Saks Fifth Avenue guardian firm buys Neiman Marcus chain in $2 billion deal

1 of three | HBC, Saks Fifth Avenue’s guardian firm, mentioned Thursday it’s going to purchase Neiman Marcus Group in a $2.65 billion deal. “We’re thrilled to take this step in bringing collectively these iconic luxurious names,” HBC CEO Richard Baker mentioned in a press release. File Photograph by Invoice Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

July 4 (UPI) — The guardian firm of Saks Fifth Avenue introduced Thursday its plan to purchase Neiman Marcus Group in a multi-billion-dollar deal that may set up the brand new Saks International from two luxury-brand retailers that began within the early 1900s.

HBC, Saks Fifth Avenue’s guardian firm, mentioned Thursday it’s going to purchase Neiman Marcus Group for $2.65 billion.

“We’re thrilled to take this step in bringing collectively these iconic luxurious names,” HBC CEO Richard Baker mentioned in a assertion.

With headquarters in Toronto, Canada’s Ontario province and New York, HBC is North America’s longest frequently working firm, based on HBC.

The deal will now establish the so-called Saks International, a brand new international entity that may embody Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks OFF 5TH, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. All in, it’s going to create an actual property portfolio valued at about $7 billion, based on the corporate.

There are 35 Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 95 Saks Off fifth low cost shops. Neiman has 36 shops, two Bergdorf Goodman shops and 5 Final Name low cost shops.

Horace Saks and Bernard Gimbel operated impartial retail shops on New York’s thirty fourth Avenue at Herald Sq. in 1924.

Herbert Marcus, Sr., his sister, Carrie Marcus Neiman, and her husband A.L. Neiman, constructed the primary Neiman Marcus retailer in Dallas in 1907.

Amazon, an investor within the deal, will work with the corporate after the transaction is closed, based on Saks International, “to innovate on behalf of shoppers and types companions.”

Baker said how this purchase and consolidation had been anticipated by trade insiders “for years,” he mentioned, noting the supposed “advantages it will drive for purchasers, companions and staff.”

HBC, which also owns Canada-based Hudson’s Bay, had secured a $1.15 billion “absolutely dedicated time period mortgage financing” from investments by associates of Apollo, and a $2 billion “absolutely dedicated revolving asset-based” mortgage from Financial institution of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, RBC Capital Markets and Wells Fargo.

As a part of the brand new restructuring, Saks.com’s present CEO Marc Metrick will take the CEO job of Saks International.

Metrick, the corporate says, will deal with Saks International’s retail and client companies and “driving the technique to advance the luxurious purchasing expertise.”

“With our ongoing deal with innovation,” he mentioned, Saks International is “primed to drive development for our model companions and create profession improvement alternatives for the unimaginable expertise throughout Saks International.”

Ian Putnam, HBC Properties and Investments’ president and CEO, is ready to be Saks International’s CEO of property and funding companies.

Metrick and Putnam will report back to Baker, who’s taking over Saks International’s govt chairmanship.

Lord & Taylor, which HBC owned till 2019, filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and closed retail places the following yr. It now operates on-line.