Gildan Activewear’s Q3 earnings, reported last week, beat investors’ expectations on earnings per share; the company reported that adjusted per-share earnings came in at $1, above analysts’ estimates of $0.98.
The vertical manufacturer reported 2.2 percent year on year growth in Q3 sales, up to $911 million. That increase was in part thanks to the company’s activewear business, which saw a 5.4 percent year on year increase due to “favorable product mix and higher net prices.” Hosiery and underwear, meanwhile, saw a large downturn in Q3—sales dropped to $80 million, down more than 22 percent year on year. The company attributed the decline to weak demand, shifting some shipments to Q4 and an unfavorable mix.
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Despite its sales increase, the company’s net earnings declined from $131.5 million in Q3 2024 to $120.2 million in the same period this year. Still, Luca Barile, the company’s chief financial officer, called it a “very strong year” for the company.
CEO Glenn Chamandy said the company’s planned acquisition of HanesBrands, which will cost it $2.2 billion in cash and stock, to close in late 2025 or early 2026 but didn’t share many thoughts or insights on the transaction or the company’s plans for adding a new brand to its portfolio.
Barile said the acquisition remains a worthwhile path forward for Gildan.
“We remain confident in our ability to deliver continued strong financial performance as we look ahead and get ready to welcome HanesBrands,” Barile told investors.
With that and the company’s current operating patterns in mind, Gildan adjusted its guidance for the remainder of 2025. It previously projected its adjusted operating margin would increase by 50 basis points, but last week, Barile told investors Gildan had raised its guidance to 70 basis points. The company also expects that its capex will come in at 4 percent of its sales, rather than the previously projected 5 percent.
Investors asked Gildan executives whether companies had started inquiring about moving some of their supply chain into the company’s vertical factories because of the impact of tariffs. Chamandy said that, because of the ambiguity associated with the tariffs, companies are still hesitating to change suppliers until the dust settles.
“Shifting your supply chain is never something you want to do [as] a knee-jerk type of reaction,” he said, noting that the company can still further optimize its own supply chains and could in the future “look at other product categories” as needed to support global businesses.
For instance, he said, at one of Gildan’s facilities in Honduras, the company is working on “building product innovation” on polyester-based goods, a category where it has historically had low market penetration.
Gildan is also looking to optimize its facility in Bangladesh for further scale. Chamandy said he believes the company can “expand that facility by probably another 50 percent” by using some now-undeveloped space to “drive additional capacity.”
“We have space available to us in Bangladesh where we can add…additional knitting equipment, and we’re putting in some more dyeing and finishing equipment,” the CEO told investors.
Executives said a second facility in Bangladesh isn’t off the table, but noted that Gildan is currently focused on scaling up that first facility. And Chamandy said that, “even with tariffs, Bangladesh is very competitive” for low-cost manufacturing. The company has previously said that producing in the Asian nation provides a 25-percent cost advantage when stacked against its production efforts in the Central America region.
