A Texas bankruptcy judge on Friday indicated that he will approve Saks Global's emergency motion to close the majority of its Saks Off 5th retail locations and its remaining Neiman Marcus Last Call stores, but not until Monday at the earliest.

Although the debtor sought to begin going out of business sales as soon as Saturday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Alfredo R. Perez said it could wait until next week to give landlords, vendors, and other creditors time to review the motion, which was filed Thursday.

If Saks Global can reach agreement on a proposed order, Judge Perez said, he will sign it after 5 p.m. Monday, and if there isn't an agreement, he will take it up at a status conference Tuesday.

"I'm going to approve the order," he said, calling it a routine motion that is within the debtor's business judgment. "I think we just need to go through, allow the committee to look at it and allow there to be discussions over the weekend."

The official committee of unsecured creditors was appointed Tuesday and includes creditors such as Amazon.com, Chanel Inc., and luxury goods conglomerate LVMH.

On Thursday, Saks Global said the closures of its cut-price Off 5th stores would help the retailer sharpen its focus on the luxury market. The company will shutter about 57 Saks Off 5th stores and its five remaining Last Call locations.

Saks will keep open 12 of its Off 5th stores, which will mainly sell residual inventory from Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman. It will cease buying merchandise directly for Saks Off 5th, it said.

"The exigency of these store closings is very palpable for these global debtors," debtor attorney Betsy L. Feldman of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP said at Friday's hearing. "The store closing sales really do need to commence right now."

Asked when sale signage would go up, Feldman said it was scheduled to start Saturday.

The emergency motion faced pushback Friday from several parties, including landlords and vendors, who said that although they aren't necessarily opposed to the store closings, they want time to review the proposed order and reach agreements with the debtor on any issues they have.

Jeri Leigh Miller of Sidley Austin LLP, an attorney for Simon Property Group, said the landlord's objection was to the expedited timeline.

"They could have been working with the landlords for the past two and a half weeks so that this could have been filed on an agreed upon basis," she said. "Unfortunately, that's not what happened. We just learned about it when it got filed yesterday."

Simon Property Group is ready to negotiate a side letter agreement, Miller said, and "we're confident we'll get one done, but we don't want to be punished and deprived of due process by an exigency of their own making."

Judge Perez agreed to a brief delay, saying he wants "to be sensitive to the committee and the landlords."

At a hearing Jan. 23, Judge Perez gave SO5 Digital, the e-retailer for Saks Off 5th, interim permission to hire GA Retail Consultants to launch liquidation sales of its online affiliates' inventory.

Saks Global filed for bankruptcy protection Jan. 14 with about $3.4 billion in funded debt after struggling to deal with the debt it took on to purchase Neiman Marcus more than a year ago.

It entered Chapter 11 with about $1.75 billion in committed financing from its creditors. Judge Perez on Jan. 14 allowed Saks to access about $500 million in funding as part of an interim order authorizing its debtor-in-possession financing.

Saks Global is represented by Jennifer J. Hardy, Debra M. Sinclair, Robin Spigel, Allyson B. Smith, Betsy L. Feldman, Jessica D. Graber, and Ryan Blaine Bennett of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Kelli Stephenson Norfleet, Kenric D. Kattner, Arsalan Muhammad, Kourtney P. Lyda, and David Trausch of Haynes Boone.

Simon Property Group LP is represented by Duston K. McFaul, Jeri Leigh Miller, and Maegan Quejada of Sidley Austin LLP.

The case is In re: Saks Global Enterprises LLC et al., case number 4:26-bk-90103, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.