19h04 PDT 03/18/2021
in
Abid Rahman
Driven by robust Yeezy sneaker sales and projected earnings from the upcoming Yeezy Gap line, the rapper who became a clothing tycoon becomes America’s richest black – although Forbes disputes the numbers.
Kanye West’s net worth reportedly jumped to $ 6.6 billion, a figure that would make the rapper who became a fashion tycoon the richest black person in America – although the estimate has sparked some debate.
In a story published on Thursday, Bloomberg quoted a UBS report that calculated most of West’s wealth based on the growing value of its fashion line Yeezy, which has an existing deal with German sportswear giant Adidas and a long-awaited collection with normcore Gap pillars.
A favorite of tennis collectors and the fashion press, Yeezy is now worth between $ 3.2 billion to $ 4.7 billion, mainly due to the brand’s deal with German sportswear giant Adidas. The deal with Yeezy-Gap, which will have a collection launched later this summer, is expected to be worth more than $ 970 million. West is the sole owner of the Yeezy brand.
The rest of the rapper’s wealth, $ 1.7 billion, comes from his significant investment in the Skims shapewear line, which will soon be his ex-wife, and he has $ 122 million in cash and shares and $ 110 million in your music catalog.
If you consider the $ 6.6 billion figure, the 43-year-old West is now richer than Vista Equity Partners founder Robert Smith, World Wide Technology David Steward, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan and becomes black America’s richest.
Hours after Bloomberg history, however, Forbes, a publication that is synonymous with tracking the wealth of the super-rich, fell by $ 6.6 billion. In a blog post, Forbes said that Bloomberg figure was “not true, based on our calculations” and that “Forbes estimates that it is worth less than a third of that, or $ 1.8 billion. “
“THE Bloomberg history quotes a UBS report on its business – the same document Forbes saw earlier this month, ” Forbes’ Madeline Berg writes. “The bank made a series of assumptions based on projected future earnings, especially for Yeezy Gap, which has not even been launched yet. Bank documents like this are known for painting future assessments of the best possible scenario.”
She added: “Forbes‘a much more substantiated figure is based on that old-fashioned idea of current recipes – not on theoretical future expectations. Yeezy Gap did not generate revenue, much less profits. “
Even in Forbes’ much lower estimate, West’s stratospheric wealth is a far cry from the 2016 lows, when he revealed that he had $ 53 million in debt and was asking Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg for $ 1 billion to invest in his ideas.