SKIRTING HIS JOB
Barneys’ struggle a day at the beach for owner
Richard Perry, the uberwealthy financier behind Barneys, was missing in action for months as the luxury retailer’s executive team tried to save it from financial ruin, The Post has learned.
The department store’s management team hasn’t heard a peep from Perry — who bought a controlling stake in the upscale retailer in 2012 — since before Barneys’ Aug. 6 bankruptcy filing, sources said.
Making matters worse, the only information staffers have been able to glean of Perry’s whereabouts comes from the Instagram account of his fashionista wife, Lisa Perry, showing the dapper couple jet-setting as Barneys execs struggled to find buyers, sources said.
In early October, Lisa Perry posted pics of the glamorous couple relaxing in the resort town of Eilat on the Red Sea in Israel while — back in New York — Barneys top brass were scrambling to beat a court deadline of Oct. 3 to find a buyer and avoid liquidation.
A few weeks later, Richard Perry could be seen on his wife’s Instagram page in Bordeaux, France — as Barneys was inching closer to being sold to licensing firm Authentic Brands Group against the wishes of some in management.
Even after Barneys was finally sold last week for $271.4 million to ABG, Perry never communicated with the staff to thank them, people said.
“People were looking for something, a statement, a thank you, anything,” one person who is close to the company said. “But we heard nothing.”
“Richard Perry was very involved up until bankruptcy. That’s what everyone finds so hard to understand,” this person added.
His absence became a sore point for Barneys Chief Executive Daniella Vitale, who was desperately crisscrossing the globe post-bankruptcy in search of a white-knight buyer, sources said.
Perry, who owned Barneys through his hedge fund Perry Capital, didn’t return requests for comment. Through a Barneys spokesperson, the retailer and Vitale, who left the company last week, declined to comment for this story.
Perry — known for sporting Thom Browne suits with trademark high-water pants — isn’t the only Barneys director who left Vitale to fend for herself, sources said. With the exception of Robert Beyer, a financier who was placed on the board by Perry, none of Barneys directors were on hand to guide Vitale during this difficult time, sources said.
Prior to the bankruptcy, Perry held twice-annual, company-wide calls on the state of the business, and he was a regular fixture at the company’s headquarters at 575 Fifth Ave., sources tell The Post.
His wife’s eponymous brand, which includes home goods and apparel, was carried exclusively at Barneys — and by all accounts sold well at the company’s 22 stores. The welldressed couple could often be seen at fashion events — with Lisa Perry promoting Barneys.
Her Instagram account, which is often used to showcase her brand, has made no mention of trouble brewing at the 96-year-old retailer — or the hundreds of people who now stand to lose their jobs.
From Bordeaux, she posted a picture of her “favorite new snazzy jacket,” and a link to @Barneys, which sells the vinyl piece for $805.
Perry Capital closed in 2016, but continued to own a 72 percent equity stake in Barneys as of the bankruptcy, filings show.