Hanesbrands Streamlining Efforts
Include Global Plant Closures, Management Cuts

As part of its ongoing strategy to streamline its operations and improve its cost competitiveness, Hanesbrands Inc. has announced it will close nine plants in four countries and transfer production to other manufacturing facilities, and reduce management and administrative personnel worldwide. The Winston-Salem, N.C.-based manufacturer and marketer of branded innerwear, outerwear and hosiery expects to complete most of this latest consolidation round — which will affect 5,300 employees in current positions and result in the addition of some 3,000 jobs at other facilities — by the end of 2007.

The plants slated for closure include: an intimate apparel fabric cutting plant in Montreal with some 50 employees; two sewing plants in the Dominican Republic with 2,500 employees; four knit product and intimate apparel sewing and fabric cutting plants in Mexico with 2,200 employees; an innerwear fabric cutting plant in Puerto Rico with some 150 employees; and an intimate apparel fabric lamination and sewing plant in Statesville, N.C., with 70 employees. Production at these plants will be transferred to lower-cost facilities in Asia, Central America and Mexico. In addition, Hanesbrands will eliminate approximately 350 management and administrative jobs, 90 percent of which are in the United States.

“This streamlining is part of our larger cost-reduction and process-standardization strategies to increase competitiveness and become a more effective organization,” said Richard A. Noll, CEO. “Taking these actions will better position us to achieve our long-term growth goals and financial objectives and help us in our efforts to offset independent company costs and selected investments we are making in our business.”

“In addition to improving cost competitiveness, these moves will improve the alignment of our sewing operations with the flow of textiles and will leverage the company’s large scale in high-volume products,” said Gerald Evans, executive vice president and chief global supply chain officer. “This realignment will also better position us for expansion of our Asian supply chain. In November, we acquired a sewing facility in Thailand, our first self-owned Asian production facility.”

Since Hanesbrands’ launch as an independent, publicly traded company in September 2006, the company has announced a series of plant closures and production transfers to lower-cost facilities in the interest of improving its cost competitiveness and supply chain flexibility. Previous actions include the closure of three plants in Mexico and the Carolinas in late 2006 and early 2007, and the transfer of production to other US, Caribbean and Central American facilities; the closure of a Puerto Rican facility and transfer to the Caribbean basin in January 2007; the shutdown by the end of this year of its Stratford Road plant in Winston-Salem and transfer to Central America and the Caribbean basin; and the closure of three Dominican Republic plants by the end of September 2007 and transfer to other Central American facilities.