Gildan Activewear Inc. (GIL)

Gildan Activewear Inc. is a vertically integrated manufacturer of everyday basic apparel, including activewear and innerwear (hosiery, underwear, intimates and other fringe products). Incorporated in 1984 in Canada, it originally produced finished fabric, then focused on activewear for the screenprint channel by 1994. It went public in 1998. The company makes the vast majority of what it sells in its own large-scale facilities, which cover yarn production, textile and sock manufacturing, and sewing. Its strategy, called Gildan Sustainable Growth, launched in 2022 and rests on three pillars: capacity-driven expansion, innovation, and ESG leadership.

On December 1, 2025, Gildan acquired 100% of HanesBrands Inc. for a total purchase price of $2.2 billion. Hanes shareholders received 0.102 Gildan common shares and $0.80 in cash per share. HanesBrands owns brands in basics and innerwear including Hanes, Bonds, Bali, Maidenform, Playtex, Bras N Things, Berlei, Wonderbra, Zorba, JMS/Just My Size and Comfortwash. It designs, manufactures, sources and sells T-shirts, bras, panties, shapewear, underwear and socks across the Americas, Australia and Asia. Gildan's 2025 results include Hanes only from December 1 to December 28, 2025. In 2025 Gildan also finished ramping up a new Bangladesh manufacturing facility. In 2025 it issued Canadian-dollar and U.S.-dollar senior unsecured notes to fund its capital needs.

Gildan sells to wholesale distributors, screenprinters and embellishers, and directly to consumers. Its markets are North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. In North America it also sells to retailers such as mass merchants, department stores, national chains, specialty retailers, craft stores and online retailers. It manufactures products for global lifestyle brand companies that sell them under their own brands through their own stores, e-commerce platforms or third-party retailers. HanesBrands products reach consumers through mass merchants, mid-tier and department stores, specialty stores, company-owned retail stores and e-commerce sites. In 2024 the combination of Gildan's two largest wholesale distributor customers raised sales concentration with the combined entity to about 39% of fiscal 2024 net sales.

Gildan says that owning most of its manufacturing gives it tighter control over production, efficiency, costs and quality, shorter production and delivery cycles, and adherence to environmental and social standards. It contrasts this with competitors that are less vertically integrated and rely more on third-party suppliers. Its yarn-spinning operations include the modernized Frontier Yarns plants, with a Mocksville, North Carolina facility, and it has sewing and textile operations in Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Bangladesh. Subsidiaries are located in Barbados, the United States, Honduras, Bangladesh, El Salvador and Australia. Its principal executive and registered office is at 600 de Maisonneuve Boulevard West, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.