‘Where Else Are They Going to Go?’: How Saks Global Lost Trust of Vendors, Employees and Wall Street Under Richard Baker

A longtime Neiman Marcus employee dragged herself out of bed on her day off to join a company all-hands meeting on her iPad. The weather on that cold, overcast Monday in January 2025 only deepened her anxiety about her future, which she feared was doomed.

She joined the online congregation of hundreds – with her camera off – to hear the “ominous proclamation” from Marc Metrick, the CEO of Saks Global, that the luxury retailer had completed the acquisition of its rival Neiman Marcus.

Metrick talked up the merger for about 20 minutes, then introduced Saks Global Chairman Richard Baker to the employees. Having previously worked at Lord & Taylor during 2008, when it was owned by Baker, she knew exactly what was coming.

“He barely even looked into the camera and just sort of threw his hands up and said, ‘I’m a real estate guy. I’m not in retail,’” recalled the 50-year-old project manager.

Steve Dennis, a former member of Neiman’s executive leadership team, also sensed from the beginning that the merger between the two retail giants was bound to fail.

“The first day I heard about it, my reaction was that this looked like an inevitable bankruptcy filing,” Dennis said.

Industry experts say Baker has consistently lived up to his self-professed image as “not a retail guy.” Baker’s National Realty & Development Corp. Equity Partners bought Lord & Taylor in 2006 and made nearly $1 billion selling its iconic Fifth Avenue building to WeWork in 2017. The store liquidated in 2020. Baker took over the Canadian retailer Hudson’s Bay Co., or HBC, in 2008, which struggled and shuttered all its stores in 2025. Baker’s HBC bought Saks Fifth Avenue for $2.9 billion, saddling the retailer with $2.3 billion in debt in 2013. In December 2024, Baker stacked the luxury retailer with over $2 billion of debt to fulfill his “20-plus-year dream” of acquiring archrival Neiman Marcus to form a retail powerhouse, Saks Global. Come January 2026, Saks Global filed for bankruptcy.

Octus spoke to multiple current and former employees of Saks Global and Neiman Marcus, who shared their views on Baker’s management. Octus also interviewed retail experts and investors in the company, who say that they believe Baker’s heart was never in catering to customers who were already shifting to online shopping. On his watch, experts, investors and former employees say, Saks Global’s marquee properties were ignored; investments in supply chains, store operations, and brand reinvention were underdeveloped; and vendors were stiffed.

“He was tanking HBC in Canada at the same time (in 2024-2025) when he was buying Neiman. How do you have all that? How do you have those funds and the lenders that are willing to give you the money when they’ve seen your track record of how you crash and burn everything you touch?” a current employee at Saks Global said on condition of anonymity.

Dennis, who runs his own strategic retail consulting firm and has twice advised investors exploring putting the Saks and Neiman together, said theoretically the acquisition made sense, but it failed in its execution. According to him, Neiman was a better-run company and should have been the acquirer, rather than Saks Fifth Avenue.

“Department stores typically don’t pay much rent, either because they own some or all of the property or because of landlord anchor tenant subsidies. If you do a sale-leaseback, rents go up dramatically, and the retailer may be unable to pay it given their low operating margins,” Dennis said.

Dennis thinks that plans to redevelop or sell a flagship property at premium depend on finding tenants willing to occupy the space largely as-is or invest heavily to repurpose it.

“For reasons of ego or ignorance, many retail investors continue to operate on flawed premises. Baker appears guilty of that repeatedly,” he added.

After the merger in late 2024, Saks Global’s economic woes continued, and the company piled on another $600 million in debt in a restructuring transaction in summer 2025 that was meant to set the company on stronger footing.

“Baker is a deal guy … He just wants to cut a deal,” said a financial advisor who was involved in the 2025 debt restructuring deal.

By the second quarter of 2025, the retail juggernaut reeled under a massive debt of $5.2 billion and continued to struggle to make payments to its vendors. The retailer owed millions to the toniest of brands, including Chanel, LVMH, Kering and Capri Holdings. After the merger was closed in December 2024, Saks Global told its investors that it would take more than a year to pay its unpaid bills and was now looking to pay them in 90-day terms instead of 30-day terms.

Before relaying the news to vendors, Metrick announced the decision on a company call.

“They’re just going to have to deal with it. Where else are they going to go?” a Saks employee recalled Metrick saying during the call.

“He kind of sugar-coated the difficulties that Saks was experiencing, and he made it seem that he was very much in the know, very much on top of the vendor relationships,” said a former lender to the company.

“Ultimately, he lost the trust of Wall Street. And, obviously, he lost the trust of the vendors as well,” the banker said.

Dennis says stiffing vendors aggravated the vendor community and created massive negative momentum.

The company is currently in the throes of chapter 11 bankruptcy and has said it will shutter 57 of its OFF 5th locations and five Last Call stores. It is also closing eight Saks Fifth Avenue stores and one Neiman Marcus store. Many employees are concerned about their future.

“The Federal Trade Commission should have never approved the matrimony of these two entities,” said the anonymous Neiman Marcus employee, who works at Saks Global now.

“I hope Baker disappears from retail,” she added.

Saks Global, Baker’s NRDC and Metrick did not reply to requests for comment. Baker could not be contacted.