Unsold Yeezys gather dust as Adidas defaults on plan to rehire them: NPR

Adidas cut ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in October after the rapper made anti-Semitic comments.

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Adidas cut ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, in October after the rapper made anti-Semitic comments.

Joe Riedel/Getty Images

More than six months after Adidas cut ties with Ye, formerly Kanye West, the sportswear giant has been slow to release a plan on how to repurpose piles of unsold Yeezy merchandise — to the frustration of investors.

“We’re working on different options,” said Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden. Invitation to the investor Friday. “Decisions are getting closer and closer.”

Earlier this week, a group of investors filed a class-action lawsuit against Adidas, accusing the company of knowing about Ye’s problematic behavior years before they terminated the collaboration. Adidas denies these allegations.

Adidas ended its partnership with Ye back in October after the rapper made antisemitic comments. The company has suspended production of Yeezy products as well as payments to Ye and his companies.

In February, Adidas estimated that the decision not to sell existing merchandise would cut the company’s full-year revenue by 1.2 billion euros (about $1.28 billion) and its operating profit by 500 million euros ($533 million) this year.

The loss could be even more severe if the company doesn’t figure out how to repurpose Yeezy products already made.

For months, investors have been waiting for Adidas to decide how it will recoup the losses.

in Invitation to the investor In March, Golden said he had received hundreds of business proposals, but it was important to tread carefully given the tarnished reputation the product has been associated with.

“I’ve probably had 500 different job offers from people who want to buy inventory. But again, that wouldn’t necessarily be the right thing to do, so it’s a very difficult and delicate situation,” he said.

On Friday, Golden told investors that “there are three or four scenarios that are being built right now” and that the company is in talks with “interesting parties many times over.”

He added that the repurpose plan could be approved “in the mid-term in the future”.