Description: REAP THE "FRUITS" OF OUR LABOR In the Year 2000 we jumped through hoops to acquire this now ultra rare, original, super crisp and fresh, unfolded and uncancelled Fruit of the Loom Stock Certificate. It is your good fortune that all you have to do is click on Buy Now to make it yours. What makes this certificate worth writing home about? Let us summarize: 1) Fruit of the Loom has been an American Institution from its founding in 1851. It is one of the top 2 purveyors of undergarments in the U.S.A., and its character-driven advertising (the "Fruit of the Loom Guys") has helped make it a beloved cultural icon. 2) This particular variety of stock was issued for less than one year, from 1999 until the Company's bankruptcy in 2000 (later dates are after the bankruptcy). It is signed by controversial Director William Farley. As shown on the corporate seal, the company was incorporated in the Cayman Islands at the time thanks to Mr. Farley (so were Enron and numerous other slippery operations). 3) Fruit of the Loom was rescued from bankruptcy and restored to its rightful place in the pantheon of American Industry by none other than Warren Buffet, America's most legendary investor. If you wanted to obtain an uncancelled stock from his company, Berkshire Hathaway (of which Fruit of the Loom is now an integral part), you would have to shell out $540,000! 4) The offered certificate ranks among the finest modern securities issues in terms of design, featuring a dramatic red kaleidoscope border, the Statue of Liberty before a star-wreathed globe, an embossed title, and a large full color version of the renowned corporate logo (and label). Modern stocks with full color printing are few and far between! 5) Issuance of paper stock certificates has been discontinued. 6) The Retail Value of this rarity is $200. We are pulling out all the stops to offer it for the one-time price of just $49.95 to attract the attention it justly deserves. SAVE 80% while you can!! 7) No others on eBay !!! And we are quite sure there never will be. Only here, only now, only from Collect-a-thon! LAST CHANCE! ALMOST SOLD OUT! Fruit of the Loom is an American company which manufactures clothing, particularly underwear. The company's world headquarters is in Bowling Green, Kentucky. It is currently a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.Fruit of the Loom's main business focus is on branded products for consumers ranging from children to senior citizens. The company is one of the largest manufacturers and marketers of men's and boys' underwear, women's and girls' underwear, printable T-shirts and fleece for the activewear industry, casualwear, women's jeans wear and children's wear.The company sells its products to all major discount chains and mass merchandisers, wholesale clubs and screen printers. The company also sells to many department, specialty, drug and variety stores, national chains, supermarkets and sports specialty stores.Fruit of the Loom offers an unconditional guarantee on all the products it sells. The brand has significant market share for basic apparel. The familiar logo with the apple, purple grapes, green grapes, currants and leaves is a widely recognizable trademark. The company is a vertically integrated manufacturer.The company also controls another long-known underwear brand, B.V.D. (Bradley, Voorhees, and Day). Other brands also manufactured and sold by the company are Funpals/FunGals, Screen Stars and Underoos. Brands once owned or marketed by Fruit of the Loom include Gitano, Munsingwear, Salem Sportswear, and Pro Player, which once had the naming rights to what is now Sun Life Stadium (originally Joe Robbie Stadium) in Miami, Florida from 1996 to 2005, despite bankruptcy by the parent company in 1999.Hanes and Jockey are the main competitors to Fruit of the Loom. The Fruit Of the Loom logo consists of an apple, leaves, purple grapes, green grapes, and gooseberries. In TV commercials for the brand, actors play the roles of only four of the logo's parts: the apple, green grapes, purple grapes, and leaves. The role of "Apple" is played by Rad Daly, and the "Leaf" was at one time played by Academy Award-winning actor F. Murray Abraham. "Green Grapes" is played by Richard Steven Horvitz.The Fruit of the Loom brand dates back to 1851 in Rhode Island when Robert Knight, a textile mill owner, visited his friend, Rufus Skeel. Mr. Skeel owned a small shop in Providence, Rhode Island that sold cloth from Mr. Knight's mill. Mr. Skeel's daughter painted images of apples and applied them to the bolts of cloth. The ones with the apple emblems proved most popular. Mr. Knight thought the labels would be the perfect symbol for his trade name, Fruit of the Loom — a name that bears resemblance to the phrase "fruit of the womb", an expression meaning "children", which can be traced back to use in the Bible (Psalm 127:3).In 1871, just one year after the first trademark laws were passed by Congress, Mr. Knight received patent number 418 for the brand, Fruit of the Loom.Much of its athletic outerwear was sold under the "Pro Player" label, a now defunct division.The company was part of Northwest Industries, Inc., until NWI was purchased by William F. Farley in 1985 and renamed Farley Industries, Inc. Farley served as President, CEO, and majority shareholder for 15 years. Fruit of the Loom's sales revenue rose from approximately $500 million at the time of NWI's purchase to roughly $2.5 billion nearly 15 years later. Debt financing, once seen as brilliant, proved difficult to manage even as sales revenue quintupled.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 shares of outstanding common stock dropped in value from about $44 per share in early 1997 to just more than $1 by the spring of 2000. Reasons for the bankruptcy are varied. A large debt load which was assumed in the 1980s, a common practice at the time, did not help. William F. Farley, the company's former chairman, chief executive officer, and chief operating officer was forced out prior to bankruptcy in late 1999, after having piloted the company into massive debt and unproductive business ventures, including structuring the company into an off-shore entity in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes.The company was bought from bankruptcy by Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, controlled by legendary investor Warren Buffett, who wanted the valuable brand. He agreed in January 2002 to purchase the company for approximately $835 million in cash. The deal was concluded on April 29, 2002. A condition of the purchase required that former Chief Operating Officer and the then interim CEO, John Holland, remain available to be the CEO for the company.The company purchased Russell Corporation, effectively taking the former competitor private in a deal that was completed August 1, 2006.The company announced the purchase of VF Corporation's intimate apparel company named Vanity Fair Intimates for $350 million in cash on January 23, 2007.
Price: 44.95 USD
Location: New York, New York
End Time: 2024-07-28T10:06:20.000Z
Shipping Cost: 4.95 USD
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All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
Circulated/Uncirculated: Uncirculated