Saks bought Neiman Marcus for $2.65B — then the luxury slowdown sent it bankrupt

Saks Global was the parent company uniting three of America's most famous luxury department stores: Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. It took that shape in 2024, when Saks — led by then-chief executive Richard Baker — acquired Neiman Marcus in a $2.65 billion merger, bringing two luxury retail icons under one roof.

The deal was financed with debt, and the debt was the problem. Saks Global was left carrying more than $2.5 billion of it, largely stemming from the Neiman Marcus acquisition. At the end of December 2025 a payment of more than $100 million came due, and the company could not meet it.

The timing was the cruel part. The merger had been struck just as the luxury market was softening: aspirational shoppers were pulling back amid inflation, supply-chain disruptions and the rise of direct-to-consumer brands, and growth had slowed. On 13 January 2026 Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing unsustainable debt as the primary culprit.

Saks Global is a case about buying at the top of a cycle with borrowed money. The logic of combining two luxury retailers was real, but the deal was leveraged against a market that was about to turn; when aspirational spending cooled, the debt that had built the empire became the thing that broke it. The company emerged from bankruptcy five months later with far less debt and roughly half as many stores.