Adidas Is Stuck With $1.3 Billion Worth Of Unsold Yeezy Shoes

Adidas Is Stuck With $1.3 Billion Worth Of Unsold Yeezy Shoes After Cutting Ties With Kanye West

It’s been nearly seven months since Adidas split with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and boxes of his popular Yeezy shoes are still piled up in warehouses.

The fate of 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) worth of unsold Yeezy stock is weighing on the German sportswear company as it tries to engineer a turnaround from the loss of the lucrative sneaker line and the continued fallout over its former ties to Ye.

Adidas is “getting closer and closer to making a decision” on what do to with the sneakers and the “options are narrowing,” new CEO Bjorn Gulden said in a conference call Friday after reporting 400 million euros ($441 million) in lost sales at the start of the year.

 

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But with “so many interested parties” involved in the discussions, no decision had yet been reached, he said.

Adidas is stuck with stacks of its flagship Yeezy brand shoes after ending its relationship with Ye in October over his antisemitic and other offensive comments on social media and in interviews.

Gulden, who became CEO in January after the Ye split, declined to say if destroying the shoes had been ruled out but that the company was “trying to avoid that.”

He has previously said other options have drawbacks: selling the sneakers would mean paying royalties to Ye, restitching them to remove the brand identification would be dishonest, and giving them away to people in need could lead to resale because of their high market value.