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☆ Adidas CEO promises turnaround after costly Yeezy split
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Alexander Hübner | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Gulden said Adidas is still deciding what to do with its stock of unsold Yeezy footwear. One option could be for Adidas to donate proceeds from the sale of repurposed Yeezy stock to charity, Gulden said. The split cost Adidas 600 million euros ($632 million) in sales in the fourth quarter of 2022, and Yeezy shoes would have brought in an estimated $1.2 billion in revenue this year. Inventories came in at just under 6 billion euros at the end of December, up 49% from the previous year, including 400 million euros of Yeezy products. In the fourth quarter of last year, currency-neutral revenue declined by 1%, taking into account a 600-million-euro loss after it stopped selling Yeezy shoes.

☆ Adidas to slash dividend after Kanye West split
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Alexander Hübner | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] Adidas merchandise is seen in an Adidas store on the day the German company terminated its partnership with the American rapper and designer Kanye West, now known as Ye, in Garden City, New York, U.S., October 25, 2022. REUTERS/Shannon StapletonBERLIN, March 8 (Reuters) - Adidas (ADSGn.DE) will slash its 2022 dividend, it said Wednesday, warning a split with rapper and fashion designer Kanye West could push it to its first annual loss in three decades this year. The company will recommend a dividend of 0.70 euros ($0.7374) per share at a May 11 annual general meeting, it said. Adidas is still dealing with the fallout from ending its partnership with West, which yielded the lucrative Yeezy sneaker line. Adidas said it is still deciding what to do with its stock of unsold Yeezy footwear.

☆ Adidas, burnt by Kanye West split, seeks a new focus
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Helen Reid | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] Adidas Yeezy shoes are seen in a store on the day Adidas terminated its partnership with the American rapper and designer Kanye West, now known as Ye, in Garden City, New York, U.S., October 25, 2022. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Gulden said Adidas would keep partnering not just with athletes but celebrities and artists. "You build credibility as a performance brand by being with athletes, but there's very few athletes that you can do lifestyle with." Gulden did, however, hint at a change of emphasis at Adidas, saying the company needs to refocus on its core. The Jordan brand brought in $5.1 billion of sales in Nike's 2022 fiscal year, up 7% from 2021, according to the company's 2022 annual report.

☆ Departure of CEO to cost Adidas 16 million euros
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BERLIN, March 8 (Reuters) - The early departure of CEO Kasper Rorsted will cost Adidas (ADSGn.DE) nearly 16 million euros ($16.86 million), according to an annual report released on Wednesday. The Danish national, who left the German sportswear maker in November almost four years before the end of his contract, will receive a severance payment of 12 million euros. In addition, he will receive around 3.6 million euros as compensation for not joining a competitor within the next 18 months, as well as his remaining salary of around 300,000 euros for November and December. The latter totaled 14.2 million euros a year earlier. ($1 = 0.9490 euros)Reporting by Alexander Huebner, Writing by Friederike Heine, Editing by Paul CarrelOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Norse Atlantic adds new US destinations from UK's Gatwick as demand surges
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Norway-based airline Norse Atlantic (NORSE.OL) said it will add Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Boston to its summer schedule from London Gatwick airport this year, as it seeks to benefit from the post-pandemic boom in travel. Passenger demand for travel has surged over the last 12 months and is expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels on most routes in 2023. Norse said it would fly daily to Los Angeles from Gatwick from June 30 with economy return fares from 430 pounds including taxes. When it adds the new destinations later in the summer, it will serve more U.S. cities than any other airline flying from Gatwick, Britain's second-biggest airport. Gatwick's transatlantic connections suffered during the pandemic following the failure of Norwegian and after Virgin Atlantic stopped flying from Gatwick and focused on its operations at Britain's biggest airport, Heathrow.

☆ Adidas and Major League Soccer extend partnership with 2026 World Cup in view
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

MUNICH, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Adidas (ADSGn.DE) and Major League Soccer in the United States on Wednesday announced a multi-year extension to their partnership that sees the German sports goods maker continue as the official supplier for the league, clubs and youth academies. "We are committed to helping grow the game and could not be more excited as we approach the 2026 World Cup hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico," said Adidas chief executive Bjorn Gulden in a statement. According to a report by the news outlet CNBC, the contract, which runs until 2030, is worth $830 million while the previous contract from 2017 was worth $700 million. Adidas declined to comment on those figures. Reporting by Alexander Hübner; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Rachel MoreOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/5] Former tennis player Boris Becker attends a news conference to promote documentary 'Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker' at the 73rd Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany, February 19, 2023. "You have to be a bit crazy to cross the line and do things nobody else has ever achieved before." "You expect world champions in a sport to be like everyone else but we aren't," he told a news conference. "What I liked about Boris is that unlike many athletes he is a great storyteller," Gibney said.

☆ Adidas is facing a problem even bigger than Yeezy
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Danni Santana | Mary Hanbury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Adidas expects sales to drop by $1.28 billion in 2023 if it doesn't sell leftover Yeezy inventory. The company's guidance began on a bleak note with revenue for the year expected to drop after ending its Yeezy partnership. Against this background, Adidas said it is forecasting a decline in the high-single digits in sales in 2023. "The sales decline is about more than just Yeezy," Bernstein analyst Aneesha Sherman wrote in a note to clients early Friday. Cowen estimates the brand earned $1.2 billion in sales last year before Adidas terminated the partnership in October.

☆ New Adidas CEO throws Yeezy in kitchen sink
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

But if Adidas decides to write off the Yeezy inventory altogether, it will lose another 500 million euros. In the worst scenario, with one-off costs in 2023 of up to 200 million euros, the $27 billion sportswear maker expects to report a 700 million euro operating loss this year. The company had already announced that ending its partnership with the musician would shrink its net income by 250 million euros in 2022. Shareholders however seem surprised that Adidas might not try to repurpose the trainers, instead of writing off the inventory. Yeezy is not the only problem for Adidas.

☆ ABB won't rush float of $2.9 billion electric vehicle charging business - CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

ZURICH, Feb 2 (Reuters) - ABB (ABBN.S) won't be rushed into the flotation of it 2.6 billion Swiss franc ($2.86 billion) E-Mobility electric vehicle charging business, Bjorn Rosengren said on Thursday after the company reported fourth quarter earnings. "At the moment we don't feel pushed to do an IPO very quickly," Rosengren told reporters. ABB announced on Wednesday a four new investors in the business, including a fund linked to former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. "We have $525 million to invest in the company and we will continue to do all the activities to grow that business," Rosengren said. ($1 = 0.9091 Swiss francs)Reporting by John RevillOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Partisan ‘Fact Checkers’ Spread Climate-Change Misinformation
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Bjorn Lomborg | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Partisan “fact checks” are undermining open discourse about important issues, including climate change. Earlier this month I wrote an accurate post on Facebook about the growing polar-bear population. The post undercut alarmist climate narratives, so it was wrongly tagged as a falsehood. Activists have used polar bears as an icon of climate apocalypse for decades, but the best data show that far from dying out, their numbers are growing. That’s higher than the 5,000 to 19,000 polar bears scientists estimated were around in the 1960s.

☆ ABB sells its power conversion division for $505 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

ZURICH, Jan 20 (Reuters) - ABB (ABBN.S) has sold its power conversion business to AcBel Polytech Inc (6282.TW) for $505 million, the Swiss engineering and technology company said on Friday. ABB said it expects to make a small non-operational book gain from the sale of the United-States-based Power Conversion business, which provides products for telecoms, data centres and general industry. Chief Executive Bjorn Rosengren said he was "delighted" with the deal which completed divisional portfolio divestments announced by ABB at the end of 2020. Power Conversion was acquired by ABB as part of the GE Industrial Solutions acquisition in 2018 and was not core to ABB, the company said. It generated revenues of approximately $440 million and income from operations of approximately $50 million in 2022.

☆ ABBA's successful avatar show in London offers a glimpse at a daring new direction for live music
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Jenni Reid | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

"Our ambition is to do another ABBA Voyage, let's say in North America, Australasia, we could do another one in Europe. Dave J Hogan | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty ImagesIt was also designed for flexibility. Promotional image for ABBA Voyage, the digital avatar-based live show currently running in London. For Cox, live shows that provide a "shared experience" like ABBA Voyage hold a greater appeal than headset-based virtual experiences, though there will certainly be more of those available in future. Frazer Harrison | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

☆ The Cold Reality of Buffalo
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Western New York State was hit with more snow on Tuesday, adding to the winter assault that has already killed 28 in Buffalo in the last week’s storm and deep freeze. The deaths underscore that even in this age of global warming anxiety, cold weather kills more people each year than does excessive heat. As readers of these pages know, that’s a point our contributor Bjorn Lomborg has been making for years. He wrote in November that between 2000 and 2019 in the U.S. and Canada, an average of 20,000 people died from heat each year compared to more than 170,000 from cold.

☆ Volvo says it won't charge for basic software updates like heated seats after backlash against BMW's pay-to-heat plans
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Tim Levin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Car companies want to make extra money by charging car owners for software updates. Volvo won't ask owners to pay up for minor upgrades like heated seats, its COO told Bloomberg. As some rivals seek to monetize every corner of car ownership, Volvo won't charge extra for minor software updates and feature upgrades, according to an executive. He said Volvo could ask owners to pay up for a significant update like a self-driving system. Volvo's approach is markedly different from competitors that are pushing the limits of what customers will pay extra for.

☆ Nike basketball sales aren't expected to suffer after cutting ties with Kyrie Irving as anticipation builds for a Ja Morant signature shoe
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Matthew Kish | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant is expected to get the next Nike signature shoe. "When his signature shoe starts selling, it has the potential to be what Kyrie's was the first three years." Still, Burns noted Nike basketball is on the upswing, and Morant has a strong reputation. The shoe is nearly sold out on Nike's website, suggesting strong demand for performance basketball shoes and room in the market for a new signature shoe. "Nike basketball has rebounded," Burns said, citing the popularity of the GT Cut.

☆ ABB’s $327 Million Bribery Settlement Arrives in U.S. Court
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Dylan Tokar | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +5 min

The U.S. court hearing was part of a globally coordinated deal that extends to authorities in South Africa, Switzerland and Germany, with the apparent bulk of the fines being collected in South Africa. The settlement is the first that U.S. authorities have reached in coordination with authorities in that country. The Kusile Power Station, a coal-fired power plant in South Africa. Switzerland on Friday said it was issuing a fine of 4 million Swiss francs, equivalent to about $4.3 million dollars. The Justice Department said it anticipated a related settlement with German authorities, but didn’t indicate a time frame.

☆ An interior designer to New York City's elite shares the 3 fresh trends that are all the rage and 2 that are out of style
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Zoe Rosenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

NYC interior designer Bennett Leifer outlined what's in and what's out right now. He spoke with Insider about what his clients are seeking in their homes now, and the tired trends they're ready to leave behind. John Keeble/Getty ImagesLeifer said his clients aren't using white as a fallback anymore, but rather an intentional decision. "It has to finish a space to a certain degree," Leifer said, but clients aren't falling back on the old rulebook. Instead they're curious to experiment with new touches, like the project where Leifer's using bronze casings around windows.

☆ ABB takes valid detour around hairy IPO markets
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The deal, which values ABB E-mobility’s equity at 2.5 billion Swiss francs, is a halfway house after original plans for an initial public offering were delayed by volatile markets. The deal values the unit at around 3 times 2023 sales, assuming far-from-impossible 50% revenue growth this year and next. The charging division gets long-term investors, a beefed-up board and greater independence, making an IPO easier when markets recover. ABB meanwhile continues to streamline its operations to focus on the core fast-growing areas of electrification and automation. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ 'Super Eagles 96': When Nigeria shocked the footballing world by winning Olympic gold
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Ollie Macnaughton | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —When Nigeria’s national football team competed at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, few thought it could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with countries like Argentina and Brazil. But the team, lovingly nicknamed the Super Eagles, stunned the footballing world by winning gold in the world’s biggest sporting event. “Super Eagles 96,” a new documentary by London-born filmmaker Yemi Bamiro, which recently premiered at the London Film Festival, showcases this brief, but important moment in Nigerian history. Director Yemi Bamiro at the "Super Eagles 96" world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 13, 2022. Clemens Westerhof, the “Dutchgerian,” coached the national football team between 1989 and 1994, laying the groundwork for the Olympic victory.

☆ Adidas slashes 2022 outlook after Kanye West split
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Rachel More | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Adidas now expects its currency-neutral revenue to grow at a low-single-digit rate in 2022, down from a previously forecast mid-single-digit rate. An Adidas logo is pictured inside a shoe before the company annual general meeting in Fuerth near Nuremberg, Germany, May 11, 2017. It posted net income from continuing operations of 66 million euros, revising down its preliminary figure by almost two-thirds following the end of the Ye partnership. The termination of the partnership is expected to reduce annual earnings by half, the company previously said, with net income from continuing operations of around 250 million euros ($252 million) now expected this year. ($1 = 0.9939 euros)Writing by Rachel More; Editing by Miranda Murray and Bradley PerrettOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Adidas' break-up with Kanye West has halved its earnings forecast for 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Adidas had forecast net income of 500 million euros five days before cutting ties with Kanye West. After ending the deal with the rapper the figure has been cut to just 250 million euros. Adidas said the reduction was "due to negative tax implications in the third quarter related to the company's decision to terminate the adidas Yeezy partnership" and reflected the "high seasonality of the adidas Yeezy business geared towards the fourth quarter." As part of his Yeezy deal with Adidas, West also demanded that a facility be set up in Wyoming, Bloomberg reported. Adidas executives took just two minutes to cut ties in an "undramatic" phone call, having initially delayed a decision to get legal opinions from US law firms, per Bloomberg.

☆ Puma's Gulden to head rival Adidas from Jan. 1
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"During his time as CEO of Puma, he revitalised the brand and led the company to record results," said Adidas supervisory board chairman Thomas Rabe. "The Supervisory Board is firmly convinced that Bjorn Gulden will lead Adidas into a new era of strength." Adidas has been looking for a successor to Rorsted, who had initially planned to leave his post in 2023, since August. Gulden had to leave his CEO position at Puma with immediate effect with the decision to move to Adidas; Arne Freundt was named the head of Puma with immediate effect on Tuesday. Reporting by Alexander Huebner, Writing by Miranda Murray, editing by Rachel More and David EvansOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Puma names new CEO with immediate effect as Gulden heads to Adidas
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BERLIN, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Puma brought forward the start date of its next chief executive on Tuesday, naming Arne Freundt as leader with immediate effect as rival Adidas confirmed that Bjorn Gulden would be its next head. Puma had announced last week that Gulden - who served as head of the sportswear maker since 2013 - would be leaving at the end of 2022, with Freundt initially set to start Jan. 1. Adidas has been looking since August for a successor to Rorsted, who had initially planned to leave his post in 2023. Adidas said its chief financial officer, Harm Ohlmeyer, would lead the company in the interim until Dec. 31, 2022. Writing by Miranda Murray, editing by Rachel MoreOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Puma names new CEO effective immediately as Bjorn Gulden heads to Adidas
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Puma named Arne Freundt its new CEO effective immediately, as rival Adidas confirmed that Bjorn Gulden would be its next head. Puma had announced last week that Gulden — who served as head of the sportswear maker since 2013 — would be leaving at the end of 2022, with Freundt initially set to start Jan. 1. Gulden is now set to take over at Adidas from Jan. 1 after current CEO Kasper Rorsted mutually agreed with the supervisory board that he would step down and leave the company after Nov. 11, 2022. Adidas has been looking since August for a successor to Rorsted, who had initially planned to leave his post in 2023. Adidas said its chief financial officer, Harm Ohlmeyer, would lead the company in the interim until Dec. 31, 2022.

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