In 2006, a Puerto Rico business group named Carlos Casellas the Caribbean island's Industrialist of the Year, hailing him as a businessman with “extraordinary vision.”
But on March 28, his Bayamón-based company, Flexible Packaging Co. Inc., filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors in Old San Juan.
Casellas helped launch the firm in 1976. The maker and seller of plastic foam products said in its court filing that it has assets and liabilities of about $10 million.
Flexible Packaging began operations in Ciudad de Caguas in 1976. It opened two more plants on the island in 1984, one in Bayamón and another in Aguadilla. In 1999 it expanded operations to Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. The company serves the pharmaceutical, electronics, medical-device, food and construction industries.
When the Asociacón de Industriales de Puerto Rico honored Casellas, it cited his “extraordinary vision as regards marketing strategy and the development of new products.” Both qualities “keep him always at the vanguard of the industry,” it added.
At the time, Flexible Packaging had annual sales of $42 million and employed 450.