Fruit of the Loom is an American company that produces clothing, especially underwear. The company's corporate headquarters are in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Since 2002 it has become a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.
Video Fruit of the Loom
Company profile
Fruit of the Loom is one of the men's and boy's underwear producers and marketers, women's and girls' underwear, printable T-shirts and fleece for the industry of activewear, casual wear, women's jeans and children's clothing. The company employs more than 32,400 people worldwide.
Fruit of the Loom also controls other well-known clothing brands, B.V.D. (Bradley, Voorhees, and Day). Other brands that are also produced and sold by companies are Funpals/FunGals, Screen Stars and Underoos. Brands ever owned or marketed by Fruit of the Loom include Gitano, Munsingwear, Salem Sportswear, and Pro Player, who once had a naming rights for what is now the Hard Rock Stadium (originally Joe Robbie Stadium) at Miami Gardens, Florida from 1996 to 2005, despite being bankrupt by the parent company in 1999.
The company's familiar logo consisting of red apples, leaves, green grapes, raisins, and purple grapes forms a widely known trademark. The company is a vertically integrated manufacturer. Fruit of the Loom acquired Russell. Brands include Russell Athletic, Brooks Running and Spalding among other names in athletic attire.
Maps Fruit of the Loom
History
The beginning of Rhode Island
The fruits of the Loom brand date back to 1851 in Rhode Island when Robert Knight, a textile factory owner, visited his friend, Rufus Skeel.
Skeel has a small shop in Providence that sells fabrics from the Knight factory. Skeel's daughter painted apple drawings and applied them to cloth rolls. The one with the epitome of apples proved to be the most popular. Knight thought the label would be the perfect symbol for his trade name, Fruit of the Loom - an expression that refers to clothing, parallels the phrase â € Å"fruits of the wombâ € which means â € Å"childâ €, which can be traced back for use in the Bible (Psalms 127: 3).
In 1871, just one year after the first trademark law was passed by Congress, Knight received the trademark number 418 for the "Fruit of the Loom" brand. Most of his athletic outerwear is sold under the label "Pro Player", a division that is now dead.
20th century
The company was part of Northwest Industries, Inc., until NWI was purchased by William F. Farley in 1985 and renamed Farley Industries, Inc.
Farley has been president, CEO, and majority shareholder for 15 years. The fruits of Loom's sales revenue rose from about $ 500 million at the time of NWI purchase to about $ 2.5 billion nearly 15 years later. Debt financing has proved difficult to manage even when sales revenues unfold. On March 23, 1987, he sold his subsidiary, General Battery to Exide Corporation.
The 1990s saw a broad decline in the American textile industry as a whole in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In 1995, Chairman Farley announced that the company would close six factories in the Southeastern United States, and reduce operations on the other two. The operation was moved to a cheaper factory overseas. 3,200 workers, or about 12 percent of the American workforce, were laid off. Farley also announced that its revenue fell 22 percent, despite a 10 percent sales increase.
Fruit of the Loom filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1999 shortly after posting a net loss of $ 576.2 million. Its 66 million ordinary shares outstanding fell in value from about $ 44 per share in early 1997 to just over $ 1 in the spring of 2000. The reasons for bankruptcy vary. The huge debt burden assumed in the 1980s, a common practice at the time, did not help. William F. "Bill" Farley, former chairman of the company, CEO and COO, was ousted prior to filing for bankruptcy in late 1999, after steering the company into large debts and unproductive business ventures, including corporate arrangements into offshore entities in the Cayman Islands for avoid taxes.
21st century
The company was bought from bankruptcy by Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, controlled by investor Warren Buffett, who wants a valuable brand. He agreed in January 2002 to buy the company about $ 835 million in cash. The deal was agreed on April 29, 2002. The purchase conditions require the former COO CEO and CEO while John Holland remains available to become CEO for the company.
The company bought Russell Corporation, which effectively took on former private competitors, in a deal worth $ 598.3 million completed on August 1, 2006.
The company announced the purchase of a VF Corporation clothing company called Vanity Fair Intimates with $ 350 million in cash on January 23, 2007. The company was renamed Vanity Fair Brands and operated as a wholly owned subsidiary.
In 2010, Rick Medlin was appointed president and CEO of Fruit of the Loom. Old CEO John Holland became chairman of the company. In 2014, the company closed Jamestown, Kentucky, which used to be the second manufacturing plant in the state, and laid off all 600 employees. The company acknowledged it was transferring plant operations to Honduras to reduce production costs.
In December 2016, Melissa Burgess Taylor was appointed chairman and CEO of Fruit of the Loom by Buffett after Rick Medlin's death.
References
External links
- The fruit of the Loom website
- Fruit Creator Loom Guys, costumers.com
- Farley sought the help of Congress November 1, 1999.
- Berkshire Hathaway Fruit Announcement from Loom Acquisition, berkshirehathaway.com, April 30, 2002.
- Buffett's Berkshire to buy Russell, cnn.com, April 17, 2006.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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