Neiman Marcus Downtown Store Still Safe But Saks Global Sheds More Staff in Restructuring
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While Neiman Marcus’ iconic flagship store in downtown Dallas got a stay of execution last month, the same can’t be said for others under the Saks Global umbrella as the company seeks to eliminate redundancies and streamline operations.
Saks Global, which was formed after the Canadian holding company Hudson’s Bay Co. acquired Neiman Marcus Group for $2.7 billion last year, is closing stores and laying off personnel in different parts of the United States, including Dallas, it announced last week.
“We are continuing the multi-year integration process following our acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group, including capturing synergies and addressing duplicate and overlapping roles,” a spokesperson for Saks Global said in a statement. “As a part of this, we have eliminated certain roles. We are grateful to these colleagues for their contributions and are committed to supporting them through this transition.”
Some 11% of Saks Global’s U.S. workforce was cut last week, bringing the total number of terminated employees to roughly 550 since the acquisition was finalized, CoStar reported. Many of these positions were in Dallas and New York City. The move is part of a planned consolidation of certain commercial functions, including finance, human resources, operations, and technology.
Ex-employees might have seen these deeper staff cuts coming after the brand shuttered its Dallas CityPlace headquarters in February — despite recently signing a new lease attached to city economic incentives and requiring its workforce back into the office. It is unclear how many Dallas employees were affected. Regardless, it’s not just Neiman Marcus employees on the chopping block.
“We are not breaking out numbers of legacy Saks vs. Neiman Marcus Group associates. Impacts include a mix of legacy Saks Global and NMG colleagues,” a source at Saks Global told CandysDirt.com.
Saks Global comprises Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks Off 5th, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman brands.
More often than not, mergers and acquisitions come with casualties, and on the brick-and-mortar front, Neiman’s flagship store downtown was slated to be one of them before city officials and neighborhood stakeholders stepped in and negotiated a possible way forward with Saks Global. The historic store is expected to remain open through the 2025 holiday season while Saks Global explores “a potential reimagination of the location in collaboration with the City of Dallas.”
“This exploration process will allow Saks Global and the City to determine the potential for a new format at this location to serve our customers and the community,” Saks Global said, telling CandysDirt.com that there were currently no updates about the store’s future.
Last we heard from officials, some of the things being considered are the creation of a curated art exhibit, a fashion/event center, and a fashion and design manufacturing incubator.
Hopefully any reimagining doesn’t involve converting its retail component into appointment-only shopping, a fate that befell Saks Fifth Avenue’s downtown San Francisco location in July 2024. Last week, Saks Global announced that the flagship store would close on May 10 after nearly 45 years in operation at Union Square.
“While we saw meaningful engagement and success through the appointment-only format, we have made this decision as part of our integration process as we focus on long-term growth,” a company spokesperson told Fox Business.
Reports on the financial health of Saks Global and Hudson’s Bay Co. have been running hot over the last week as both firms shed staff and storefronts. There’s also the not-so-little issue of tariffs looming over retailers.
“In this period of economic uncertainty, driven by tariffs and the threat of further trade restrictions, we are prudently evaluating opportunities to strengthen our balance sheet,” Saks Global said in a statement to The Dallas Morning News last week, noting it plans on raising more debt to shore up its finances.
The company’s stock sank on Monday after a call between management and investors, Bloomberg reported.
Let’s cross our fingers and say a little prayer for our Neiman Marcus Downtown.
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The officials in Dallas government are pseudo developers. What one should expect them to do in the future as a result is something short sighted and short term. What a professional developer would do is keep an eye on the surrounding development going on around that one of a kind classic department store.
What one needs to wait on happening in Central Dallas for now is for the ongoing boom in Uptown to once again spread back south into downtown. During this latest Pandemic driven downturn, the commercial districts of Uptown, Turtle Creek, Knox Street, and Preston Center have all performed better as one should expect as both the price of property and the cost of building have fallen. Even during a recession, as developers will still have to develop, this will shrink the area of construction during downturns to those most prime areas.
After the mid eighty crisis of overbuilding skyscrapers in downtown, the crazy city idea of building endless pie in the sky skyscrapers in the southern and western districts of downtown should make people sick! For cripes sake, tall buildings have become the best way of detecting the older parts of town.