Colombia Stocks: ETB, Tableros y Maderas de Caldas, Fabricato

The following companies are having unusual price changes in Bogota trading. Stock symbols are in parentheses and prices are as of 10:51 a.m. New York time.

The IGBC Index rose 0.1 percent to 14,136.69, while the Colcap Index gained 0.4 percent to 1,716.66.

Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogota (ETB) SA, the state-run phone company serving Colombia’s capital, fell 1.2 percent to 636 pesos. The comptroller’s office is investigating whether payments worth $22 million to departing employees under the company’s voluntary departure program were legal, the daily El Tiempo reported.

Tableros y Maderas de Caldas SA (TABLEMA) , a Colombian wood products maker, rose 0.9 percent to 11.3 pesos after it was given a “buy” recommendation with a target price of 16.6 pesos in brokerage Celfin Capital’s initiation of coverage.

“We are now seeing a boom once again in construction licenses and the company sits in a sweet spot for the next upswing in building,” Celfin said in an e-mailed statement.

Fabricato SA (FABRI CB), Colombia’s largest textile maker, fell 2.6 percent to 56 pesos. Forty-one U.S. Senate Democrats backed the Obama administration’s demand of an extension of retraining aid for workers who lose jobs to foreign competitors before submitting trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama to Congress, according to a statement on the website of U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow.

To contact the reporter on this story: Blake Schmidt in Bogota at bschmidt16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Papadopoulos at papadopoulos@bloomberg.net