Saks Global, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, formally exited bankruptcy on Friday with a new plan to safeguard the remnants of its luxury department store empire and mount a comeback.
The company has restructured its debt, closed dozens of stores and cut corporate and store employees since it filed for bankruptcy protection in January. Executives said they planned to emerge with a business focused on high-end shopping and white-glove service, ending an era in which they pushed discount shops and tried to use the company’s real estate holdings as financial leverage.
As part of the transformation, Saks Global changed its corporate name to Exemplar Luxury Group, a nod to the company’s high-end aspirations. The new moniker signaled a fresh start for the business after five months entangled in bankruptcy proceedings, said Geoffroy van Raemdonck, the company’s chief executive.
“It’s going to reimagine what the luxury experience is,” he said during an interview at Bergdorf Goodman’s headquarters in Manhattan. “We’re very realistic that you need to walk before you can run, so there’s different phases, but that new day is so long awaited.”
Exemplar’s emergence keeps alive three of the nation’s oldest and most opulent emporiums. Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman stores will retain their names and logos.
The new company has slashed its debt by 75 percent and added $500 million in new financing. The company said it now had the necessary liquidity to operate and reinvest in the business.
Exemplar’s owners, management, debt holders and vendors said the company could find some stability after six tumultuous years when the survival of each of the three department stores was repeatedly threatened.
Saks has filed for bankruptcy once; Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman have restructured twice since 2020. The competitive landscape has shifted significantly over the past decade as fashion brands have opened their own shops, pulling customers away from department stores.
Famed shops such as Barneys New York, Lord & Taylor and Henri Bendel have closed during the decades-long decline of department stores across the United States. (Saks has since licensed the Barneys name.)
“I suspect they will have a pretty good sales increase over the next year just because they’re back in business again,” Steve Dennis, a former Neiman Marcus executive who runs the retail consultancy SageBerry, said of Exemplar’s stores. “But after that? I don’t see where the growth comes from.”
A New Direction
Saks’s path to bankruptcy started in 2024 when its owner, Richard Baker, orchestrated a bold $2.7 billion acquisition of the Neiman Marcus Group, which also owned Bergdorf Goodman, to combine the three chains.
Mr. Baker, a real estate executive, wanted to consolidate America’s luxury department stores and leverage their real estate holdings, which included stores across the nation. But two months later, Saks was strapped for cash and warned vendors that it would take up to three months to pay them for items that had already been delivered. Many brands stopped shipping new products altogether, which set off a downward cycle in which stores were left with meager merchandise and sales slipped further. The retailer filed for bankruptcy just 13 months after the acquisition.
“Throughout my business career, certain people have marched in one direction, and I’ve often marched in a different direction,” Mr. Baker told The New York Times in February after he was ousted as chief executive. “I’m happy to be out of the department store business.”
The latest revival begins another era for the three businesses, which have withstood the impact of war, recession and pandemic over the last century.
Saks Fifth Avenue, founded in 1867, opened its famed Manhattan flagship after World War I and helped establish New York as a global fashion capital. Bergdorf Goodman, now in a Beaux-Arts style landmark near Central Park, began as a tailor shop in 1899. Eight years later, the first Neiman Marcus opened in Dallas, providing Texans with oil money a selection of sophisticated clothes and furnishings to spend their cash on.
Mr. van Raemdonck, 54, who was named chief executive of Saks Global after Mr. Baker’s exit, had formerly run the Neiman Marcus Group.
He has demanded financial discipline at Exemplar, and he spent recent months cutting out the parts of the business that were not focused on selling luxury goods. The company, for instance, is no longer paying $55 million per year on rent for Lord & Taylor stores that had closed.
To save on expenses, Exemplar condensed its corporate offices in New York from five floors to one and relocated an expensive photography studio that had a view of the Statue of Liberty. Executives moved those photo facilities to Texas, attached to a much less costly warehouse, where products are easier to obtain for photo shoots.
“We’ve looked at every contract, at every cost, at every type of brand that we carry, and we’ve doubled down on the part that is profitable and works,” Mr. van Raemdonck said.
Luxury Only
Saks Global closed its remaining Neiman Marcus Last Call discount stores and most of its Saks Off 5th locations this year as part of its reorganization. Only a few stores stayed in operation to sell leftover inventory.
Company executives had been unable to convert discount shoppers from those cheaper stores into full-price customers who buy big-ticket clothes and handbags at Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.
“Off-price was not a profitable business for the company,” Mr. van Raemdonck said. “It’s a business that requires scale, and it’s a different skill set.”
As for mall locations, a few remain with both a Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. The company kept those with acceptable performance and low levels of customer overlap. Where one store was significantly weaker than the other, it was shut.
There are now 49 store locations across the three brands, down from roughly 170 before the bankruptcy filing. Two more will soon close, but Mr. van Raemdonck said there were no additional closing plans.
Shoppers have demanded better service across the retail industry, so Mr. van Raemdonck said it was essential that Exemplar invest in pampering its customers. The company employs more than 1,500 sales associates who have sold more than $1 million of goods each.
He said he wanted to expand the retailer’s white-glove services — offerings that provide bespoke shopping experiences for high-end clients — by using data and artificial intelligence to help sales associates figure out a customer’s likes and dislikes.
Exemplar’s vendors, which range from global luxury brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton to emerging designers with small-scale collections, are hopeful that the three department stores can make a comeback.
A representative for Kering, the Paris-based owner of fashion houses including Gucci and Saint Laurent, said that the restructuring process had been managed well and that it had “meaningfully strengthened Saks Global at emergence, which we view as important for the long-term health of our shared ecosystem.”
The fashion label Altuzarra is watching closely, too. Last year, it halted its shipments to the company because of late payments, but it has since been paid back nearly in full, said Joseph Altuzarra, the designer. He added that department stores still provided some irreplaceable functions, even though his distribution network is diversified through an online shop and independent boutiques.
“We still do a lot of trunk shows and events,” Mr. Altuzarra said. “That’s how they discover new brands and new products.”
Mr. van Raemdonck said that Exemplar was planning to keep prioritizing and displaying small labels but that there would be fewer brands overall in stores.
Steven Kolb, the chief executive of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, worried that Exemplar might devote too much space to the big brands over the little ones. Department stores, he said, still play a crucial role.
“It’s a lifeline” for those small brands, Mr. Kolb said. “I hope that they continue to invest in younger brands, independent brands. I hope they see the value in that.”
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