Gildan Activewear has agreed to buy HanesBrands for 2.2 billion dollars, according to the AP report. The deal brings together two major basics-focused apparel companies and gives the Canadian buyer control of household names such as Hanes and Maidenform. Once debt is included, the transaction is valued at about 4.4 billion dollars.
The companies say HanesBrands shareholders will receive 0.102 common shares of Gildan and 80 cents in cash for each HanesBrands share. When the deal closes, they will own about 19.9 percent of the combined company. Those terms show that the acquisition is designed as both a cash purchase and an equity handoff, allowing Hanes shareholders to participate in the future value of the merged business.
The AP report says HanesBrands has been under pressure for some time. Sales have fallen for three consecutive years, and the company has not posted an annual profit since 2021. It sold the Champion brand last year to Authentic Brands Group for more than 1 billion dollars, and Target later announced a multiyear partnership to bring Champion products back into stores and online. That history helps explain why Hanes was seen as a natural target for a buyer looking to expand and stabilize a struggling portfolio.
Gildan has had its own upheaval. In May 2024, its entire board resigned and was replaced by nominees backed by activist investor Browning West, and CEO Vince Tyra stepped down. Even so, the company is now presenting the Hanes deal as a way to build a stronger financial and operational base. Hanes chairman Bill Simon said the company would benefit from greater reach across channels and geographies as part of Gildan.
The combined company will keep Gildan’s headquarters in Montreal, while maintaining a strong presence in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where HanesBrands is based. That detail matters because it suggests the deal is not an outright relocation story. Instead, it is a cross-border consolidation in which the corporate center remains in Canada but the U.S. operating footprint stays important.
Gildan also said it would review HanesBrands Australia and could even sell that business. That signals the new owner intends to prune the portfolio where needed rather than simply absorb every asset unchanged. The deal is expected to close later this year or early next year, subject to shareholder approval.
The AP report says Gildan shares fell nearly 4 percent before the market opened after rising 28 percent the previous day on rumors of a buyout. That trading reaction shows how quickly markets were already pricing in a deal. Now that the acquisition is official, the question is whether Gildan can turn a heavily branded but underperforming rival into a cleaner, more profitable business without losing the scale that made the target attractive in the first place.
Investors will now focus on whether Gildan can translate the bigger scale into steadier growth. The deal offers the promise of stronger bargaining power, a broader product mix and a cleaner balance sheet story, but it also brings the risk that another integration will be harder than the companies’ shared basics business suggests.
