After collecting colossal profits for decades (the last net result, that of 2019, exceeded 2 billion euros), the German giant Adidas, which sells sporting goods manufactured in China at very low cost, has seen sales and supplies from Asian factories plummet with the arrival of the Coronavirus. Due to the pandemic, it had to close all its stores in Europe and America and in order not to touch the gigantic profits and huge dividends by one euro, it decided overnight to no longer pay the rent of its outlets. Of the German ones, for now.
As Adidas also want to do H&M, Puma, Saturn and Deichmann. These are thousands of outlets whose owners risk enormous damage. The German public is enraged and in an interview with the popular Bild, Olaf Scholz, Federal Finance Minister, strongly criticized Adidas' decision, which came just as Berlin was deciding to help tenants of shops and homes against the risk of eviction.
The large multinationals, instead of demonstrating – as German ministers, the press and consumers complain – the necessary sense of responsibility, keep the rents in their pockets. The trouble is that if this is the wave that is shaking the already very choppy waters of the multinationals, European governments fear that Adidas' decision will also spread across the border and become a decision shared by other companies.
Adidas, which also manufactures almost all of its products in Asia (save for one fully robotized factory in Germany), has achieved in recent years brilliant economic results, with a constantly increasing turnover (over 23 billion euros in 2019) and with equally progressing profits (+12% those of the past year).
It was enough to hear, in the muffled halls where the summit of the German Konzern recently met, the echo of a loss on profits for the first three months of the year of around 400 million euros, to decide the brutal elimination of rent payments. "So it is if you like - they would have commented - we will not even have the advantages of the Olympics and sports competitions and therefore it is useless to continue paying rents for shops that do not make money because they are all closed".
