Fate announced the definitive closure of its activity as a tire manufacturer. The Argentine company, owned by the Madanes Quintanilla family and with more than eight decades of experience, will lay off all of its 920 employees, liquidate its business and close its industrial plant in the town of Virreyes, in the Buenos Aires district of San Fernando.
This is not a bankruptcy or a preventive process, a legal figure to which the firm led by Javier Madanes – also owner of Aluar – already joined in 2019.
A close friend told Infobae: “It is a definitive closure and everyone is paid what they deserve. Employees, suppliers, banks. Everything is liquidated and the blinds are lowered.”The news comes in a context of growing crisis for the local industrial sector in general, with a strong impact due to economic opening and the entry of imported products into the country.One of them, the tires. “The company has been losing money for 30 years, but the invasion of Chinese tires changed everything,” added the source.
Thus, in principle, the company, which was founded in 1940, will compensate all its workers according to the conditions of current law.
In a brief statement, the company explained that “the changes in market conditions force us to face future challenges from a different approach, without ceasing to value the industrial vocation that has always defined us throughout this time.”It is the only reference that was made about the reasons for the drastic closure.
In that text, signed by “the Board of Directors” and dated today, the company highlighted its industrial leadership, based on “permanent investment, advanced technological development and an unwavering commitment to quality.”He also indicated that they were pioneers in supplying the radial tire market and that they knew how to maintain a strong export presence in markets such as Europe, the United States and Latin America.
“Fate is a company with Argentine capital that for more than eighty years has generated quality employment, developed local suppliers, exported technology and contributed to the country’s productive fabric. That identity defines us and will accompany us in the challenges that lie ahead, they expressed.
The statement did not include statements from Madanes Quintanilla, grandson of LeiserMadanes, a Polish immigrant who arrived in the country at the beginning of the 20th century and started his business as a street seller of rubber pilotines in Once.
According to data from Forbes Argentina and its 2024 ranking, Madanes’ personal wealth amounts to about USD 1.5 billion.A close source revealed: “Javier is devastated, today is a day of mourning.”
There were more details about the context that affected the company in a statement issued in May 2024, when the company dismissed 97 workers due to a “sustained loss of export competitiveness.”
Fate – which is an acronym for Fábrica Argentina de Telas Gomadas – pointed out at that time that its activity was exposed to very negative factors that severely increased the cost of its production.He mentioned “abusive tax overload, exchange restrictions for the payment of inputs from abroad, deficient infrastructure, cost overruns derived from labor legislation, low labor productivity, absenteeism, high union conflict.”
The company also denounced “scandalous asymmetries” in foreign trade. According to what it reported: “As an effect of these asymmetries, the final cost of the products that the company manufactures is much higher than that of tires manufactured in other countries. The consequence is an unbridgeable competitiveness gap that makes it impossible to continue exporting the products that the company manufactures in Argentina to markets in which our brand has been present for decades.”
In 2022, the sector was involved in a prolonged conflict with the Single Union of Tire Workers of Argentina (Sutna).The plants of the three manufacturing companies in the country—Fate, Pirelli and Bridgestone—were stopped and Madanes described the situation as “neo-anarchism that prevents production,” blaming the union and targeting the Workers’ Party.
Last year, in The Factory podcast, he anticipated that the exchange rate would remain “for a long time” in the country and maintained that the reduction of the gap between the official dollar and the one counted with liquid generated “discomfort.”His statements received a response from the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, and from the then representative of LaLibertad Avanza (LLA), José Luis Espert.
Last September, during Industry Day, Vice President Victoria Villarruel visited the Fatey plant and had a tense moment with Alejandro Crespo, leader of Sutna.With MadanesQuintanilla present, the union leader gave Villarruel a document that questioned the opening of imports “used by employers to produce layoffs and all types of separations.”
The fate of the property where the SanFernando plant operates is still unclear, a facility of more than 157,000 square meters (1,690,000 square feet) on a 40-hectare (99-acre) plot of land, with a productive capacity of more than 5 million covers per year.
As detailed by Infobae in mid-2025, a record of imports had forced national tire brands to lower their prices by up to 15 percent.A piece of information from those days anticipated what was to come for the sector: in May, more than 860,000 covers entered the country from abroad.It was the highest figure for a single month in more than two decades.
