Felix Mesa Departs Arturo Fuente’s Nicaragua Operations, Returns to El Galan Cigars

Felix Mesa has announced that after four years of working with Arturo Fuente’s operations in Nicaragua, he has parted ways with the company and will return to devoting his attention to his El Galan line of cigars.

When Arturo Fuente announced plans for its Nicaraguan factory during the 2018 Puro Sabor festival, it was announced that Mesa would oversee the operations, including developing farms, a factory, and additional facilities for tobacco storage and cigar packaging. Last June, the company broke ground on the factory, which it says will open next year.

In a post to the El Galan Cigars Instagram account, Mesa described the change as a mutual agreement, with his contract with Tabacalera A. Fuente being terminated effective July 28.

“It has been a pleasure working with the team at Fuente for more than 4 years. We’ve accomplished great things in Nicaragua and I wish the company nothing but success,” said Mesa in the post, which went on to say that he left Fuente’s Nicaragua project with “a thriving farm operation and a factory infrastructure that is ready for the next step.”

While Arturo Fuente is widely known today as a Dominican cigar company, it was in Nicaragua before it was in the Dominican Republic. After unsuccessfully trying to start a factory in the Dominican Republic in 1974, Carlos Fuente Sr. bought an existing Nicaraguan cigar factory and grew the operation to employ around 300 people. In 1979, the Nicaraguan Revolution began and Fuente’s Nicaraguan factory did not survive, forcing a return back to the Dominican Republic.

Now, Mesa returns to El Galan Cigars, which he described as “growing at a healthy pace before I took on the Fuente project and I can’t wait to see them grow again now that they will have my full attention.”

Charlie Minato contributed to this story.