More than six months after Adidas cut ties with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, a top shareholder is reportedly demanding answers from the company over its relationship with the business mogul, the Financial Times reported.
At the company’s annual meeting on Thursday, Janne Werning, head of ESG at Union Investment — one of Germany’s biggest investment firms – will urge Adidas to reveal the results of its investigation into Ye’s behavior, according to a draft of his speech seen by the FT.
Last October, the rapper-turned-fashion designer was banned from Twitter after posting an antisemitic rant.
Several companies cut ties with him as a result, including Adidas, Balenciaga, and Vogue.
West first partnered with Adidas in 2013 for his Yeezy brand, before a signing another 2016 deal described by the company as the “most significant partnership between a non-athlete and a sports brand.”
Following their rift, the sportswear giant has been slow to release a plan on how it will repurpose the piles of unsold Yeezy merchandise — fueling frustrations among investors.
“We are working on different options,” Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden said in an investor’s call on last Friday. “The decisions are getting closer and closer.”
Last week, a group of investors filed a class-action lawsuit against Adidas, accusing the company of knowing about Ye’s problematic behavior years before ending the collaboration. Adidas denies the allegations.
