After breaking the contract with Kanye West, Adidas decided what to do with the Yeezy brand

Adidas planning to sell him Yeezy sneakers And Donate proceeds To charity, the CEO told shareholders Bjorn Golden This Thursday.

The company has severed ties with Ye, the rapper and fashion designer formerly known as Kanye West, late last year after he made a series of anti-Semitic comments. The partnership of Adidas’ Yeezy line with Ye has been one of the most successful, generating nearly 10% of the company’s annual revenue, according to estimates. In early February, Adidas warned that it would face losses particle If he couldn’t sell his stock, which raised questions about what he would do with this controversial shoe.

It seems that the company decided not to destroy it.

Burning it is not the solution.Gulden said at the company’s annual meeting of shareholders. He noted that the company consulted several NGOs before reaching a solution.

“What we’re trying to do over time is sell some of these products and then Donate them to organizations Who helps us and who else Hurt by Kanye’s remarksGolden added.

If Adidas did sell the shoes, it would end months of back-and-forth delays as the shoe brand thought of several possible solutions, none of which left the company unscathed. Options included rebranding, liquidating, or donating the iconic sneakers in some way. Another alternative was to destroy the sneakers, a practice that has drawn criticism in recent years from some retailers and brands designed for environmental reasons.

Last November, those in charge of Adidas confirmed that they could recover the “vast majority” of losses by changing the shoe brand, that cost between $ 200 And almost $600And Sell ​​them at a discount. Golden later indicated that the company might not sell any of the products, which would have been leaving Adidas Unsold inventory Which, according to analysts, has value up to $500 million.

The company ended its relationship with Ye at the end of October after a series of disagreements. She appeared in his fashion show Paris Fashion Week with a shirt “Egg Lives Matter” He then made anti-Semitic comments on Instagram and Twitter, which he doubled down on in an unaired excerpt from an interview with the then-Fox News host. Tucker Carlson.

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