American court hearing recordings and interviews - 1 - Saks Global Enterprises LLC first bankruptcy court hearing, 1/14/2026, 4:02 pm (beginning of hearing)

Episode Date: January 18, 2026

Re Sak's Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman bankruptcy

All right. Good afternoon. It is 4 o'clock on Wednesday, January 14, 2026. We're here for the first day hearings in case number 26-9013, SACS Global Enterprises LLC. So if we get appearances of counsel first and then to the extent anyone wants, to talk, please hit five star one time. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Jennifer Hardy of Wilkie Far and Gallagher proposed co-councils of the SAC's Global Gutters. The rest of the Wilkie team, including my partner Deborah Sinclair, are in a conference and have all made appearances electronically.

All right, thank you. Yes. I'm glad you reminded me. Please make sure to make your appearances electronically. That's how we keep track of appearances. Good afternoon. Your Honor, Jared Martin, Bradley, Aaronville Cummings for the S.O.5 digital debtors. Also joining me are Michael Reardon and James Bailey.

Andrew H. Chief of Structuring Officer is also in all along all. Thank you. So we have maxed out on the GoTo Meeting at 251, but you can still get on the phone line. And if you're not on the go-to meeting because you joined a little bit after we maxed out, just make sure to make your appearance on the audio version. Let's take further appearances, please. Good afternoon. I proposed co-counsel for the FACs global debtors.

I'm joined in our virtual courtroom by several of my colleagues, including Mr. David Trouche, who will be speaking later in the hearing. All right. Thank you. Yes, Mark. Good afternoon. Your Honor. Deborah Sinclair, Wilkie Bar and Gallagher, also for SAC Global Enterprise's LLC and

his better affiliate. I'll make appearances on behalf of my colleagues in the room if that's okay because I expect that some or all of them will be appearing before you at one point or another today. With me in the conference room here are my colleagues, Robin Spiegel, Todd Gorin, Alison Smith, Christopher D. Pompeo, Stuart Lombardi, Jessica Graber, and Zachary Charles. and Zachary Charlton. I'd also like to introduce Mark Weinstein, Chief Restructuring Officer of the debtors from Berkeley Research Group,

as well as Steve Ellen and Jamie Baird of PJT Partners. Both Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Baird are also in the room with me here. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Toby Kerber, on behalf of Bank of America, the ABL agent, with me on the phone are co-counsel, Daniel Fiorrello, and David Castleman from Otterberg.

And also hearing Gregory Ginther, Marjorie Kreider, and Matthew Furlong from Morgan Lewis and Bacchiaz. I believe Mr. Ferrello and Castleman will maybe speaking later. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Good evening, Your Honor. Nathan Elmer with Sidney Austin, LLP. On behalf of Exotic, Co-Invest 2 LP and Sarah 8th.

I'm joined on the virtual program by Ms. Omine Board. and can do CAE from our firm. Each of them had pro hoc motion pending before, Your Honor. They were filed very shortly before they were filed very shortly before the day. And I'd also just like to note that we filed an objection to the motion as topic number 120, also shortly before hearing and missed 40, the point person for days hearing against that objection. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Yes, we had many pro hocs. We tried to get them all entered before, but to the extent they haven't been entered, you're authorized to speak. Thank you. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Can you hear me? Yes.

Good afternoon, John Higgins, Shane Johnson, from Porter and Hedges. I'm appearing today on behalf of the ad hoc group of secured note holders. Also appearing with us today are the Paul Wise team, and I can see Bob Britton on camera. I see Mr. Britton as well. Good afternoon, Your Honor, Caroline Rekler. Caroline Rekler, on behalf of Amazon,

I'm here in the virtual courtroom with my partner. partner Chris Harris, as Your Honor has seen, we filed a motion to adjourn the DIP and Cash Management motions very briefly. I saw that, yes. Mr. Britton, go ahead and make your appearance. Yeah. Have I unmuted you? Mr. Britton, did I am?

There we go. Thank you. You have now, Your Honor. Thank you very much. All right. For the record, Bob Britton, Paul Weiss, on behalf of the ad hoc group of dip lenders and note holders. I'm joined in the room by my partner is Andy Rosenberg and Chris Hopkins. It's a pleasure to appear before you again today.

Thank you. All right. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Howland for the United States Trustee? Good afternoon, Mr. Wayne. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Cut Lieberman of Prior Cashman. You're on behalf of David German Enterprises, Go Yard, Caring Americas, and certain affiliated

brands, Richemont, and LVMH and certain of their affiliated Mazin. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Jonathan Covey, Olson from Wolofsky for Gorsky Group Limited and K-L-L-C. Good afternoon, Your Honor. John Sparicino from McCool-Smith here in Houston. I believe I'm joined virtually by my colleague Margie Venus.

Join on behalf of Wexford Capital. Good afternoon. Right. Anyone else to make an appearance? Wait a second. Let me sit. Argo McPage. Good afternoon, Your Honor.

Good Chyberg on behalf of Margoe McAid. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Leslie Heilman, Ballard's Bar, on behalf of Street Retail LLC, the Mace Rich Company, Centennial Real Estate Company, and the Ford's Company, on behalf of a number of leases with the debtors.

Good afternoon, Your Honor. Sorry, Lisa Norman from Andrews-Myers, here in Houston. We're here on behalf of the House. the same appliance that says Lieberman of our cashman announced the moment ago. All right, thank you. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Justin Bernbach, I'm Shepard Mullen.

On behalf of Chanel Actress and Ralph Laurenne. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Jason Taylor, Fields-Cumbers and Gross on behalf of AXas S. Mr.M. Good afternoon. Brother, Southern. Good afternoon, Your Honor, Brunz and Scott

out of place that winners for other Southern Stevens on behalf of BH Multi-Com Corp, B.H. Multicolour Corp, Richline Design, Inc. and Unique Design, Zane. Anyone else wish to make Good afternoon, Your Honor? Go ahead. Yes, sorry. Good afternoon, Your Honor. This is Adelson, Genoa approving on behalf of Cisley, USA. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Greg Hess on behalf of Capital One National Association. Anyone else? Mr. Galardi? hit five star good afternoon your honor i'm great galardi on behalf of vince and centric all right mr lehane good afternoon your honor robert leehain kelly dry and warren on behalf of a number

of landlords brookfield properties retail ink at 18 locations wfp tower b company lp and wfp tower d company lp the headquarters landlords agency centers turnberry associates and bricksmore property So just, Mr. O'Hane, I'm glad you brought that up. I saw that. Brookfield also has a preferred equity interest in the debtor that's represented by while, obviously to the extent that they become a material participant in the case with respect to any particular matter. You know, I'll have to evaluate the need to recuse myself on that matter. But my understanding is that just indicating what you said that.

Brookfield is represented as a landlord by your firm as opposed to by wild. That's correct, Your Honor. Anyone else wish to make an appearance? Hold on. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Daniel Rosenberg, General Counsel for Chanel, represented on the phone by Justin Bernbach from Shepard. Good afternoon. All right.

Anyone else wished to be heard just hit five star one time? Good afternoon, Your Honor. David Banker. I'm law offices of David M. Bank, and SQarer. I'm the FACLAB, CELUS Distribution Corporation, Christian Leviton. Good afternoon. Thank you, Your Honor.

Right. Anyone else? Good afternoon, Your Honor. Trey Wood, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Trey Wood with Gracewell. I'm appearing today on behalf of Caledine Commercial Finance.

With me in virtual courtroom is Chris Carter of the Morgan Lewis Law firm. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Your Honor. All right. Good afternoon, Your Honor. This is Jeff Long of Colin Lerick and Simon here on behalf of Local 1102, RWPSCW, USCW, and Work with the United, New York, New Jersey, regional, and board. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right, Ms. Hardy, who's going to take the lead? Thank you, Your Honor. First, on behalf of the SACS Global Letters, I just wanted to thank the Court for accommodating us today. We know that it's an enormous effort to get up to speed on a complex case in just a handful of hours. So we really appreciate that. With that, Your Honor, I'd like to turn the podium over to my partner, Deborah Sinclair.

All right, Ms. Sinclair. You can hear me? I am. For the record, Deborah Sinclair from the law firm, Rokey Bar and Gallagher, LLP, for SAC's Global Enterprise's LLC and its debtor affiliate. Your Honor, my colleague Lucas Imer, will be running a PowerPoint on the screen to accompany our presentation, so I understand you've coordinated with your chambers on that, and I'll ask him to screen share in just a few minutes.

But first, I'd like to echo Ms. Hardy's comments. We'd like to make the court, Your Honor, staff, the U.S. trustee, and all of the professionals and principals who helped us get to this point today, it truly was a tremendous effort, so we're very grateful. Your Honor, we're here today to present the first-state pleadings in connection with the Chapter 11 filing of SACC Global. Today's hearing marks a bargain brand. Of course, the first one is Sox Fifth Avenue, which is the year 1867.

For over a hundred years, Sox has been continuously operating its flagship store here in Midtown Manhattan. And over those decades, as Your Honor and everyone on the phone knows, the store has become world famous of luxury fashion and a classic New York City shopping experience. The Cox has also developed a coast-to-coast presence and currently operates 33 locations. across the U.S. There's Neiman Marcus, which has been an innovator since it opened in Dallas. Neiman was actually one of the first store made clothing, and today, in that type of luxury back, finally, Burkdorf Goodman, Berkett, New York shopping, through the umbrella in the world. These brands are in for business.

I want to make it clear for luxury in department store shopping. It's actually quite a lot of goods available in our stores. We are able to sell them. Ms. Sinclair, before I just more. Do you want me, I don't think that, I don't know who's the presenter, but I think I may have disconnected them. So tell me who the presenter is. Is it Mr. Imer?

Yes, Your Honor. Lucas Emmer. Okay, here you go. On the one hand, Your Honor, we want a mean to stabilize or continue to provide customers with the upshale. I think I just did. No, just go. Do you have your camera turned on? Let's see.

Hold on a second. Look at it now. Yes. Why don't we do that? Let me just try one last time. Yeah. Yeah, for some reason it's not wanting to make you the presenter. All right, go ahead.

Okay, Ron. We'll plan to share it on the docket after the, and it was the result of faxes acquisition of the Neiman Marcus Group, which is a deal done for a total enterprise value of $2.7 billion. To recognize liquidity made it hard for the company to using those synergies. The liquidity constraints made it harder to buy more go-forward inventory. the company was leading and seen for a new money. High level, your age for new notes, approximately $115 million. Merchandising issues led to starting to work with Willis to you a little bit after 11.

Your Honor, we have a pass of new money to the who are providing approximately $240 million in incremental availability under the ADL compared to what was available pre-petition under that revolver. In stable future, we will orient, and we will send our way to summarize the code with a Please work for us to work. Could just be able to stop? Ms. Inclare, just hold on a second. For some reason, it thinks that I'm not the organizer, and we're going to get bumped off here.

Just hold on a second. If we do get bumped off, I think that we're at capacity, both in terms of video and audio. So at the first break, I'm going to see if I can open up either Judge Lopez or Judge, is there's line to see if we can add more people. But to the extent we get bumped off, just everyone come back in again.

All right, go ahead. We have over 100 debtors in every one of those separate entity that's in an end of real property LLC. That entity is to work. We have talked to a little bit towards optimizing the portfolio. We need full-line luxury locations and many more offerings and some luxury continue to serve. Richardson joined that.

tax-a-lar grants. But being the basis comprised to the board and Texas Co-Counsel. Thank you. Good afternoon, Your Honor, and thank you again for seeing us on an emergency basis. Broadly represents what we locally call the SO5 digital debtors. The SO-5 digital debtors have a separate capital structure, separate ownership structure, a separate unsecured creditor body. But they are intimately intertwined with the operations of Sachs Global.

and for reasons that we'll get into later, it was necessary for the SO5 digital letters to retain separate counsel and a separate cheaper structuring officer and a separate financial advisor. Those letters are SACS-AX-AFT Holdings LLC, SACS-O-FIFT LLC, which is YACOX-O-FIFT, Midco-Po Partner, Inc., and Registry Outman, USA, LLC.

These debtors are not a party to the GIFT facility, and the assets that it owns are not subject to the dip liens. Although there will be discussions between global and BSO5 digital letters regarding certain cost-sharing arrangements, because as you'll run again later, back in 2021, the operations that various SACs entities were consolidated pursuant to a cost-sharing arrangement. Over the next few weeks,

in pursuant to certain milestones, within our cash collateral order. We anticipate conducting diligence regarding certain restructuring paths that anticipate absent sufficient financing that we will pursue certain immigration opportunities, and that has been in consultation with our term lender, tarolyn financial end. And I'm happy to answer any questions, rather than I'll see the coding back to what you. And you have one independent director, correct?

We do, Your Honor, thank you. Yes. Barry Megerman is our independent director and we have one other existing director, the other two resigned shortly before the final. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. Martin. All right. Before we get started to the pleading, does anyone wish to make an opening statement? Your Honor, Bob Britton, Paul Wies, on behalf of the ad hoc, we have diplomas and pawnholders. Yes, sir. Your Honor, back in December, my clients learned that the company was a little

very difficult liquidity situation, driven by former management missteps and inventory and vendor management, business integration, and other issues. In the wake of that news, Your Honor, my clients, alongside the ABL lenders, engaged in good faith, arms-length, frankly difficult negotiations with the company in order to ultimately reach terms on the dip financing and the other first-day relief that's before you for approval today. Your Honor, that's the TIP financing, which is backstopped by the ad hoc group, and will be offered to other first outholders of the company's pre-petition notes on the terms of set forth in syndication documents.

We'll provide an immediate cash infusion of $400 million, which is in addition to TIP ADL availability, and those dollars, Your Honor, will be used to stabilize and begin to grow this retail business. I can't emphasize, Your Honor, I can't have aside enough to sound pretty quickly. it is to the preservation of SACs and the success of these Chapter 11 cases, that that financing be approved today and funds tomorrow. Your Honor, while the situation that got us here was difficult, I think it's important to know that this enterprise and its new management team have the full support of this

lenders and we look forward to working together with them, with the court, and with other critical stakeholders to ensure efficient value-maximizing paths through these chapter-olding cases And to a reorganization. Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you. Somebody raise their hand. Yes. Good afternoon, Your Honor.

Omine Borty from Sidley Austin on behalf of Exxon. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you, Your Honor. I won't make an opening statement that I would just like to note that we will be having, we did file an objection to the dip and we would like to be heard on that basis. And, you know, we hope that our objection will be heard then. Go ahead.

Sinclair. Mr. Sinclair, we'll keep Bar and Gallagher. So before we move into the agenda, I'd like to move the exhibit and witness list that's filed the document number 137 into evidence. The exhibits that are on that list, as well as the declaration of Mark Weinstein in support of the first date pleading, which is filed at docket number 17. As you know, Mr. Weinstein is providing the evidence we need to support the first day relief, and he is in the virtual courtroom with us today, physically here with me in New York. All right. I think it's docket number 139. I apologize, Your Honor. I cannot read my own handwriting. You're right. All right. Does anyone object to the admission of the declaration of Mr. Weinstein as his direct testimony and connection with the first day hearings?

Your Honor, this is Chris Harris of Latham-Walkins for Amazon. Yes. We don't object to it solely for that purpose, but would reserve our rights on cross-examination to identify portions. might need to be struck based on how the cross-examination goes. All right. Okay. So I will admit the declaration of Mr. Weinstein. It found that docket number 139-1 is his direct testimony subject to cross-examination. Thank you, Your Honor.

One closing remark. I understand the court has entered the Joint Administration Order. Thank you for doing that. related to that, though, we have agreed at the request of one of the parties in interest that we would make a statement on the record the notwithstanding entry of the Joint Administration Order, all parties' rights to object to substantive consolidation or reserve. We are okay to make that representation right now, Your Honor, as the Joint Administration Order is, of course, entered for procedural purposes only.

With that, I would propose that we turn to the Disocean. Just just with respect to the other example, Are you going to move in the other exhibits as well? Your Honor, I think the only other exhibits that would be necessary for today are the declaration of Mark Weinstein in support of the dip, as well as the declaration of Mr. Jamie Baer in support of the dip. All right, so that is 139-10. It's the declaration of Mr. Weinstein in the support of the dip. Does anyone object to that subject across admission? as his direct testimony subject to cross-examination.

Chairman, Jared Martin for the S.O.5 digital letters. Is there a preference between admitting our exhibits now or after the facts global presentation? Let's just admit the exhibits that on this, I'll turn to you at the appropriate time. Understood, thank you. Your Honor, Chris Harris, Alayvim, just to your question about the declaration, with the same understanding, no, yes. all right so the declaration of mr. Weinstein found at one 139 dash 10 is admitted

for purposes of this hearing subject to cross-examination and then the other one is the declaration of mr. Baird which is exhibit 139-11 I'll admit it subject to cross-examination as well as his direct testimony All right, so those three declarations are admitted. Unless, Your Honor, has any questions for me, I propose that we turn to the dip. All right, go ahead. I'll feed the podium to my colleague, Mr. Boren, to present the dip. Your Honor, this is Caroline Rekler on behalf of Amazon.

I just ask that we take the motion to adjourn first. All right, let's do that. Go ahead. Your Honor, we filed a motion to adjourn the hearing on the dip and the cash management motion. That motion was filed at docket number 66, and thank you for hearing us. Without getting into the merits of the dip motion, suffice it to say the debtors are trying to do a lot on the first day of the case with respect to the dip. It's not a simple dip. There are three dips with three roll-ups, and on top of that, two refinancings of other pre-positioned debt, all of which Your Honor is being asked to approve today.

The interim relief being requested will have a significant impact on the debtor's capital structure, particularly at the entity that we're focused on, the flagship hold code two box, an entity with very little secured debt and unencumbered assets, at least as of today, before a dip is approved. There are complex issues of cross-debtor cross-collateralization about which we want an opportunity to argue. We want to cross-examine the debtor's witnesses. And we've had all of only five or so hours with the papers that were filed, which only included the motion, order, and two declarations. and about 20 minutes before the hearing, the DIP credit agreements were attached. We requested those credit agreements promptly after the DIP motion was filed,

and we were not provided with them at that time. The credit agreements will have meaningful information. For example, we don't know what the conditionality may or may not exist on future draws after the court grants potentially case-altering release today. We don't know if there are any conditions subsequent. We don't know what the covenants are. DIP motion deserves a full and fair hearing after parties and interests have time to fully appreciate what's going on here and what bodies, if any, are buried in the 93-page proposed order that the debtors just filed today. We're not asking for a lot, Your Honor.

I'm asking that you simply adjourn the dip motion until tomorrow morning. I'm sure that Your Honor is going to hear about the debtor's exigent need to draw on the dip decision. facility right now and the harms that will befall the debtors if the company can't do so. Maybe that's true, at least for certain of the debtors. We don't believe it is true, particularly for the flagship hold co. But in any event, Your Honor, it's after, what is it, it's after 545 today on the East Coast. The debtors are not going to be able to fund the dip today. It's just not possible.

We're already into tomorrow with respect to funding the district. DIP, rushing to get a DIP order entered tonight before all of the documents have been reviewed by the applicable parties only serves to curtail the ability of parties in interest to prosecute objections to the relief that based on the little that we do know could have serious consequences for the rest of the cases with respect to the recovery for unsecured creditors such as Amazon and the brands. Your Honor, as I said, we're not asking for much. We're asking for the morning. Thank you, Your Honor. It's to be heard briefly.

Yes, go ahead. So, needless to say, the Harris don't believe there's any basis for a German here. The German would be very harmful to the company. As you heard from Mr. Britton, we echo his words. We need this disfinance as soon as humanly possible. Ideally,

we would be in a position to fund tomorrow's disbursements tomorrow morning. And Ms. Rackler's point that it's past 5 p.m. in New York is frankly a little bit beside the point. This is a highly publicized bankruptcy. We need to be able to give our vendors and our employees confidence that we are stabilizing this business, ASAP. And if we leave court today without our interim order, we're not going to be able to demonstrate

that to our creditors. The other point I want to make, Your Honor, is the idea that this dip was a surprise to Amazon is just not accurate. We've been in close contact with Amazon throughout on our preparation for these cases. We actually received a letter from them on January 9th, almost a full week ago, in which they told us that they had become aware the several material terms of the dip, and that they would be ejecting if we pursued it.

So coming in here now to say that they don't have sufficient notice and they don't really know what's going on is just disingenuous. The only purpose of this motion is to create chaos at a time that we are in, frankly, desperate need of stability. So on those grounds, we would request that you deny the motion. Your Honor, may I be heard? Yes.

This is Omnay Bordy on behalf of Exxonic again. I just wanted to join in Amazon's motion for a brief adjournment. If not on whole, at least in part, with respect to the entity that we're concerned with, which is also SFH to the same entity and one of its subsidiaries. Thank you, Your Honor. All right. I'm going to carry the motion. I want to listen to the evidence as to the need for the money.

create liquidity and stability and I'll consider it along with the motion. So I think before we get to the evidence, we're going to try to open up and, you know, we're maxed out both in the cameras and in the people who can call in. So if we have a five-minute break, we're going to open up another line, Judge Isger's line, to allow to allow others to be able to join it's open now okay so if anybody wants to let me just put it on the on the but I have to call in here okay all right so if anyone wants to join judge isger's line all right so I've just put on here the Judge Isker's passcode.

So if anyone, if for some reason you get pushed off, then you can call Judge Isker and that will open up another 500 lines. And right now we're pretty much at capacity on here. They're listen only lines, I'm sorry, they're listen only. listen only. Okay, thank you. Your Honor, Your Honor, if I may, Your Honor, Your Honor, we've been working through the start of this hearing on an objection. We will go ahead and file it, and I would just ask that if your daughter does go forward with a hearing that we do at some point, the appropriate point, take a pause so that you can

read our pleading. All right, okay. We'll do that. All right, go ahead, Ms. Sinclair. Thank you, Your Honor. I'll see the podium to Mr. Board and present the dip. All right. Thank you. Before we get in any argument here, what this revolving credit facility and the ABLE

would be rolled up? Your Honor, this is Perceras of Latham for Amazon. I think it may make sense to take the brief break, Your Honor offered, and you could look at our objection that was just filed briefly, and then we could resume with the cross-examination, which might make more sense. All right. I will do that.

Why don't we, it's 5-502 Central. Why don't we come back at 515? Your Honor. Thank you, Your Honor.