Catania Chile, the South American subsidiary of Canadian fresh produce group Catania Worldwide, has reportedly gone into voluntary bankruptcy after having “exhausted possible solutions” to its financial problems.
In a letter to suppliers, Catania Chile managing director Jonathan Cappelluti said that the company had tried all legal and financial means at its disposal to find a solution to its difficulties to meet payments and avoid bankruptcy.
However, according to Portal Frutícola, no solution was found and Catania Chile’s application for voluntary bankruptcy was lodged with Santiago’s Civil Court 7 on 15 December.
In the letter, Mr Cappelluti blamed the company’s financial troubles on having had a “catastrophic” recent fruit export campaign, which had “added to the disaster” of unfavourable exchange rates.
These factors, he added, had brought Catania Chile to the “inevitable situation” of having to apply for its own bankruptcy, an event he said the company “regretted enormously”.
Catania Chile exported some 741,808 cartons of fruit during the 2008/09 campaign, including major volumes of grapes, kiwifruit, figs, apples, avocados and cherries.
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