Hudson's Bay Company

Richard Baker, who holds the title of Governor and Executive Chairman, is the controlling shareholder and primary decision-maker for HBC's strategic and investment activities. Baker led the 2020 take-private transaction and has overseen the firm's pivot toward a real-estate-centric strategy. He serves as the principal architect of the 2024 Saks Global formation and Neiman Marcus acquisition.

HBC operates as a privately held holding company that functions primarily as a real estate investment vehicle with operating retail businesses underneath. The firm owns the underlying real estate of flagship department stores and monetizes those assets through sale-leaseback transactions, redevelopment, and by leveraging the property as collateral for financing. The retail operations — historically Saks Fifth Avenue, Hudson's Bay, and now the combined Saks Global entity — generate operating income, but the real estate is the core store of value.

Saks Global is a new entity announced in July 2024 that combines Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks OFF 5TH, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman under a single operating company. The deal, valued at $2.65 billion, brought in Amazon and Salesforce as minority investors, which shifts HBC's posture toward a technology-enabled luxury retail platform. The combined entity controls a collection of iconic real estate, including the flagship Saks Fifth Avenue building in Manhattan and Neiman Marcus properties across affluent U.S. markets (per the firm, July 2024).

No. HBC does not publicly report assets under management or a total deployment figure in the manner of a traditional family office or private equity firm. Its known commitments include the roughly $2 billion 2020 take-private and the $2.65 billion Neiman Marcus acquisition financed in 2024, but the firm's total balance sheet and real estate portfolio value have not been publicly disclosed in a consolidated format.

Amazon and Salesforce became minority investors in Saks Global as part of the July 2024 Neiman Marcus acquisition. The arrangement gives the combined luxury retail platform access to Amazon's logistics and technology infrastructure and Salesforce's customer-relationship-management capabilities. Neither company holds a controlling stake; Richard Baker's group retains operational control over HBC and Saks Global.

Much of HBC's value is concentrated in the real estate beneath its retail operations — most notably the flagship Saks Fifth Avenue building in Midtown Manhattan and the Hudson's Bay flagship in downtown Toronto. The firm has historically used appraisals of these properties to secure financing and has previously explored selling or redeveloping individual assets to surface value. The 2020 take-private was in part a bet that public markets were undervaluing this real estate relative to the retail earnings.