Adidas Faces a Leadership Handover While Its Buyback Machine Grinds On

Adidas maintains share buybacks despite record pay gap, CFO handover, and 14% stock drop; CEO's purchase signals confidence.

The glare of Germany's highest executive pay packets in the DAX has landed on Adidas at an awkward moment. The sportswear giant's remuneration reports for fiscal 2025, published last Friday, show the widest pay gap between board members and the broader workforce of any company in the benchmark index — a disclosure that arrives as the share price struggles to find its footing.

Yet for all the noise around compensation, the company's capital-return machinery has not missed a beat. By 12 August, Adidas had accumulated 2.95 million of its own shares under the buyback programme, which continues to operate in tranches and is documented via mandatory filings on the trading platform. The purchases have been executed into a softening market — the stock now changes hands at €153.40, having shed 14 percent over the past 30 days — which, if anything, lowers the average entry price and improves the programme's capital efficiency.

That steady accumulation stands in contrast to the turbulence in the executive suite. Harm Ohlmeyer, the chief financial officer, confirmed in late July that he would not extend his expiring contract. His successor, Birgit Kretschmer, steps onto the board on 1 September and formally assumes the CFO role at year-end. Kretschmer brings a quarter-century of Adidas experience and returns from a six-year stint as finance chief at C&A.

The transition is layered with other governance shifts. Nassef Sawiris has been appointed chairman of the supervisory board, while CEO Bjørn Gulden has extended his own contract through to the end of 2030. Michelle Robertson, the human resources director, has also been confirmed until 2031. That continuity at the operational helm sits uneasily against the public criticism of the pay structure — and with Axel Springer chief Mathias Döpfner proposed as a new supervisory board member, the remuneration policy will have a prominent new voice shaping it.

The timing of the CFO handover is far from incidental. Adidas raised its full-year guidance alongside its quarterly results roughly three weeks ago, yet the shares have drifted 1.9 percent lower since. A UBS downgrade around two weeks ago has compounded the pressure, leaving the stock down about 3.3 percent from that day. Kretschmer's mandate, as analysts see it, is to address the margin weakness they have flagged without throttling the growth momentum that justified the upgraded outlook.

There are, however, countervailing signals. Gulden himself bought 3,212 Adidas shares at an average price of €158.93 in late July — a personal outlay of roughly €508,000 that markets often read as management conviction in an undervalued stock. The buyback programme has been purchasing at average prices between €151 and just under €160 in late July, levels the share price has since moved beyond: Wednesday's close came in at €156.05, up 1.1 percent on the day.

Fundamental strength provides another layer of support. RBC Capital Markets reaffirmed its "Outperform" rating on Wednesday, citing a US back-to-school survey that places Adidas ahead of Nike as the most popular brand in that segment. The China business, meanwhile, is described as stable — no small feat given the regional growth concerns.

For investors, the September arrival of Kretschmer will be the immediate focus: whether she can enforce the margin discipline analysts demand while safeguarding the recently raised revenue guidance. The first hard test arrives with third-quarter numbers on 29 October. The compensation debate, for its part, is unlikely to move the share price on its own — too internal a matter, too overshadowed by the fundamental questions of growth and profitability. But it sharpens the scrutiny on how this company allocates capital: ploughing millions into buybacks while paying its board more than any DAX peer invites questions about whose interests come first. Whether the new finance chief and the reshaped supervisory board recalibrate those priorities will become clear in the months ahead.