Susan Scafidi, director of Fordham Law’s Fashion Law Institute, spoke to Women’s Wear Daily about the potential $2.65 billion merger of Saks and Neiman Marcus and what it would mean for the luxury retail market as Federal Trade Commission regulators sharpen their focus on corporate dealmaking and fashion.
The combination of Saks and Neiman’s — particularly since it’s being funded in part by Amazon and Salesforce — promises to alter what’s left of the world of department store retailing.
“Department stores are a 19th-century phenomenon struggling to survive in the 21st,” said Susan Scafidi, founder and director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School. “Acquisition by Saks may be the best way for Neiman’s to avoid joining the B-list of luxury retailers that have disappeared over the past decades, including Barneys, Henri Bendel and Bonwit Teller.”
Even so, regulators are expected to take a hard look at the deal.
“The fading sepia tint of the department store business model, however, does not exempt the sector from antitrust oversight,” Scafidi said. “Antitrust enforcement is an FTC priority at the moment, and a key lesson of the legal challenge to the proposed Tapestry-Capri merger is that the agency is inclined to define relevant market sector very narrowly.
“If Neiman’s and Saks are arguably the only two truly luxury brick-and-mortar department stores left standing, even in a weakened state, the deal is likely to face significant skepticism,” she said.
Read “How the FTC Could Complicate the Saks-Neiman’s Merger” on Women’s Wear Daily.