Debt-Fueled Expansion Preceded the Fall
The bankruptcy filing arrives roughly a year after a major corporate reshuffle. In December 2024, Canada-based Hudson’s Bay Co., which had owned Saks since 2013, completed a roughly $2.7 billion acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group. The deal folded Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman into a newly formed luxury umbrella known as Saks Global Enterprises.
As part of the transaction, Saks Fifth Avenue’s parent company consolidated ownership of the U.S. luxury assets and spun them off under the Saks Global banner. But the acquisition came at a steep price: to finance the deal, Saks assumed approximately $2.2 billion in debt.
Now, like a high-end runway show cut short by a sudden storm, the company is scaling back sharply — trimming its off-price footprint in an effort to stabilize its broader luxury empire.
For shoppers, it signals the end of an era in dozens of communities. For Saks Global, it marks a calculated gamble: sacrifice scale today in hopes of preserving prestige tomorrow.
