Hanesbrands

Hanesbrands Inc. was the Winston-Salem, North Carolina basics company behind Hanes, Champion, Bali, Playtex, Just My Size, L'eggs and Wonderbra — the largest seller of basic apparel in the United States, spun off from Sara Lee Corporation in 2006 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as HBI. The company designed, manufactured, sourced and sold T-shirts, bras, panties, men's and children's underwear, casualwear, activewear, socks and hosiery through five segments, and in October 2013 it closed its acquisition of Maidenform Brands, profiled in this section. On December 1, 2025 Gildan Activewear — itself profiled in this section — completed its acquisition of Hanesbrands, which became a Gildan subsidiary; Hanesbrands stock ceased trading on the NYSE at the end of November 2025.

Company Profile

The portfolio logic in the summaries is innerwear economics: a small set of very large brands, sold through department stores, mass merchants and the company's own outlets, in categories where fit, comfort and replenishment matter more than seasonal fashion. Champion was the exception that proved the rule — an activewear brand with fashion heat, which Hanesbrands sold to Authentic Brands Group in 2024 before the Gildan transaction.

Read together, the Hanesbrands, Maidenform and Gildan pages in this section describe one consolidation from three sides: Maidenform was absorbed by Hanesbrands in 2013, and Hanesbrands itself was absorbed by Gildan in 2025, leaving the combined group as the dominant North American maker of the basic garments every other company in this guide sells on top of.

The range behind the name is T-shirts, bras, panties, men’s and children’s underwear, casualwear, activewear, socks and hosiery. Its customers are consumers through department stores, mass merchants, company outlets and online (in its independent years). That combination — what is sold, and to whom — is the simplest way to place Hanesbrands in the industry: it explains the company's costs, its competitors and the kind of news that moved its shares when it had them. A change in either half of the combination, a new product category or a new customer, is usually the first sign that the business described in the older summaries is turning into something different.

Scale should be read from the dated summaries with their dates attached. Store counts, sales descriptions and market positions quoted there were the company's own account of itself in that year, and they are the right basis for comparing Hanesbrands with the other companies in this section — a component supplier against a retailer, or a catalogue house against a mall chain — as long as each figure is compared with figures from roughly the same period.

For current dealings, the snapshot at the top of this page is the place to start: it gives the company's present status — Acquired — Gildan Activewear completed its acquisition of Hanesbrands on December 1, 2025; Hanesbrands became a wholly owned Gildan subsidiary and its shares ceased trading on the New York Stock Exchange — and links to the official website, which is where current product ranges, store information and investor or corporate contacts are maintained. Anything in the dated summaries that conflicts with the snapshot should be read as the older position: summaries describe the year they are dated, and the snapshot describes the company as it stands now.

The stock record matters because Hanesbrands sat at a point where fashion meets the public markets: investors following the shares were really following spending on basic innerwear, underwear, socks and hosiery. The dated company summaries gathered in this section were written for that audience, recording store counts, sales descriptions and company statements as they stood at the time. Read together with the current status above, they show both halves of the story — the business as it presented itself in its listed years, and what became of it afterwards.

History in Brief

The October 2013 summary gives the company at its listed scale: five segments — Innerwear, Outerwear, Hosiery, Direct to Consumer and International — a brand portfolio running from Hanes across every basic category to Bali in department-store bras and shapewear, and, as its closing item, the completed acquisition of Maidenform Brands, Inc. That single dated record, rather than a series, is the whole of its summary history here, which is why it is folded into this page.