When Adidas ended its lucrative partnership with Kanye West in October after a global outcry over his anti-Semitic remarks, former managers felt they had finally been vindicated.
via: Insider
Adidas is stuck with Yeezy sneakers worth more €500 million ($530 million) after it cut ties with Kanye West, the Financial Times reported.
The German sportswear giant is now trying to sell the items under its own brand to minimize potential losses, according to the report.
Yeezy accounted for about 7% of Adidas sales this year to the value of 1.7 billion euros ($1.8 billion), the newspaper said.
The Adidas-Yeezy partnership came to an abrupt halt in October after the rapper made antisemitic remarks on Twitter. Adidas said it would take a $247 million hit to its profits as a result.
Several other companies dropped Yeezy products from their stores as a result of West’s comments, including Balenciaga, Gap and Footlocker.
Last month Adidas announced it was investigating West, also known as Ye, following a Rolling Stone report that said he’d acted inappropriately around Yeezy staff.
It claimed that West showed workers explicit material of his ex-wife Kim Kardashian in a meeting, based on interviews with more than two dozen former Yeezy and Adidas staff.
The Rolling Stone report included claims by a former Yeezy worker that she witnessed Ye tell a young woman of color to sit on the floor during an hours-long meeting. He allegedly told the designer that she didn’t “deserve to sit at the table.”
Adidas did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
