Adidas To Sell Leftover Yeezy Shoes, To Donate Proceeds

(RTTNews) - Sports apparel and footwear giant Adidas AG plans to sell the remaining Yeezys it made in collaboration with rapper Kanye West and donate some of the proceeds to charity.

Last year, Adidas terminated its partnership with Ye over his anti-Semitic remarks. The company then said that the decision would result in a short-term negative impact of up to 250 million euros on its fiscal 2022 net income due to the high seasonality of the Adidas Yeezy business in the fourth quarter.

"Ye's recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company's values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness," Adidas had then said in a statement.

Chief executive Bjoern Gulden said the company was still working out how the sales would happen.

"What we are trying to do now over time is to sell some of this merchandise... burning the goods would not be a solution," he said at the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Adidas has about 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) worth of Yeezy shoes sitting in storage.

Gulden said the firm had decided to sell some of the merchandise, instead of donating it, because it did not want to see the products reach the market indirectly.

A sale could help reduce some of those losses. Ye will also be entitled to some of the money, under the terms of the partnership.