Saks Global said on Friday that its chief executive, Marc Metrick, had stepped down after the beleaguered luxury department store group missed a loan payment and as it weighed filing for bankruptcy protection.
Richard Baker, the executive chairman of Saks Global, has assumed the role of chief executive, according to a company statement. Mr. Baker, a former real estate executive, was the mastermind behind the creation of Saks Global, the would-be retail empire that includes Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman.
Saks missed an interest payment on its debt Tuesday and is now considering its options, including bankruptcy, a person with knowledge of the matter said.
The company accumulated lots of debt, in large part, because of Saks’s $2.7 billion acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group in 2024. Saks has struggled to revive sales since the deal closed. In October, the retailer lowered its guidance for the full year and said revenue in the quarter that ended Aug. 2 had fallen more than 13 percent from a year earlier, to $1.6 billion.
A representative for Saks declined to comment.
The goal of the merger was to form a luxury powerhouse, providing cost savings, more leverage with brands and a better customer experience through shared loyalty programs. Neiman Marcus, which also owned Bergdorf Goodman, had filed for bankruptcy in 2020, in the early days of the pandemic.
Mr. Metrick, who had run Saks since 2015, was named chief executive of the new group, with Mr. Baker overseeing his progress. At the time, Mr. Baker, a businessman who previously ran Hudson’s Bay Company, said he had long envisioned bringing together the luxury icons under one banner. He said there were no plans to close any stores or reduce services.
“When selling luxury products, you need beautiful stores and salespeople customers trust,” Mr. Baker said in an interview after the agreement.
Under Mr. Metrick, who started at Saks in 1995 and worked in various executive roles before becoming the president of Saks Fifth Avenue a decade ago, the company planned to keep its brands separate while elevating the service for clientele and making more products available to them.
But the debt used to combine the companies, including a roughly $2.2 billion loan, became an albatross as interest payments constrained the company’s cash.
In August, Saks completed a debt structuring to take some pressure off its finances and strengthen its balance sheet. The credit ratings agency S&P Global said in September that Saks’s capital structure was “unsustainable,” given the cash it also needed to pay vendors and invest in the company. The agency said Saks would need to pay $400 million in interest over the next year, nearly double what it paid the year prior.
Last month, Saks signed a real estate deal to free up more cash. It sold its Neiman Marcus property in Beverly Hills, Calif., to an investment firm for an undisclosed sum.
Saks also had to cope with concerns about consumer spending on luxury goods in the United States as shoppers became pressured by inflation, trade tensions and slowing job growth. In June, Bain and Company warned that the global luxury industry was facing its biggest setbacks in at least 15 years. Yet consumers have been remarkably resilient and spurred a strong holiday shopping season.
Saks and Neiman Marcus began sharing inventory in 2025 and adding more exclusive offerings to lure shoppers.
The company has 70 full-line department stores in the United States under its Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman brands, plus off-price locations including Saks Off Fifth and Last Call. In an attempt to improves sales, Saks teamed up with Amazon last year to put a storefront on its marketplace.
“The last few years have been challenging, but I will look back with pride on everything the team accomplished,” Mr. Metrick said in a post on LinkedIn on Friday.
Efforts to improve the merchandise at Saks and Neiman Marcus were undermined by deteriorating relationships with vendors over the last year. The company accumulated a backlog in overdue payments, but told creditors in June that it was mending ties with the brands affected.
Now Saks’s creditors are closely watching its next steps. Gary Wassner, chief executive at Hilldun, a financial firm that has bought up some of Saks’s unpaid invoices, has instructed vendors to halt shipments to the company because of the payment delays and instability.
“It’s essential that they resolve the situation before they lose the entire spring season,” Mr. Wassner said in an interview on Friday. “As very few brands are shipping to them at this time, they cannot survive in any form without inventory.”
Kim Bhasin is a business reporter covering the retail industry for The Times.
The post Saks C.E.O. Steps Down as Company Struggles to Pay Down Debt appeared first on New York Times.
