenue drop in Q2 2025 suggests the business is contracting faster than its debt, making recovery harder with each quarter of delay.
• Surpapelcorp linkage: Sister company Surpapelcorp S.A. is PROCARSA’s main paper-roll supplier; any liquidity stress that spreads to Surpapelcorp would threaten PROCARSA’s raw-material supply and vice versa.
• Banana exposure: With more than 65% of sales tied to banana-export packaging, any downturn in Ecuador’s $4-billion banana sector flows directly into PROCARSA’s order book.
• Green-bond credibility: PROCARSA was the first Ecuadorian real-sector company to issue green bonds; a prolonged default risks damaging Ecuador’s nascent green-debt market.

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This is news, not investment advice.