Is there a brand in your life that isn’t owned by a billionaire or centi-millionaire these days? It’s increasingly difficult to answer.
From the publications you read, to the clothes you wear, to the teams you watch, to the athletic programs your kids join, it’s likely that some very wealthy businessperson or their holding company is at the tippy top.
In the case of luxury, brands that used to be standalone businesses have been rolled up into single entities under a single ultra-wealthy leader. And whether they win or not can boil down to that leader’s playbook, and how transferable it is outside the industry where they made their money.
Take, for example, Saks Global, the year-old holding company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman. It’s controlled by real estate scion Richard Baker, who placed a bet in the 2000s that buying well-known retailers with great New York City real estate would be valuable—as long as the retailers themselves could stay afloat. That theory hasn’t paid off, and the holding company is now near bankruptcy, thanks to some risky dealmaking maneuvers and a lack of focus on strengthening the retailers themselves. Fortune’s Phil Wahba has the rundown on Saks Global here.
Another example is the parent company behind Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo: Capri Holdings, which was created by John Idol, the former CEO of Donna Karan. Capri was No. 499 on the Fortune 500 as recently as 2023. But when Fortune’s Amanda Gerut dug into the health of its brands today, she found a holding company “in free fall,” posting a $1.18 billion loss in fiscal 2025 on fast-sinking revenue.
It’s not a pretty picture, but the luxury portfolio approach is not necessarily doomed to failure either. Tapestry, the owner of Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman, in contrast, keeps seeing its revenue rise under CEO Joanne Crevoiserat.
You can read Amanda’s story on the declining state of Capri Holdings, and the missteps that have contributed to it, here.
