Adidas has announced that it will not burn the unsold merchandise from its now-defunct brand Yeezy which was in partnership with Kanye West. Instead, it will try to sell the stock and donate the money to those who were harmed by the rapper’s comments.
The German sportswear brand has been in crisis with the excess stock of Yeezy branch since last October when it announced to discontinue its partnership with Kanye West after he made anti-semitic comments on social media.
The Yeezy shoes with a value of €1.2bn (£1bn) have been sitting in storage since being withdrawn from sale. The debacle led to Adidas’s first annual loss in 31 years.
On Thursday, Bjørn Gulden, the company’s chief executive, told investors at the group’s annual shareholder meeting that destroying the goods was not the right move and the company was working on a plan for them to be sold. It was earlier being speculated that the brand was planning to destroy the excess stock.
He said some of the proceeds would then go to unnamed charities that represented people who “were hurt” by the comment’s made by Ye.
“Burning the goods is not the solution … What we are trying to do now over time is to sell parts of this merchandise and donate money to the organisations (that were) hurt by Kanye’s statements,” Gulden said. “When we will do that and how we will do that is not clear yet, but we are working on those things.”
He also defended the initial decision to collaborate with West and said “As difficult as he was, he is perhaps the most creative mind in our industry.”
It is now being estimated that the company would mitigate a potential €500m hit to operating profits as a result of ditching Yeezy.
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