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Adidas wants one of Africa's richest men to run its boardroom.
The German sportswear giant is looking to replace supervisory board chairman Thomas Rabe with Egyptian billionaire Nassef Sawiris, a long-standing board member and one of the company's largest shareholders. The move, if confirmed, would hand Sawiris one of the most prominent corporate chairmanships in global sport.
Sawiris, worth an estimated $9.3 billion, is not new to Adidas. He has sat on its supervisory board since 2016 and has served as deputy chairman since 2025. His investment vehicle, NNS Group, holds roughly a 6% stake in the company, placing him among its biggest shareholders.
His sports footprint extends well beyond Adidas. Sawiris co-owns and chairs Aston Villa in the English Premier League and holds a 5% stake in Madison Square Garden Sports, the parent company of the NBA's New York Knicks and the NHL's New York Rangers.
The son of the late Egyptian industrialist Onsi Sawiris, patriarch of one of Africa's most powerful business dynasties, Nassef also runs OCI, one of the world's largest producers of nitrogen fertilizer. He has spent recent years unwinding that empire, selling off more than $11.6 billion in assets as he moves toward dissolving OCI Global, his Dutch-listed fertilizer and chemicals company.
His ambitions have been shifting westward. In an interview with the Financial Times last September, he said he was aggressively targeting the U.S. market, with plans to invest as much as $50 billion in North American infrastructure by merging his Abu Dhabi-listed holding companies.
Sawiris stepping into the chairman role would bring down the curtain on Thomas Rabe's six-year run. Rabe joined Adidas's supervisory board in May 2019 and has chaired it since August 2020, a period that was far from smooth.
The announcement of his potential successor came alongside news that CEO Bjorn Gulden, a Norwegian businessman and former professional footballer, has had his contract extended through 2030. Gulden was brought in during 2023 to steady what was widely described as a company in turmoil.
"With his long-standing experience, his deep understanding of our industry, his strong leadership, and his clear focus on quality growth, Bjorn Gulden drove the successful turnaround of Adidas during the past three years," Rabe said in a statement Wednesday.
The leadership news landed on the same day Adidas shares dropped more than 7%, after the company's 2026 profit forecast came in below what analysts had expected.
Adidas is heavily exposed to Southeast Asian manufacturing, with significant production in Vietnam and other countries now subject to steep U.S. tariffs. That exposure has made investors nervous about the growth outlook across the sportswear sector more broadly.
Geopolitical pressure is adding to the uncertainty. An Adidas store in Israel was damaged in an attack recently, and businesses across the region have been forced to temporarily close.
The company projected an operating profit of around 2.3 billion euros ($2.7 billion) this year, below the 10% margin analysts had pencilled in, implying a margin of under 9%. Adidas now says it does not expect to cross the 10% margin threshold until 2028.
