When Kanye West tweeted in April that he makes more money selling shoes than Michael Jordan, he was scoffed at.
Now he says he’s almost a billionaire, thanks to his Yeezy fashion brand.
In partnership with Adidas, Kanye’s Yeezy company just received a valuation that puts their total worth close to $1.5 billion, unidentified sources told The Blast.
Two years ago, Adidas cemented an existing relationship with Kanye to form Adidas + Kanye West, a Yeezy-branded entity creating street and sport footwear, apparel and accessories.
“The alliance makes history as the most significant partnership ever created between a non-athlete and an athletic brand,” Adidas said at the time in a press release. “It will redefine the future, uniting Adidas’ technical, innovative expertise and capabilities with the visionary imagination of West.”
Kanye is a majority stakeholder in Yeezy, which puts him “right at the line of being considered a billionaire,” according to The Blast.
It’s impossible to verify every claim — or perhaps any claim — Kanye makes about the Yeezy business, since its financial information is “baked into both the overall Adidas business and West’s own corporation,” GQ reported in April. But GQ tried.
On the July 30 Jimmy Kimmel show, Kim Kardashian West said her husband, Kanye “is close to joining the three-comma club, and it’s all thanks to Yeezy,” Hollywood Unlocked reported.
Kanye has had potential buyers for the company and received offers for investment but he has not decided yet how much, if any, he wants to part with, according to The Blast.
Kim was talking about her sister Kylie Jenner‘s financial success when Kimmel asked her if she was close to billionaire status.
“I would say my husband is,” Kim replied. “That makes me one, right?”
In April, Kanye tweeted: “Yeezy will hit a billion dollars this year. It is the 2nd fastest growing company in history. It is a unicorn on its way to becoming a decacorn.”
Written by Dana Sanchez
Source: moguldom.com
