Welcome to WSJ Pro Bankruptcy's Daily Briefing. It's Wednesday, January 14. In today's briefing, the parent of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus filed for bankruptcy protection, barely a year after an ambitious bet on luxury department stores brought the two storied retailers together in what was supposed to be a powerhouse deal.

Also, we have news on First Brands' cash situation, as well as Jessica Lauria, a White & Case bankruptcy partner known for her work on the Boy Scouts’ landmark bankruptcy, moving on to launch her own shop.

The swift unraveling of Saks Global shows the perils of doubling down on department stores, whose golden days are long past. The plan behind the $2.7 billion merger was to create a luxury juggernaut, while cost savings from the deal were expected to help Saks dig out of a deepening hole of delayed payments to suppliers.

But with a roughly $100 million debt payment looming in December and sales declining, the company ran out of time. It is now the highest-profile department-store chain to file for chapter 11 since the pandemic.

• Saks also picked Geoffroy van Raemdonck, the former chief of Neiman Marcus, to steer the company through bankruptcy.

Jessica Lauria, a bankruptcy partner at White & Case, has left the firm to launch JL Special Situations, an advisory firm aimed at helping boards, investors and other stakeholders navigate high-stakes, complex corporate situations, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Lauria’s last day at White & Case was Dec. 31, the people said. She previously worked at Sidley Austin.

JL Special Situations, according to the people, will provide guidance on board-level strategy, interim management, mediation, mergers and acquisitions, and cross-border transactions.

Lauria had extensive experience in complex restructurings and mass tort cases. She helped lead the Boy Scouts of America through its landmark bankruptcy and multibillion-dollar settlement of tens of thousands of abuse claims. She also represented 3M in the bankruptcy of its earplug subsidiary Aearo Technologies and Johnson & Johnson as the company sought to move talc-injury cases to bankruptcy court through a newly formed subsidiary.

White & Case said it appreciated her contributions to the firm.

—Becky Yerak

STG Logistics can tap a disputed financing package, a bankruptcy judge ruled Tuesday, despite objections from minority lenders that claimed it was built on a prior liability management transaction they are challenging in state court.

Judge Mark Edward Hall of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton, N.J., approved a $150 million financing proposal on an interim basis after saying that objecting lenders would maintain their rights to oppose the company’s broader restructuring plan.

Fortress Investment Group’s Brightline has hired a new chief executive officer and a chief financial officer ahead of a key interest payment deadline on Thursday.

The Florida-based railroad company has hired railway industry veteran Nicolas Petrovic to succeed Michael Reininger as its chief executive officer. Petrovic joins from the United Arab Emirates’s Etihad Rail Mobility, where he had overseen the development of the country’s rail network as CEO. He will focus on Brightline’s Florida operations, while Reininger will move to a new role as managing director and board member for Brightline West.

Meanwhile, Mauricio Anderson will replace Jeff Swiatek as chief financial officer at the company. Swiatek is departing for other opportunities, while Anderson is joining from one of Brightline’s indirect parent companies, Florida East Coast Industries.

Brightline and its creditors have been huddling with advisers to explore options for new financing as ridership continues to underperform. The company declined to comment on the coming interest payment deadline.

—Alicia McElhaney

First Brands will have to wait to access “trapped cash” held in separate accounts, which the auto-parts supplier said is property of the company and not owed to third-party factors.

On Tuesday, bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said First Brands can't yet access the some $18.1 million in cash, citing concerns about due process. Lopez scheduled a hearing for Feb. 2, during which he will determine whether First Brands can use the money to continue operating its business.

—Alicia McElhaney

The old maxim “Buy low, sell high” has a cash-flow corollary: “Collect early, pay late.”

But it is possible for companies to overdo a good thing. Sometimes the cash-flow benefits of paying late are so wondrous, at least on paper, that investors might be getting a distorted picture of a company’s financial strength and liquidity.

Last fall’s collapse of auto-parts supplier First Brands has brought renewed scrutiny to some long-used financial-engineering techniques, especially in the field known as supply-chain finance. There is also more transparency about them now than just a few years ago because of new disclosure requirements.

Share your tips, suggestions and feedback with the WSJ Pro Bankruptcy team: Alexander Gladstone; Jodi Xu Klein; Akiko Matsuda; Alicia McElhaney; Andrew Scurria; Becky Yerak. 

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