Kaizen Smederevo Factory Enters Liquidation, 350 Jobs Lost
Turkish owner Kardem is shutting down its textile factory in Smederevo: the liquidation is entered in the business registry, and the company reportedly has funds for all debts.
The Kaizen textile factory in Smederevo has entered liquidation under a decision dated October 21, 2026, and about 350 workers are losing their jobs. The decision is entered in the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR), and the documentation gives as the reason that continued operation has no economic justification. The factory is owned by the Turkish company Kardem.
How did workers learn about the closure?
According to RTS, workers were first sent home on four days of paid leave, then called to come to the factory on Thursday and sign the termination of their employment. One worker, whose name was not published, told RTS that at the meeting they were told all obligations to employees would be settled in accordance with the law.
Why liquidation and not bankruptcy?
The company has begun liquidation, not bankruptcy. According to a notice on the APR website, it has enough funds to settle all its obligations. Oslobodjenje concludes from this that, based on available information, this is not a closure caused by established insolvency but a decision by the owner to stop doing business.
According to Klix, the liquidation is supposed to last 90 days, and creditors have 120 days from the publication of the notice to file their claims.
How many people are actually losing their jobs?
Sources differ on the number of employees:
- Oslobodjenje says the company had 354 employees at the end of last year
- Klix says 343 employees, citing the financial report for 2024
- reports on the closure say about 350 workers are left without a job
From a promised 800 workers to liquidation
The factory was registered in April 2016 and made clothing. At the start the investor announced 270 workers and about 800 by June 2017, which was never reached. In May 2018 workers stopped production and demanded unpaid wages and overtime.
The latest published financial report looks like this, according to Klix: operating revenue in 2024 was about 1.22 billion dinars (~10.4 million euros), and net profit was about 28.3 million dinars (~241,000 euros). The company, then, was not closing on the back of a loss that year, and the available information gives no further explanation for the owner’s decision beyond the wording about the lack of economic justification.
Oslobodjenje adds that Kaizen used state incentives meant to attract foreign investors during its operation, but the total amount of support is not confirmed in the available data. Without that figure, it is impossible to calculate how much public money went into the factory over ten years of work.
The 120-day deadline for filing claims runs from the publication of the notice, and for the roughly 350 employees the open question is whether their obligations will be settled the way they were told at the meeting in the factory.
