Medellin-based Valores Industriales – an investment group dealing mainly in real-estate, forestry products and industrial/commercial operators including Medellin-based salt/chemicals giant Brinsa SA – announced March 31 that full-year 2021 profits jumped to COP$59 billion (US$15.7 million), up from COP$14.7 billion (US$3.9 million) in 2020.

The big jump in profits came from Valores Industriales sale of its entire 73-million shareholding in Medellin-based paper-products multinational Grupo Familia. Those shares were acquired by Sweden-based global paper giant Essity Group, which last year bought virtually all of Grupo Familia’s outstanding stock.

Valores Industriales subsequently reinvested those profits by boosting its shareholdings in Brinsa SA, with a 539-million-shares-buy that has brought Valores Industriales (and an affiliate) a net 31.37% stake in Brinsa.

Valores Industriales was born in 1997 via a spin-off from Productos Familia. But since then, the company has concentrated mainly on forestry and real-estate investments.

In 2021 alone, Valores Industriales investigated more than 30 potential investment deals in sectors including automotive chemicals, processed foods, brick production, dermatological products, commercial buildings, construction, eight potential forestry sites, proposed cannabis- and cacao-cultivation projects, small-scale hydroelectric projects and solar-power projects, according to the company.