Adidas Improves Earnings Guidance After Selling Some Yeezy Shoes

Adidas AG improved its guidance for the year after starting to sell its inventory of Yeezy sneakers from a cancelled partnership with the rapper and designer Kanye West.

The German sports company expects to report an operating loss of €450 million ($499 million) in 2023, it said in a statement on Monday. That’s based on its initial batch of Yeezy product sales, and future Yeezy sales could further improve the company’s results, it said.

Adidas previously warned that it could post an operating loss of €700 million if it had to write off all existing Yeezy inventory.

In May, Adidas decided to begin selling its pile of Yeezy shoes left over from its defunct partnership with West, who now goes by Ye. The company has pledged to donate a “significant amount” of the proceeds to charities that work to fight discrimination and hate speech.

Adidas terminated its deal with Yeezy in October after Ye made a series of antisemitic remarks, leaving about €1.2 billion worth of sneakers in limbo.

Chief executive officer Bjorn Gulden, who took over in January, has also been ramping up production of the classic Samba sneakers to meet high demand and is pushing to expand in China.

By Tim Loh

Learn more:

Adidas Swamped With $565 Million in Orders for Unsold Yeezy Shoes

Adidas got orders worth more than €508 million ($565 million) for 4 million pairs of unsold Yeezy shoes, better than the company’s “most optimistic forecast,” the Financial Times reported on Monday.