How a real estate scion’s risky dealmaking pushed Saks Global to the brink

In the retail world, Saks Global executive chairman and newly appointed CEO Richard Baker is known for having the opposite of the “Midas touch” when it comes to dealmaking.

The real estate scion bought the Lord & Taylor department store chain in 2006 and then sold it in 2019 as a shell of its former itself—after which its new owner shut its brick-and-mortar stores the following year. Ditto the Hudson’s Bay chain in Canada, which Baker bought in 2008, only to liquidate it last year, ending a 355-year run in business.