NEIMAN LAYOFFS LOOM

After bonus boom

Neiman Marcus is poised to lay off nearly 5% of its workforce, bracing for a downturn — despite paying out record cash bonuses during the past two years, The Post has learned.

The Dallas-based luxury icon, which also owns Bergdorf Goodman, is preparing to distribute pink slips this week to nearly 500 Neiman staffers across the entire organization including merchandising, supply chain, technology and retail — and severance packages are expected to be skimpy, sources told The Post.

The job cuts are “due to our failure to hit the sales plan we submitted,” one insider said. “Business is soft, not so terrible, but behind the growth we projected.”

The source predicted Neiman will describe the layoffs as “the next step in our journey,” but added that “this is really a result of poor financial planning and an unwillingness to budge from that error.”

After The Post contacted Neiman about the cuts Tuesday, the firm released a statement confirming that “certain positions representing less than 5% of the workforce will be eliminated across the organization.”

The looming cuts contrast with the previous two years, when Chief Executive Geoffroy van Raemdonck distributed fat bonuses to himself and other brass after the firm emerged from bankruptcy in September 2020. The payouts — which van Raemdonck boasted were Neiman’s biggest in at least 30 years — were doled out in October, following a similar bonanza in 2021, insiders told The Post.

$10M CEO bonus

Van Raemdonck had previously come under fire as he reaped about $10 million in bonuses for himself during the height of the pandemic, as well as perks like an unusually generous health benefit plan. The payouts came even as employees faced pay cuts and layoffs, as The Post exclusively reported.

“How could the last two years be a max bonus payout?” one executive who received a fat bonus wrote last year on EthicsPoint, a private platform employers provide for employees to air grievances anonymously. “Were they purposefully set to be easy to accomplish?” according to the report, viewed by The Post.

When setting bonus benchmarks, experts say it’s not unusual for a company to set less aggressive hurdles after a bankruptcy filing. But “two years in a row of max bonus means the company should be growing in leaps and bounds,” said a compensation expert familiar with Neiman Marcus who asked not to be identified.

“We are building a business to move forward, but paying like we are on top of the world. But we’re not,” the employee added on EthicsPoint.

VP-level executives will be offered severance packages of about six months but if they land another job before then, they are not entitled to future payments, sources tell The Post.