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- Adidas has cashed in on surplus Yeezy stock, after terminating its contract with Kanye West last year.
- The footwear giant received over $560 million in orders for inventory it had originally planned to write off.
- This will go some way to ease the German footwear brand's financial woes – after it warned earlier this year it could make a rare operating loss.
It's been nine months since Adidas cut ties with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West over his anti-semitic remarks, but that has done little to damp demand for his signature shoes.
The German sportswear maker has received orders worth 508 million euros ($564 million), beating its own most optimistic estimates, at a sale of leftover Yeezy shoes – and demand was so high that not all requests could be processed, according to the Financial Times.
Adidas's collaboration with Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, lasted seven years and was highly profitable for both parties, but the contract was terminated last October following the rapper's controversial remarks.
The company had originally planned to write off all existing Yeezy stock at a cost of $500 million, before shareholder pressure reversed this decision in May. Instead, the clothing brand has pledged to donate some of the profits from the sale to causes fighting antisemitism and racism, but the total contribution to charitable causes has not yet been confirmed.
Without Ye – who is reported by the FT to have generated €1.7 billion in sales and almost €700 million in operating profit for the company – Adidas may report its first operating loss in 31 years, but the sale of Yeezy inventory will likely ease these woes.
The sportswear maker is also embroiled in a legal dispute with Ye, after accusing him of "mishandling virtually all of the marketing funds" on the Yeezy project. West admitted on the Nick Cannon podcast to spending $50 million on his "Sunday Service" gospel choir tour – though whether this was Adidas money, he didn't clarify.
"The Yeezys, they were selling themselves," he said. "So instead of paying for ads, I invested it in the church."