By Suzanne Kapner and Alexander Gladstone
The former chief of Neiman Marcus is being picked to steer Saks Global through its expected bankruptcy proceedings as its new chief executive, according to people familiar with the situation.
Geoffroy van Raemdonck is expected to bring two former Neiman Marcus executives with him to run Saks Global, the people said.
Saks is expected to file for bankruptcy protection as soon as Tuesday night. A group of bondholders led by Bracebridge Capital and Pentwater Capital is providing $1.25 billion in debtor-in-possession financing. The asset backed-lenders, led by Bank of America, are expected to release an additional $250 million in credit.
Van Raemdonck is replacing Richard Baker, Saks Global's executive chairman, who stepped in as CEO in early January, after Saks veteran Marc Metrick resigned from that role. Bloomberg News reported earlier that Van Raemdonck was negotiating for a role at Saks.
Van Raemdonck joined Neiman Marcus in 2018, after previously working at some of the retailer's key suppliers, including Ralph Lauren, St. John Knits and Louis Vuitton. He steered Neiman Marcus through its own bankruptcy in 2020 and was instrumental in selling the company to Saks in 2024 for $2.7 billion.
At Saks, he will be need to steer the parent of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and the Saks Off 5th discount chain through a restructuring process aimed at transforming it into a healthier company.
The assignment will include catching up on a backlog of missed payments to vendors and streamlining the store base, which includes roughly 33 Saks stores and 36 Neiman locations, a handful of which are located in the same mall or city. There are also two Bergdorf Goodman stores and about 70 Saks Off 5th discount stores.
At Neiman, van Raemdonck steered the Dallas-based retailer through milestones, including the opening of Neiman's first Manhattan store in 2019. But the store closed permanently a little over a year later, during the Covid-19 pandemic. He spun off Neiman's online luxury arm MyTheresa into a publicly traded company, and closed more than half of Neiman's Last Call discount stores.
The roughly $5 billion in debt that Neiman Marcus had accumulated from several successive leveraged buyouts proved too much for the retailer during the pandemic. During its bankruptcy proceedings, it wiped out most of that debt and emerged on stronger footing.
Combining Saks and Neiman Marcus was meant to create a luxury powerhouse that would hold more clout with suppliers, many of whom have opened their own stores in recent years and now compete more directly with the department stores they supply. Cost savings from the deal were supposed to create a healthier company.
But Saks was in a weakened position at the time of the deal -- having fallen behind on payments to suppliers -- and the combination was financed with $2.2 billion in high-yield bonds, a load the company ultimately couldn't carry. When unpaid vendors stopped shipping goods and Saks missed a $100 million debt payment due in December, a bankruptcy filing became its best option for survival.
Write to Suzanne Kapner at suzanne.kapner@wsj.com and Alexander Gladstone at alexander.gladstone@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 13, 2026 16:28 ET (21:28 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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