Adidas Looks to Appease Investors With €1.5bn Share Buyback

German sportswear brand Adidas hopes to appease investors by announcing that it will return €1.5bn to shareholders over the next three years.

The sporting giant, which has released a series of profit warnings, is looking to offset shareholder criticism with a buyback program which is set to start in the current quarter, and run through to 2017.

Adidas shares are currently valued at €60.52. It said that the program will be financed would be mainly from the group's free cash flow, and would not eat into a planned increase of investment in marketing.

"With the announced return of cash today we underline our strong confidence in the cash generation and growth potential of our group," said Robin Stalker, chief financial officer of the Adidas Group in a statement.

"We believe that our shares are currently significantly undervalued and this provides an excellent opportunity to optimise the company's cost of capital, deploy cash and create further value for our shareholders."

At the end of July, Adidas saw the value of its shares plunge by over 15% after issuing a profit warning, citing tension in Eastern Europe as one of the main reasons for lowering its target for the year.

It decided to "significantly reduce" its strategic operations in Russia, including opening fewer stores in the region over the next year.

The World Cup sponsors, which is due to be held in Russia in 2018, had expected net profits of between €830m-930m but drastically lowered its forecast to approximately €650m for the year.