Two weeks ago I reported that Saks Global, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman, was racing to land more than $1B in rescue financing from new and existing investors to pay off debts, or face bankruptcy. The company accumulated a ton of debt following its $2.7B acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group in 2024 and has since struggled to revive sales since the deal closed.
I noted in the article that Amazon and Salesforce are investors in Saks Global and helped fund the Neiman Marcus deal, and wrote, “I'm curious to see if / how they play a role in the potential rescue financing and future of the company.”
Well, it turns out that Amazon isn't too happy with Saks right now.
Last week Amazon filed an objection to Saks Global's bankruptcy financing plan on the grounds it could harm creditors and push Amazon further down the repayment pipeline.
Amazon said that Saks “burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a year” and failed to uphold their agreement of selling its products on Amazon's website, as well as leveraging Amazon's technology and logistics expertise.
Amazon's attorneys wrote in the filing:
“That equity investment is now presumptively worthless. Saks continuously failed to meet its budgets, burned through hundreds of millions of dollars in less than a year, and ran up additional hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid invoices owed to its retail partners.”
Amazon said that Saks Global “induced Amazon and other retail partners to extend credit and other accommodations by offering recourse to the purported ‘equity cushion’” in Saks Fifth Avenue’s Manhattan flagship. However now, the retailer is leveraging that asset to secure the billions it needs to stay afloat during bankruptcy.
To make one thing clear… Amazon wasn’t opposing bankruptcy outright, but the terms of the debtor-in-possession financing. Its objections focused on the structure of the debt, which would give new lenders priority repayment while limiting existing lenders' ability, including its own, to recovery debt.
Ultimately Judge Alfredo Perez denied Amazon's request to block the company's bankruptcy financing plan and allowed Saks to start tapping into $400M of the $1.75B total funds after the company argued it would face immediate liquidation without it.
Something tells me this isn't the last we'll hear from Amazon over the matter.
