Sudamtex de Venezuela, C.A., S.A.C.A. – Clase A

What it is

Inaugurated in 1948, Sudamtex was Venezuela’s most modern textile factory at the time, pioneering the use of rayon — a synthetic fibre made from cellulose — which quickly displaced rivals in the local market. At its peak it ran a fully integrated operation: growing cotton, weaving fabric, and manufacturing polyester and nylon polymers, acetate filaments, and fiberglass.

The industrial complex sat on 241,000 square metres in Maracay and was an open-end stock corporation whose shares traded on both the Caracas and Maracaibo exchanges. When the Caracas Stock Exchange launched its benchmark IBC index in August 1997, Sudamtex was one of the 15 founding constituents.

Who owns it

Sudamtex de Venezuela was a subsidiary of United Merchants and Manufacturing Co., the American textile group that used it as its Latin American expansion vehicle, with related factories in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. By the time of its collapse, the controlling structure had become opaque through subsidiaries, including a related entity called VFG-Sudamtex, C.A.

Wikipedia’s index article records simply that “the Uruguayan-owned textile company Sudamtex closed down.” The identity of any residual shareholders and the exact ownership split are not disclosed in available sources; assets remain frozen under court supervision as part of the bankruptcy estate.

Who runs it

There is no active management. The company is formally in bankruptcy (*quiebra*), and by mid-2009 court-appointed trustees (*síndicos*) were managing the estate.

The last named chief executive found in primary sources is John Johnson, who signed the 1992 CAF loan agreement as Sudamtex’s President and CEO. No current CEO, CFO, or board chair is disclosed in available sources.

The money, in plain words

One of Venezuela’s leading textile companies, Sudamtex filed for liquidation to cover its financial obligations, blaming a domestic recession and surging competition from imported textiles for eroding its sales. The opening of the Venezuelan market and the lowering of import tariffs were the proximate causes of the collapse.

The company missed a rescheduled debt repayment on 30 April 2002 and entered a formal cessation of payments from that date. Before the end, Sudamtex was Venezuela’s largest publicly listed textile company, and it was attempting to renegotiate US$45 million in obligations.

No audited revenue, profit, or asset figures from any period are available through public primary sources; EODHD holds no financials for this company.

What it is doing now

The company’s main production plant in Maracay has remained under judicial measures as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, and no third party may use those assets until the courts finally resolve the outstanding legal disputes. The Clase A shares (STX.A, ISIN VEV0012110A, nominal value VES 20 (US$0.03)) remain on the Caracas Stock Exchange register, but the BVC’s own live trading board as of 9 July 2026 shows no active STX.A transactions — the ticker is absent from the exchange’s current market summary.

The bankruptcy has now lasted more than two decades. Court files from 2013 still showed unresolved disputes over land title and creditor claims, with no winding-up completion date set.

What to watch

• Formal de-listing: The BVC has not publicly confirmed whether STX.A remains a formally listed or merely a registered-but-suspended security; any regulatory clarification from SUNAVAL would be the decisive event.
• Court closure: A final bankruptcy ruling that distributes or writes off the remaining estate — including the Maracay real estate — would end two decades of legal limbo.
• Venezuela’s textile revival: If Venezuela’s broader economic opening continues, acquirers could seek the Maracay site; any creditor settlement freeing the land would be the first concrete signal.
• Disclosure risk: Venezuela’s capital markets regulator SUNAVAL publishes scant data on dormant issuers; investors holding STX.A in custody should treat both the share and its nominal value as effectively unrecoverable until a court order says otherwise.

This is news, not investment advice.