BERLIN, March 4 (Reuters) – Adidas’ chief commercial officer said on Wednesday that one of the company’s franchise stores in Israel had been hit by a bomb, but no one had been injured, amid the unfolding war in Iran.
“We had one franchise store in Israel which was hit indeed by an attack three days ago,” Adidas’ chief commercial officer Mathieu Sidokpohou told journalists during a press conference.
“Fortunately the store was closed, so we didn’t have any colleague impacted,” he said. “So far, business is not the most important thing for us in that region. It’s people first.”
Many stores in Dubai and other major Middle Eastern shopping hubs shut temporarily or were operating with a skeleton staff as the escalating U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran has roiled the region.
“We have people currently sitting in shelters,” Adidas CEO Bjorn Gulden said at the same press conference.
Some 3,000 people work at Adidas’ 350 chain and franchise stores in six countries in the region affected by the war.
Gulden said Adidas expected to suffer an impact on revenue from closed stores in Middle East and delays on some products sent via air freight through the region.
(Reporting by Linda Pasquini and Helen Reid; editing by Matthias Williams and Miranda Murray)
