The Koramsa case and the rise of Denimatrix

Koramsa (denim; 250,000 pairs of jeans a week and 9,000 workers in early 2008) announced roughly 4,000 layoffs in November 2008 because of the crisis, and was described at the time as "Guatemala's leading maquila" (EFE via soitu.es). The Texan cotton cooperative PCCA bought key assets and relaunched the operation as Denimatrix LP in February 2009, "the first vertically integrated chain from raw cotton to finished jean in the Western Hemisphere" according to the buyer (KCBD, PCCA). The account of the collapse in orders (about 50% Aug–Oct 2008), closure at year-end, "more than 7,000 jobs at closure", "the largest maquila in Latin America" and rehiring starting from 200 people comes from Clothesource, whose URL returned a 404 in audit — all of that remains to be verified in the Guatemalan press of 2008-2009. Denimatrix today runs vertically integrated denim in zone 7 of Guatemala City (37 Avenida 3-13, Colonia El Rodeo, address per Wikimapia, to be confirmed with the company); the Ciplesa free zone is also in El Rodeo. Its declared clients are Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Lacoste and Michael Kors (promotional profile).

The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.