With 22 Grammy awards, 140 million album / single sales and countless world tours, Kanye West is objectively one of the best musicians of all time. With an expanding tennis and clothing business, he is also one of the richest and most successful celebrities on the planet. And with two new massive business assessments, we have a new compliment for your resume: Kanye West is now officially the richest black man in the history of the United States.
Last April, we first learned that Kanye West was a billionaire after new details about the impressive success of his Yeezy brand were released. In fact, not just a billionaire, but a multimillionaire. At that point, we estimated that Kanye West’s net worth was $ 3.2 billion.
With some new information that was revealed today, we are updating our estimate of Kanye’s personal fortune.
According to new assessments prepared by investment bank UBS, Kanye’s tennis / apparel partnership with Adidas is worth between $ 3.2 billion and $ 4.7 billion. Kanye owns 100% of the Yeezy brand, so these assessments go straight to your financial results. In addition, according to UBS, its partnership with The Gap is worth $ 1 billion.
With these new assessments, we are prepared to announce the following:
(Photo by Roy Rochlin / Getty Images)
The richest black man in the history of the United States
With $ 6.6 billion, Kanye West is now the richest black man in American history.
He jumped from third to first place, surpassing Oprah Winfrey’s $ 3.5 billion net worth and Robert F. Smith’s $ 6.5 billion net worth. Michael Jordan is the fourth richest black man in the United States, with a net worth of $ 2.2 billion.
By our reckoning, Kanye West is the third richest celebrity in the world, behind Steven Spielberg ($ 7 billion) and George Lucas ($ 10 billion).
How is Kanye so rich?
Here’s the main thing that people don’t understand – imagine if Michael Jordan really HAD the Jordan brand and simply had a distribution partnership with Nike. That’s what Kanye has with Yeezy and Adidas. If Nike sold the Jordan brand, Michael would continue to earn royalties from the new owner, but would gain nothing from the sale – although, of course, the acquirer would be wise to make sure that Michael was VERY happy with the transaction.
Kanye owns 100% of Yeezy.
In 2020, he extended his partnership with Adidas for another 10 years, but still maintains 100% creativity and share control.
If the brand continues at its current pace, when the 10-year deal ends, Kanye will be able to take the most valuable clothing brands in the world as a free agent. As a solo operator.
There is nothing to stop Kanye from spending the next decade expanding his own production facilities. If only he had large amounts of land somewhere in the USA where it would be very cheap to build a lot of shoe factories … Somewhere favorable to business … Maybe even a state that has no state income tax and a of the lowest sales taxes in the USA… .mmmm… what a state it is… oh right, WYOMING.
[FYI to those who were not aware, Kanye owns around 8,000 acres of undeveloped land in Wyoming, including a $2 million commercial warehouse facility.]
Here are Yeezy’s actual recipes from 2017 to 2020:
- 2017 = $ 300 million
- 2018 = $ 864 million
- 2019 = $ 1.5 billion
- 2020 = $ 1.7 billion
Note that even during a global pandemic, Yeezy’s revenue managed to increase 13%, 2019 vs. 2020.
According to UBS, Kanye personally NETTED $ 191 million in royalties from its operations in 2020.
The same UBS document shows that, outside of his partnerships with Adidas and Gap, Kanye has about $ 1.7 billion in other assets, including about $ 100 million in real estate, a music catalog valued at US $ 110 million and a significant equity stake in his future ex – Kim Kardashian’s underwear / fashion business, Skims.
According to documents released last year, Kanye has only about $ 100 million in debt (“only” because it is a relatively low debt for someone with his assets).
And if you’re wondering if Kim will potentially have a big chunk of Yeezy in her divorce process, we’ve been told that out of their investment in Skims, Kanye and Kim’s finances were strictly separated during the marriage and that they have a pre -Bridal solid as a rock.
Congratulations to Kanye West! Keep up the impressive work! Let me know if you want to add a celebrity finance website to your growing portfolio of business assets 🙂