Smaller vendors, still waiting on payments, debate their futures with Saks after bankruptcy

By 2025, though, Saks Fifth Avenue was no longer paying Che on time. She wasn’t the only one. Saks Fifth Avenue’s parent company, Saks Global, was saddled with debt from acquiring Neiman Marcus in 2024 and owed vendors a collective millions of dollars. In February, Saks Global announced it would pay out these balances in 12 monthly installments, beginning in July. Che received payments through August only. After that, she sent over two additional batches of inventory, hoping something would change.

“Our last shipment to them was end of last year,” Che said. She’s now out six figures. “We have an order sitting in our warehouse that we’re supposed to send to them in the next couple of weeks. But we already decided that we won’t. The only way we will send it is if they pay first,” she added.

But now, Che might have to wait even longer for those payments. That’s because Saks Global — which also owns Saks Off 5th and Bergdorf Goodman — filed for bankruptcy earlier in January after months of speculation. The long-struggling retail giant announced plans to secure $1.75 billion in new capital and vowed to pay its vendors back. Large luxury conglomerates sit atop the list of creditors. Chanel is owed $136 million in claims, while Kering is owed $59.9 million. For small businesses like Elisamama, the timeline for getting paid back is murky — if they get the full amount at all.

“You might wonder, ‘Why did you allow the balance to get so big and continue to ship to them?'” Che said. “It was because they demonstrated commitment to us, and … they sit in a really important position in luxury fashion. [I’m feeling] contradictory emotions: There’s disappointment, and also sadness and grief, for our partners who have been wonderful to us. [But] the situation of us not getting paid is affecting our business.”

For these hundreds of smaller- and medium-sized vendors, the stress doesn’t stop with Saks Global’s bankruptcy filing. Three brand executives who spoke to Modern Retail said they’re owed anywhere from five to six figures from Saks Global — a significant hole, when margins are already tight. Some entrepreneurs, like Che, are having to look elsewhere for distribution or are considering making cuts to save cash. All said they’re dealing with financial strain, are uncertain they’ll get their money back and are unsure about the future of their relationships with Saks Global.

“Cash flow, for small businesses, is always something we have to juggle,” said the founder of one brand, who requested anonymity to speak freely. The brand, which began working with Saks Global in 2018, said it’s waiting on $25,000 from Saks Off 5th. “It’s significant enough to have an impact,” the executive said, adding they could use the money for payroll or to launch a product. “We had a finance meeting last week, and we literally said, ‘Really, do we really think we’re going to get paid?'” they said. “We just don’t know.”

The brand decided to stop sending merchandise to Saks Off 5th in late 2024. It was a difficult call, the executive said. “As a small brand, you have to be quite bold to say, ‘I’m not being paid, so I’m not going to provide it anymore,'” they said. “But it gets to a point where you just have to make that decision.”

The brand did receive three payment installments from Saks Global, starting in July 2025. But payments stopped after that. “[The balance] has been outstanding for so long now that we’ve gotten used to the fact that it may not be coming,” the executive added.

Saks Global did not return a request for comment.

‘I had no faith we were going to get paid’

On Jan. 14, Saks Global’s new CEO, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, sent a letter to vendors, announcing the bankruptcy proceedings and its intention to remain open. “The Chapter 11 process will enable us to continue operating in the ordinary course, including serving our customers while honoring our go-forward obligations to you,” he wrote in the letter, which Modern Retail viewed. “Our processes have not changed, and you can continue to operate and submit invoices as usual.”

Van Raemdonck added that payments for goods and services provided after Jan. 14 would be given “administrative priority payment status in Chapter 11.” “We will keep you informed about pre-petition balances, as determinations are made,” he added.

The three brand executives who spoke to Modern Retail — two of whom requested anonymity — said their balances predate Saks Global’s bankruptcy filing. They are waiting for further updates from Saks Global and, in the meantime, are turning to news articles to glean information. One of the brands, which says it’s still owed about $100,000 from Saks Fifth Avenue, stopped sending merchandise to the department store in 2024, after failing to receive payment. The brand started working with Saks Fifth Avenue in 2022.

“We thought we could do $2 million in revenue with them for the year, but I had no faith we were going to get paid,” said the executive, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “We made a decision based on what we thought was best for the financial health of the business. And we’re happy we made that choice.”

The brand did eventually get some money back through installment plans in 2025, but it’s still waiting on additional payments. “My assumption is that we will only see a fraction — if any — of that paid back through the bankruptcy proceedings,” the executive said.

Vendors’ paths forward

Anthony Lupo is the chairman of the law firm ArentFox Schiff and leads its Fashion & Retail group. Lupo and his colleagues advised vendors on what to do if Saks Global went bankrupt, long before it filed for Chapter 11. At the end of December, ArentFox Schiff published a blog post about the subject; it went live the same day Saks Global missed a deadline to pay $100 million in interest.

Right now, brands that sell to Saks Global properties fall into numerous camps, Lupo told Modern Retail. Some, he said, may be able to negotiate their status as “critical vendors,” meaning their goods are “particularly important for the debtor to remain operational.” These partners are more likely to be paid back in full. Others, he said, may sell to Saks Global on consignment and could try to get their products back. Other vendors may have gotten insurance against Saks Global, but that is quite rare, Lupo said.

Small- and medium-sized brands, Lupo said, are likely to be in the “same boat as other unsecured creditors” — meaning they are likely to get paid only after secured creditors.

“If you go into that pool, you’ll get a certain amount of money, probably 10 cents on the dollar [at the direction of the court],” Lupo said. “But, you also have the ability in the future to say [to Saks], ‘I want cash on delivery. I want a trustee backing it up.’ You could create other deals. We have clients that Saks is already reaching out to right now, trying to do deals going forward.”

Lupo shared that many of his clients are still open to working with Saks Global, in some capacity. “If you’re a small brand and you can afford it, you want to be in a Bergdorf,” he said. Barneys closed in 2019, he said, so “there are not a lot of places to go in the U.S.” for a luxury brand. “I think they do want to still be there — they [just] want to protect themselves,” Lupo said.

Some brands, though, aren’t so sure about continuing to work with Saks Global, said Kristin Savilia, CEO of Joor. Joor is a business-to-business fashion wholesale platform with a roster of some 14,000 brands and 675,000 retailers. Savilia told Modern Retail that 280 of Joor’s brands sell to Saks Global. About 80 of those depend on the company for 15% or more of their total wholesale business. Several rely on Saks Global for as much as 70% of their wholesale GMV.

Most of those 280 brands sell to Neiman Marcus, Savilia said. “They are relieved that there’s a change,” she said. “They feel confident in the new team. But, at the end of the day, nothing’s been stated yet as to how much [money] is going to them. So, they’re being very cautious. … It’s going to be a road to get comfortable to sell again [to Saks Global]. I don’t know that I can say they’re all there yet. I think some payment has to funnel through.”

Savilia and her team are helping these clients find other places to carry their merchandise, like indie boutiques or MyTheresa. They’re also hearing from brands that they want to move into off-price channels. “Some of them are thinking, ‘If I have to mark [an item] down anyway, and I don’t know if I’m going to get paid, do I go to off-price, where at least I know I’m going to get paid?'” she said.

Che, who credits Saks Fifth Avenue with much of Elisamama’s growth, told Modern Retail that she needs transparency, honesty and — importantly — thousands of dollars from the company, going forward. “We want to see them succeed,” she said. “We’re hoping they can get out of this. But the only way I foresee [working with them again] is if they’re able to restore trust.”