Adidas says it plans to sell its remaining Yeezy sneakers – and it doesn't want to make a loss

• Adidas says it plans to sell its remaining stocks of Yeezy sneakers worth nearly $300 million.
• It wants to sell them "at least at cost," it said. It will only write off a small amount of stock it deems unsellable.

Adidas plans to sell its remaining stocks of Kanye West's Yeezy sneakers worth nearly $300 million – and says it wants to price them at "at least" how much it cost to make them.

"The company plans to sell the remaining Yeezy product at least at cost in 2024," Adidas said in a press release Wednesday.

The German sportswear retailer had previously planned to write off roughly 300 million euros ($324 million) of Yeezy inventory.

It now plans to sell around 268 million euros ($289 million) of its remaining stock.

"Our consumer, retail and trade research has shown that we can sell this remaining inventory in 2024 for at least the cost price," said CEO Bjørn Gulden, who took over a year ago. The small amount of stock Adidas won't sell, which it said is worth in the low double-digit millions of euros, has been written off because it was damaged or "very broken in sizes," Gulden said.

Adidas was among the brands that cut ties with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, in October 2022 after he went on a series of antisemitic rants which resulted in him being temporarily locked out of his account on Twitter, now X. He also said that 400 years of slavery "sounds like a choice" and gave "White Lives Matter" shirts to homeless people on Skid Row.

The sports retailer said last May that it would sell off its remaining stock and give the proceeds to charities including the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, which is run by the sister of George Floyd. Business Insider has asked Adidas how much money it gave to charity from the sale of Yeezy stock and whether it plans to give any of its takings from 2024 Yeezy sales to charity.

Adidas said on Wednesday that its 2024 financial guidance was based on its assumption that it would sell the stock at cost, rather than at a profit.

Adidas said that it had sold Yeezy stock worth 1.2 billion euros in 2022 and 750 million euros in 2023, the latter of which generated a preliminary operating profit of around 300 million euros.

Adidas said that its decision not to write off the vast majority of its Yeezy inventory, as well as a better-than-expected operational business in the fourth quarter, meant that it generated a preliminary operating profit of 268 million euros in 2023, compared to the 100 million euros loss it had expected. It reported an operating profit of 669 million euros in 2022.

"We do of course know that our financial performance is not good," Gulden said in a statement. Adidas said that it took a $1 billion hit from currency swings, in particular citing the devaluation of the Argentine Peso.

But he said he expected sales to grow in 2024 and the company to record an operating profit of around 500 million euros.