Updated December 8, 2025
HanesBrands Inc. (formerly NYSE: HBI) has effectively disappeared as a stand‑alone stock. On December 1, 2025, Gildan Activewear Inc. (NYSE: GIL) closed its long‑awaited acquisition of HanesBrands, turning the iconic underwear maker into a wholly owned subsidiary and triggering the suspension and planned delisting of HBI shares from the New York Stock Exchange. [1]
For investors who owned HanesBrands stock, the story has shifted from “What is HBI worth?” to “What is my new stake in Gildan worth?” This article walks through the latest news, deal mechanics, analyst forecasts and strategic context as of December 8, 2025.
HanesBrands Stock Is No Longer Trading as an Independent Company
On December 1, 2025, Gildan announced it had completed the previously agreed acquisition of HanesBrands, creating what it describes as a “global apparel leader” across basic activewear and innerwear. [2]
A same‑day Form 8‑K filing from HanesBrands confirms that:
- HanesBrands Inc. converted into Hanesbrands LLC, a Maryland limited liability company wholly owned by Gildan.
- Each share of HanesBrands common stock was converted into a right to receive a mix of Gildan shares plus cash (details below).
- HanesBrands repaid and terminated its senior secured credit facilities and elected to redeem all of its 9% senior notes due 2031.
- Trading in HBI on the NYSE has been suspended, and the company will complete a formal delisting and deregistration, ending its SEC reporting obligations. [3]
Data vendors still show a last HBI close around $6.47 in early December, but that’s effectively a historical print; new secondary trading in HBI shares is not expected once the delisting process is complete. [4]
For practical purposes, the “HanesBrands stock” that shows up in older charts is now a frozen artifact. The economic exposure has migrated to Gildan Activewear shares plus a one‑time cash payment.
Deal Terms: What Former HBI Shareholders Actually Receive
Under the cash‑and‑stock merger agreement:
- Each HanesBrands share was exchanged for
- 0.102 shares of Gildan Activewear (GIL), plus
- $0.80 in cash. [5]
- At signing in August 2025, this package equated to roughly $6.00 per HBI share, a 24% premium to HanesBrands’ undisturbed price. [6]
- Including HanesBrands’ debt, the deal valued the company at about $4.4 billion enterprise value. [7]
Because the share component floats with Gildan’s stock price, the effective value to former HBI shareholders today is higher than the original $6 headline figure:
- Gildan Activewear is trading around $59.23 per share as of the afternoon of December 8, 2025.
- The implied current value of the merger consideration is roughly:
- 0.102 × $59.23 + $0.80 ≈ $6.84 per former HBI share (before any taxes and fees).
That number will keep moving with GIL’s share price. The cash portion is fixed; the Gildan stock portion is now your ongoing exposure.
HanesBrands investors collectively end up owning about 19.9% of the combined company, according to deal disclosures and independent coverage. [8]
Not Everyone Loved the Price: Legal Scrutiny and Valuation Debate
Even before closing, the deal drew scrutiny from shareholder lawyers and analysts who felt the offer might undervalue HanesBrands’ recovery potential.
- A Breakingviews column at Reuters argued that while the synergy math works very well for Gildan, HanesBrands shareholders capture only a small slice of the estimated cost savings, calling the underwear deal “too skimpy.” [9]
- Law firm Kahn Swick & Foti publicly announced an investigation into whether the transaction price and process sufficiently protected HBI shareholders, highlighting the 0.102‑share‑plus‑cash structure and potential undervaluation. [10]
- Separately, Portnoy Law has an ongoing investigation into HanesBrands related to a prior ransomware incident, reflecting broader legal overhangs for the company’s historic disclosures. [11]
Despite this pushback, shareholders ultimately approved the merger, and both boards unanimously endorsed it. From here on, valuation upside or downside accrues through Gildan’s stock rather than any stand‑alone re‑rating of HBI.
How HanesBrands Got to This Point: Champion Sale, Debt Fix and a Late‑Cycle Turnaround
The Gildan takeover caps a turbulent decade for HanesBrands marked by heavy leverage, margin volatility and shifting consumer trends. The last 18 months brought a compressed sequence of major moves:
1. Champion Sale to Authentic Brands Group
In 2024, HanesBrands sold its Champion sportswear brand to Authentic Brands Group (ABG) in a deal valued at $1.2 billion, with potential earn‑outs up to $1.5 billion depending on performance. [12]
Key points from that transaction:
- Net proceeds of roughly $900 million were earmarked primarily for debt reduction. [13]
- The sale was positioned as a strategic pivot back to the core “everyday innerwear” portfolio, including Hanes, Bonds, Maidenform and Bali. [14]
- Shares of HBI jumped double digits on the announcement as investors welcomed the balance sheet repair and portfolio simplification. [15]
2. Credit Markets: From Maturity Wall to Refinancing
By mid‑2024, rating agencies still viewed HanesBrands’ leverage and looming 2026 maturities as a key risk:
- S&P Global Ratings affirmed HanesBrands at B+ but revised the outlook to stable in August 2024, noting that Champion sale proceeds would help reduce debt but warning that the 2026 debt “maturity wall” had to be addressed quickly. [16]
In March 2025, HanesBrands followed through with a major refinancing:
- A new $1.1 billion Term Loan B maturing in 2032.
- A $400 million Term Loan A and a $750 million revolving credit facility, both maturing in 2030. [17]
This pushed out near‑term maturities and gave management breathing room to execute its turnaround – breathing room that ultimately made an outright sale to Gildan feasible.
3. Operating Results: 2025 Turnaround Signs
Operationally, 2025 finally showed the improvement that HanesBrands had been promising.
Second quarter 2025 (continuing operations): [18]
- Net sales: $991 million, up 1.8% year‑over‑year.
- Gross margin: 41.6%, up a massive 1,100 basis points vs. 2024.
- Operating margin: 15.6%; adjusted operating margin 15.5%.
- EPS from continuing operations: $0.24, up 162% vs. prior year; adjusted EPS also $0.24, up 60%.
- Leverage ratio (net debt / adjusted EBITDA): 3.3x, down from 4.6x a year earlier.
Management raised full‑year 2025 guidance, calling out consistent over‑delivery versus expectations and ongoing benefits from supply‑chain restructuring and cost savings.
Third quarter 2025 kept the narrative mostly intact, though with some noise:
- HanesBrands guided Q3 sales to be roughly flat year‑over‑year and EPS of $0.14 GAAP / $0.16 adjusted. [19]
- When results arrived, EPS came in slightly below the $0.16 adjusted consensus at $0.15, with management pointing to a late‑quarter shift in replenishment orders at a large U.S. retail partner. [20]
Even so, the underlying picture was markedly better than the dark days of 2022–2023, when revenue shrank and the company posted net losses; AP and others note HanesBrands had not reported a profit since 2021 prior to this turnaround. [21]
In many ways, Gildan bought HanesBrands just as its self‑help program was finally starting to work.
What Analysts Were Saying About HBI Before Delisting
Although HBI is now being delisted, the most recent Wall Street forecasts help explain where the standalone valuation settled before the deal closed.
Consensus Rating and Price Targets
Across several data providers tracking HanesBrands through late October 2025:
- Consensus rating: broadly “Hold”. [22]
- Average 12‑month price target: around $6.60–$7.00 per share, depending on the source. [23]
- Target range: roughly $5.00 on the low end to $9.00 on the high end. [24]
Examples of recent moves:
- Citigroup lifted its target from $5.50 to $7 while maintaining a Hold rating.
- Wells Fargo upgraded the stock from Sell to Hold, raising the target from $5 to $6 after the deal and improving fundamentals.
- UBS maintained a Strong Buy with a top‑end $9 objective. [25]
Those targets now mainly serve as historical context – they were built on standalone forecasts that are superseded by the completed merger.
Earnings and Revenue Forecasts
Ahead of the takeout, analyst models implied a modest, grind‑it‑out recovery:
- 2025 revenue estimated around $3.56 billion, up about 1.6% versus 2024.
- 2026 revenue expected to dip slightly, reflecting a flat macro environment and the loss of Champion.
- EPS forecast to swing from a $0.91 loss in 2024 to about $0.67 in 2025 and $0.68 in 2026, suggesting a return to profitability but not explosive growth. [26]
In other words, the Street saw HanesBrands as a slow, improving recovery story – not a high‑growth compounder – which helps explain why a $6 stock‑and‑cash bid could gain enough support to get done.
Technical Signals
Purely technical services are still publishing views on HBI based on the last days of trading, but these should be treated with caution now that the stock is being delisted.
For example, one AI‑driven technical platform classified HanesBrands as a “Buy or Hold” candidate as of November 25, 2025, with the price oscillating in a broad horizontal range. It projected, with 90% probability, that the stock would trade between roughly $6.29 and $7.03 over the next three months – a range dominated by merger‑arbitrage dynamics more than fundamentals. [27]
Now that the acquisition has closed, those forecasts mostly describe a counterfactual path the stock will never actually follow.
The New Reality: HanesBrands Inside Gildan Activewear
For former HBI shareholders, the relevant question is no longer “What is HanesBrands worth?” but “What does the combined Gildan–HanesBrands platform look like?”
Gildan’s Financial Profile Going Into the Deal
Gildan entered the transaction from a position of relative strength:
- Q3 2025 net sales:$911 million, a record, up 2.2% year‑over‑year.
- Adjusted operating margin:23.2%, with GAAP operating margin at 21.1%.
- Adjusted diluted EPS:$1.00, up 17.6% vs. the prior year quarter.
- Full‑year 2025 guidance: mid‑single‑digit revenue growth, about 70 bps expansion in adjusted operating margin, $3.45–$3.51 adjusted EPS and roughly $400 million of free cash flow. [28]
The company ended Q3 with net debt of about $1.74 billion and a leverage ratio of roughly 2.0x net debt to trailing adjusted EBITDA – the midpoint of its long‑term target range. [29]
Credit agency Morningstar DBRS confirmed Gildan’s BBB rating with stable trends after the acquisition announcement, highlighting the company’s resilient margins and moderate leverage profile despite the new debt taken on for the deal. [30]
Synergies and Scale
Gildan and HanesBrands have consistently pointed to at least $200 million in annual run‑rate cost synergies from the combination, expected within three years of closing. [31]
Pro forma figures shared when the deal was announced suggest:
- Combined trailing‑twelve‑month net sales of about $6.9 billion.
- Combined adjusted EBITDA around $1.35 billion, rising to roughly $1.55 billion including expected synergies, implying an EBITDA margin in the low‑ to mid‑20s. [32]
Strategically, the combination knits together:
- HanesBrands’ brand strength and retail relationships (Hanes, Bonds, Maidenform, Bali, etc.).
- Gildan’s low‑cost, vertically integrated manufacturing network across the Americas and Asia. [33]
Several independent analyses, including Seeking Alpha and Simply Wall St, frame the merger as a potential “up‑tiering” of Gildan’s growth profile – but with higher execution risk and more complex capital allocation. [34]
Gildan’s Dividend and Analyst Targets
Gildan has long been a dividend‑paying stock, and that continues post‑deal:
- In October, the board declared a $0.226 per share quarterly dividend, payable December 15, 2025. [35]
At today’s GIL price near $59, that implies a dividend yield of roughly 1.5% on Gildan shares – and, by extension, a modest yield for former HBI investors proportional to their 0.102‑share entitlement.
Analysts covering Gildan have generally welcomed the deal:
- Market‑tracking feeds show CIBC raising its Gildan target to about US$71 and UBS taking its target to around US$80 in late October and early December, citing synergy potential and the expanded scale. [36]
Actual future performance, of course, now depends on whether Gildan can integrate HanesBrands smoothly and capture those cost savings without eroding its brands.
Key Risks and Opportunities Going Forward
From a shareholder’s perspective, the HanesBrands story now lives inside a broader Gildan narrative. Some of the most important swing factors:
Integration Execution
- Combining large global supply chains, IT systems and brand portfolios is never trivial.
- Gildan has promised at least $200 million in run‑rate cost synergies; missing that target, or achieving it only with unexpected disruption, could pressure margins and the stock’s valuation. [37]
Leverage and Capital Allocation
- HanesBrands’ high‑coupon debt is being refinanced and/or redeemed, but Gildan is taking on substantial new borrowings and has paused share repurchases to prioritize deleveraging. [38]
- If the combined company hits its free cash flow goals, leverage should drift down naturally. A macro shock or integration misstep could push that timetable out and limit capital return.
Brand and Channel Strategy
- HanesBrands has already shed Champion and is now focused tightly on innerwear and intimates, while Gildan brings stronger exposure to screen‑print, wholesale and distributor channels. [39]
- The upside case is a more balanced, less volatile sales mix across retail and wholesale; the downside case is channel conflict or cannibalization if brands aren’t positioned carefully.
Macro and Trade Policy
- Both companies are exposed to U.S. cotton prices, global trade policy and consumer sentiment, especially in value‑oriented apparel categories. [40]
- Tariffs are already embedded in pricing and margins; new trade actions or recessionary demand shocks would test the resilience of the combined platform.
What This All Means for Former HanesBrands Shareholders
If you held HanesBrands stock through the record date, you now effectively own:
- A fixed cash payment of $0.80 per former HBI share, plus
- A small but meaningful slice of Gildan, via 0.102 GIL shares per HBI share.
The old HBI quote is no longer the key metric. From here:
- Your upside (or downside) lives in Gildan’s execution: synergy capture, margin discipline, and steady free‑cash‑flow generation.
- The main numbers to watch will be Gildan’s EPS, FCF, leverage ratio and integration updates, rather than any legacy HanesBrands guidance. [41]
References
1. www.globenewswire.com, 2. www.globenewswire.com, 3. www.stocktitan.net, 4. stockinvest.us, 5. www.globenewswire.com, 6. www.reuters.com, 7. www.wsj.com, 8. www.wsj.com, 9. www.reuters.com, 10. www.businesswire.com, 11. www.globenewswire.com, 12. www.reuters.com, 13. www.investopedia.com, 14. www.reuters.com, 15. www.reuters.com, 16. www.spglobal.com, 17. www.businesswire.com, 18. www.businesswire.com, 19. www.businesswire.com, 20. public.com, 21. apnews.com, 22. stockanalysis.com, 23. stockanalysis.com, 24. stockanalysis.com, 25. stockanalysis.com, 26. stockanalysis.com, 27. stockinvest.us, 28. www.globenewswire.com, 29. www.globenewswire.com, 30. dbrs.morningstar.com, 31. ir.hanesbrands.com, 32. www.globenewswire.com, 33. www.reuters.com, 34. seekingalpha.com, 35. www.globenewswire.com, 36. www.marketscreener.com, 37. www.globenewswire.com, 38. www.globenewswire.com, 39. www.reuters.com, 40. www.wsj.com, 41. www.globenewswire.com
