Hanesbrands (HBI) Stock on November 30, 2025: Index Removal, Gildan Merger and Heavy Trading

As November 2025 ends, Hanesbrands Inc. (NYSE: HBI) sits at the intersection of three big storylines: removal from major equity indexes, a pending $4.4 billion takeover by Gildan Activewear, and a business that is improving its margins but still struggling for top-line growth. Here’s a full rundown of the most current developments investors need to know as of 30 November 2025.

HBI stock snapshot going into December

The U.S. markets are closed this Sunday, so the latest data point for Hanesbrands comes from Friday, 28 November 2025:

Last close: $6.47 per share
Daily move: –1.82%, the second consecutive down session
52‑week range: high of $8.98, low around $3.96 – meaning the stock trades roughly two‑thirds above its 12‑month low but almost 28% below its high
Volume: about 112 million shares traded Friday, vastly above the 50‑day average near 7.2 million shares
Broader market: the S&P 500 gained about 0.5% and the Dow Jones about 0.6% on the same day, meaning HBI clearly underperformed. ^[1]

In other words, HBI is still a recovery story off its lows, but the late‑month trading has been volatile and distinctly weaker than the broader market.

New headline: Removal from Russell indexes increases short‑term pressure

The freshest piece of stock‑specific news is HBI’s removal from multiple Russell indexes:

On 28 November 2025, Hanesbrands was deleted from the Russell 3000 and Russell 2000 Growth indexes. ^[2]

Index deletions matter because:

Index‑tracking and “closet index” funds that benchmark against Russell indexes are often forced to sell deleted names.
That can create additional mechanical selling and short‑term downside pressure, unrelated to company fundamentals.
The removal may also reduce HBI’s visibility with some institutional investors who screen only inside major benchmarks.

Analysis from Simply Wall St notes that this does not change the core fundamental story, which is now dominated by the planned Gildan merger, but it may increase near‑term volatility and contribute to the unusually high recent trading volumes. ^[3]

The Gildan Activewear deal: the main driver of HBI’s valuation

The single most important factor for Hanesbrands stock right now is its agreed takeover by Gildan Activewear Inc. (TSX/NYSE: GIL).

Deal terms

Under the definitive merger agreement announced on 13 August 2025, Hanesbrands shareholders are set to receive: ^[4]

0.102 Gildan common shares
$0.80 in cash
for each HBI share.

Based on Gildan’s share price at announcement, the package implied:

Equity value: about $2.2 billion for Hanesbrands
Enterprise value (including debt): roughly $4.4 billion
An implied HBI value of around $6.00 per share, about a 24% premium to the pre‑deal close but below where takeover speculation had pushed the stock the day before the formal announcement. ^[5]

The consideration is roughly 87% stock and 13% cash, leaving existing Hanesbrands investors with an expected ~19.9% stake in the combined company. ^[6]

Strategic rationale

According to the companies’ joint materials, the merger is designed to: ^[7]

Roughly double Gildan’s revenue, merging its basics/blank apparel focus with Hanesbrands’ innerwear and intimate brands (Hanes, Maidenform, Playtex, Wonderbra, etc.).
Create a “global basic apparel leader” with broader distribution and a larger manufacturing footprint.
Deliver at least $200 million in annual cost synergies within three years of closing, primarily from supply chain efficiencies and lower overhead.

For Hanesbrands, the deal allows it to exit a multi‑year turnaround with a cleaner balance sheet and align with a buyer that has a stronger financial profile.

Status as of November 30, 2025

Key milestones so far:

The merger agreement has been signed and publicly filed. ^[8]
Hanesbrands shareholders have voted to approve the transaction and its consideration structure. ^[9]
The companies have obtained at least one important regulatory clearance, as the U.S. Hart‑Scott‑Rodino (HSR) antitrust waiting period has expired, removing a major U.S. competition‑law hurdle. ^[10]
Gildan and Hanesbrands continue to guide that the deal is expected to close in late 2025 or the first quarter of 2026, subject to remaining regulatory and customary closing conditions. ^[11]

Because HBI now trades only slightly above the implied deal value, the stock is behaving largely like a merger‑arbitrage instrument: its upside/downside in the near term is dominated by whether the transaction closes on the agreed terms, is delayed, or is altered.

Q3 2025 earnings: revenue disappointment, margin improvement

Hanesbrands’ third‑quarter 2025 results, released on 6 November, provide the latest window into the standalone business. ^[12]

Key numbers:

Net sales: about $892 million, down roughly 1% year‑on‑year and below the consensus estimate near $905 million.
Adjusted EPS: approximately $0.15, up from $0.12 a year earlier, but modestly below analyst expectations around $0.16.
Operating profit: about $108 million, up roughly 14%, with operating margin expanding to around 12.1%.
Leverage: net‑debt‑to‑adjusted‑EBITDA improved to roughly 3.3× from 4.3× the prior year, reflecting debt paydown and stronger profitability.

Management and independent coverage attributed the revenue shortfall partly to a late‑quarter change in replenishment orders from a major U.S. retail partner, while noting that the core innerwear categories showed improved point‑of‑sale trends and that the Hanes brand gained share during the back‑to‑school season. ^[13]

Free cash flow for the quarter was weaker than the prior year, in part due to inventory and working‑capital movements, but the profit and leverage trends are directionally supportive of the company’s transformation plan.

Q2 2025: the start of positive operating momentum

The second quarter of 2025 marked the start of a visible earnings recovery:

Net sales: about $991 million, up roughly 1.8% year‑on‑year.
Operating profit: around $155 million, a sharp jump versus the prior year as gross margins expanded to roughly 41–42%, more than 10 percentage points higher.
Adjusted EPS: about $0.24, beating consensus forecasts around $0.18 and sparking a double‑digit pre‑market share price pop when results were released. ^[14]

The Q2 and Q3 pattern—flat to slightly declining sales but much better margins and lower leverage—is central to how both Gildan and independent analysts are modeling the combined company’s earnings power.

Technology and operations: Wipro GenAI deal backs “IT 2.0” strategy

On 29 October 2025, Wipro Limited announced a multi‑year strategic agreement with Hanesbrands to transform the apparel group’s IT and cybersecurity operations using Wipro’s “WINGS” AI platform. ^[15]

The agreement aims to:

Move Hanesbrands to a unified, AI‑led managed‑services model across IT infrastructure and security.
Use predictive and preventive AI tools to reduce incidents and response times.
Simplify compliance and improve operational stability while lowering IT operating costs over time.

While the financial impact has not been quantified publicly, the deal fits with the broader merger narrative: Gildan has highlighted efficiency and scale as key to its thesis, and Hanesbrands is actively modernizing its systems ahead of integration.

Institutional flows: new money into HBI in Q3

Despite index removal and volatility, some active managers have been adding to Hanesbrands in recent months:

Gardner Lewis Asset Management disclosed a new position of about 1.28 million HBI shares, valued near $8.4 million as of 30 September. The stake represents around 2% of the fund’s reportable U.S. equity assets. ^[16]
Neo Ivy Capital Management initiated a separate position of about 627,000 shares, worth roughly $4.1 million, making HBI around 1% of its reported 13F assets. ^[17]

These are not enormous positions in absolute terms, but they signal that at least some institutional investors see a favorable risk‑reward profile in the current spread between HBI’s trading price and the implied value of the Gildan deal, combined with the company’s margin recovery.

On the other side, coverage of Gildan’s own shareholder filings shows some funds trimming positions in GIL as they reassess the risks and rewards of the acquisition from the buyer’s perspective. ^[18]

Strategic backdrop: Champion sale and balance‑sheet repair

The current transaction sits on top of a multi‑year restructuring and portfolio simplification at Hanesbrands.

A key step was the sale of the Champion brand to Authentic Brands Group, first announced in June 2024 and later completed. The deal: ^[19]

Valued Champion at at least $1.2 billion, with the potential to rise to $1.5 billion if performance‑based contingent payments are earned.
Was explicitly framed as a way to reduce debt and refocus the company on its core innerwear and basics business.

Those proceeds, combined with cost‑cutting and tighter capital spending, helped Hanesbrands reduce leverage to the mid‑3× range by Q3 2025, from significantly higher levels earlier in the decade. ^[20]

Valuation, index removal and the path forward

Data providers currently show: ^[21]

A share price in the mid‑$6s.
A 52‑week high just under $9 and low just under $4.
A forward P/E ratio in the mid‑single digits, reflecting both the company’s cyclical exposure and the overhang of the pending all‑stock‑plus‑cash deal.
Some analyst services assigning HBI an overall “Sell” or “Hold” rating with a target price around $5, while others see “fair value” around $6.50, roughly in line with current trading.

The removal from Russell indexes complicates the short‑term technical picture: passive outflows and reduced benchmark exposure could weigh on the stock even as merger‑arbitrage traders are focused mainly on the probability and timing of deal completion. ^[22]

Key risks and catalysts to watch

From here, the main issues for Hanesbrands shareholders are:

Deal completion risk
- Remaining regulatory approvals (particularly outside the U.S.) and any potential antitrust concerns about concentration in basic apparel. ^[23]
- The possibility of closing delays into 2026 or renegotiation if market or competitive conditions change.
Spread risk and market volatility
- With HBI trading close to the implied deal value, modest shifts in Gildan’s share price, interest rates, or perceived regulatory risk can move HBI disproportionately. ^[24]
Standalone performance until closing
- Continued revenue softness or renewed margin pressure could influence how investors view the combined company, even if they do not formally derail the transaction. Q4 2025 results and 2026 guidance will be scrutinized for this reason. ^[25]
Post‑index‑removal liquidity dynamics
- Heavy trading around the Russell deletions shows that technical flows can swamp fundamentals in the short term. The question is whether active managers step in to replace forced sellers.

Bottom line

As of 30 November 2025, Hanesbrands stock is being driven far more by corporate events than by incremental day‑to‑day fundamentals:

The Gildan Activewear merger is the central narrative, with a largely stock‑based consideration and substantial promised synergies.
The Q2–Q3 earnings trajectory shows real progress on margins and leverage, but only modest revenue stability.
Index removal and massive trading volumes have added a layer of technical pressure and volatility.
New institutional buyers and a large‑scale IT transformation partnership with Wipro suggest that some investors and partners are already positioning for life inside the combined company.