MONTREAL — U.S. President Donald Trump’s overturned tariffs will likely put US$220 million back into Gildan Activewear Inc.’s coffers, but the cash probably won’t trickle down to customers.
The Montreal-based company, which manufacturers blank apparel and also owns the Hanes, American Apparel and Playtex brands, revealed how much money it’s expecting to recoup Thursday.
The funds were collected by U.S. authorities last year, when Trump introduced a 10 per cent global tariff on some imports entering the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the duties this past February, calling them unconstitutional and leading to refunds for businesses that paid them.
Gildan indicated its refund is unlikely to be passed along to customers because the company didn’t hike prices as high as they could have, when tariffs were invoked at the same time as its costs were rising.
“The price of cotton, energy has gone up, labour is going up, so there’s a lot of structural inflation still in the environment,” chief executive Glenn Chamandy said on a call with analysts.
“So I would say that we don’t see any movement necessarily on structural price changes as we go forward.”
Instead, the company will take a “significant” portion of its tariff refund and reinvest it in the business.
The money will be allocated toward programs meant to build the company’s brands, market them and accelerate product innovation and packaging enhancements.
Gildan revealed how it will handle the refund the same day as it reported a second-quarter loss of US$50 million in its latest quarter and announced the sale of HanesBrands’ Australian division to BBFIT Investments Pte Ltd. for roughly US$490 million.
The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2026. It comes almost a year after Gildan announced it would buy HanesBrands in a deal worth US$2.2 billion.
The loss Gildan announced Thursday compared with a profit of US$137.9 million a year ago.
The clothing maker, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, said its loss amounted to 27 cents US per share for the quarter ended June 28, compared with a profit of 91 cents US per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, it earned US$1.28 per diluted share from continuing operations in its latest quarter, up from 97 cents US per diluted share in the same quarter last year.
Net sales totalled US$1.58 billion for the quarter, up from US$918.5 million a year earlier.
Moving forward, the company said it is projecting adjusted diluted earnings per share for 2026 to be between US$4.65 and US$4.75, up from its previous forecast of US$4.20 to US$4.40.
It also placed revenue at the low end of a US$6 billion to US$6.2 billion range the company previously anticipated and predict an adjusted operating margin of 21.8 per cent, compared with the prior expectation of 20 per cent.
Threatening the company’s ability to deliver on those numbers are a new round of 50 per cent tariffs Trump has said he will levy on products moving from Canada into the U.S. The duties will apply to a wide range of goods including some T-shirts and sweatshirts as well as some cotton and silks. They are expected to come into effect Aug. 19.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2026.
