If Saks Global creditors were united, or even if they had been able to negotiate covenants to prevent right of payment subordination, then they might have wound up owning the company in addition to leading a new capital structure and then be able to capture equity upside if a turnaround for the luxury department retailer is successful.

Instead, what was ultimately five different groups were played off of each other to achieve a result of raising essentially free money of between $200m and $300m, while not increasing cost of capital at all.