What happened to Saks?
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2026
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
Saks Global — the luxury retail conglomerate that owns brands like Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week. But given that higher-income consumers are driving so much of spending, why is a chain of luxury department stores struggling? Then, the Trump administration is ending a special protected status for 350,000 Haitians, and the elder-care industry is expected to lose thousands of workers as a result.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Why are fancy store chains falling into bankruptcy when richer shoppers have money to spend? |
| 0:07.0 | I'm David Brancaccio in Los Angeles. Let's get context on the parent of Sacks, Neemans, and Bergdorf filing for Chapter 11 protection from creditors this week. The Sacks Global Bankruptcy will help it reorganize and stay in business. |
| 0:21.3 | Analysts keep telling us the economy may be weak for lower income people, but that higher |
| 0:26.0 | income people are generally doing well. Yet, these chains of luxury department stores are |
| 0:31.5 | in deep trouble. Marketplaces Kimberly Adams reports. People buying luxury goods often break down |
| 0:37.1 | into the really wealthy who don't care that much about price and those who might stretch a bit to buy something nice. |
| 0:44.6 | Shika Jane is the lead partner for North American retail at Simon Coutcher. |
| 0:48.9 | When it comes to luxury, you know, Saks Fifth Avenue, Niman Marcus, other players like that are more what I would |
| 0:56.2 | call in the aspirational luxury. Jane says the SACS global brands were getting those aspirational |
| 1:02.7 | luxury shoppers, but those shoppers are more likely to pull back spending in times of job |
| 1:08.9 | insecurity and higher prices for everything from housing to health care. |
| 1:13.8 | Especially younger consumers, says Lars Perner at USC's Marshall School of Business. |
| 1:19.5 | Many of their incomes have taken more of a hit, so they haven't had the same opportunities to get into luxury products that they would have had when times were better. |
| 1:29.9 | On top of that, luxury department stores are now competing even more with the brands they carry, |
| 1:35.7 | says Marie Driscoll, a retail expert at Driscoll Advisors. |
| 1:39.7 | What has happened in the last 20 years is many of the luxury brands have opened up their own stores |
| 1:45.8 | like the Dior's, Chanel, Louis Vuitton. To get a foothold in the new luxury retail landscape, |
| 1:53.2 | Driscoll says department stores will have to lean into the idea of offering those aspirational |
| 1:58.3 | shoppers a luxury experience, even if they're in the store for a budget purchase. |
| 2:04.1 | In Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams for Marketplace. |
| 2:07.2 | The price of crude oil is down sharply this morning, down about three and a half percent, back under $60 a barrel in New York, |
| 2:14.9 | after President Trump dialed down his rhetoric about the U.S. somehow |
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