ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602030006
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: G-1 EDITION: METRO
THE COMPANY: Tultex designs, manufactures and markets casual apparel, including T-shirts, sweatshirts and sweatpants, turtlenecks, golf shirts, hats, jackets and wind pants.
Its products sell under Tultex, Discus Athletic, Logo 7 and Logo Athletic brands. The company also manufactures products for Reebok, Nike and Levi Strauss sold under those brands.
Chief competitors include Chicago-based Fruit of the Loom ($2.3 billion annual sales); Russell Corp. of Alexander City, Ala. ($1 billion); Chicago-based Sara Lee Corp. ($17.7 billion); Starter Corp. of New Haven, Conn. ($379 million); and VF. Corp. of Wyomissing, Pa. ($4.9 billion).
HISTORY: Textile magnate W.L. Pannill of Pannill Knitting Co. in Martinsville, an underwear maker, diversified into fleece goods with such success that in 1937, Pannill established a separate fleecewear company. Pannill put a son-in-law, E.A. "Mike" Sale , in charge of Sale Knitting Co., a 50-employee company that prospered by making and selling fleece-lined sweat shirts, union suits and other goods.
Local residents bought $20,000 of preferred stock and $100,000 of common stock in the new company in two hours, according to a newspaper report. A merger with Sale Knitting's original selling agent, the Henry J. Tully Co. of New York, preceded a change in the company's name to Tultex in 1976.
HEADQUARTERS:
Martinsville
OPERATIONS: Tultex has 20 principal facilities in Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Indianapolis and Montego Bay, Jamaica. The company uses contractors in the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Orient who manufacture or decorate the company's goods, or both.
The company derives about 65 percent of it sales from activewear and 35 percent from apparel and hats bearing the names and insignia of colleges and universities and teams in the four major professional sports. The company will produce jackets, jerseys, sweaters and hats to commemorate the U.S. Olympic Games this summer in Atlanta.
EMPLOYEES: About 6,900
OWNERSHIP: Common stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange, with the ticker symbol of TTX. The 29.8 million outstanding shares are held by about 3,200 stockholders.
Sources: The company, 1996 edition of Nelson's Directory of Investment Research
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Cindy Pinkston. Cindy Dalton sews seams in sweatpants atby CNBMartinsville's Tultex plant. color. Graphic: Charts. 1. Sales in
millions. 2. Earnings. 3. Earnings per share. color.