Emergent Cold Latin America (Emergent LatAm) has acquired Frigorifico Metropolitano (Frigometro), the leading cold storage operator in Colombia, with four locations in key markets across the country. This purchase marks its entry into Colombia and represents the first of many planned investments in this important food export market.
The Frigometro management team will remain in place to ensure business continuity and further growth for the company, which offers a full range of storage and value-added logistics services such as blast freezing and handling, and operates a domestic transportation business.
Established in 1992 by entrepreneur Gonzalo Diaz, Frigometro operates more than 29,000 pallet positions across four warehouses in Cartagena, Buga, Bucaramanga and Bogotá. Each site offers room for growth, with a 4,000-pallet expansion now coming online in Bucaramanga and several projects planned for later this year. These facilities serve Colombia’s largest ports and metropolitan areas, which permit Frigometro to support both the domestic distribution market and export activities.
Colombia is an important part of Emergent LatAm’s regional investment strategy. It is the fourth largest economy and the third most populous country in Latin America, with geographic connectivity to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via four leading port locations. Furthermore, Colombia set a new record in 2021 for total amount of food exports.
With the addition of Frigometro, Emergent LatAm now operates 13 cold storage facilities in seven countries, with other three facilities now under construction.
“We are proud to welcome Frigometro to our growing Latin America platform,” said Neal Rider, chief executive officer of Emergent LatAm. “I am extremely impressed with the strength of its management team, and the high quality of the company’s asset base. We look forward to making additional investments in Colombia with the goal of accelerating the growth of Frigometro and our entire regional network.”
“We feel very fortunate that Emergent Cold Latin America chose to enter Colombia by acquiring Frigometro,” said Gonzalo Diaz. “We are sure that it will be a great alliance that takes refrigerated logistics in Colombia to another level.”
Acting as financial advisors to Emergent LatAm were 44 Capital Finanças Corporativas and Scotiabank. Brigard Urrutia provided legal advice.
