Two of the biggest luxury department store chains in the country are joining forces, with a boost from Amazon.

The owner of Saks Fifth Avenue has agreed to buy rival Neiman Marcus Group for $2.65 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report, which cited people familiar with the matter.

Amazon.com Inc. and Salesforce Inc. will help facilitate the deal by Saks owner Hudson’s Bay Co. The tech firms will take minority stakes in a new company, called Saks Global, according to the people. Hudson’s Bay will also finance the deal with $2 billion raised from investors, the people said.

The deal, which comes after years of talks between the two privately held chains, will unite the high-end retailers amid a recent slowdown in luxury sales.

The goal is to cut costs and boost profitability by giving the combined company bargaining power with vendors and reducing supply chain costs and other costs that can be shared.

Neiman’s bankruptcy in 2020 allowed the Dallas-based department store company to shed billions of dollars in debt, making it a more attractive target.

Saks, Neiman Marcus and Amazon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The new company will bring together 39 Saks Fifth Avenue stores and 36 Neiman Marcus stores as well as two Bergdorf Goodman stores in Manhattan. Both chains also have outlets.

In Southern California, Saks and Neiman Marcus each operate four department stores, including Beverly Hills locations down the street from each other on Wilshire Boulevard.

The deal comes during a tough period for the department store industry. In February, Macy’s announced plans to close about 150 stores over the next three years, including its iconic Union Square store in San Francisco, after posting a fourth-quarter loss of $71 million.

Although department stores catering to middle-class shoppers have struggled the most, retailers specializing in luxury brands have also been squeezed by inflation and other factors that have weakened demand for expensive discretionary purchases. Lord & Taylor, previously owned by HBC, shut its retail locations in 2021.

Bloomberg was used in compiling this report.

A strike by workers of the Sierra Club, the prominent environmental organization founded in California, was narrowly averted Tuesday after an overnight 18-hour-long marathon bargaining session.

As part of a deal reached between the Sierra Club and the Progressive Workers Union, which represents workers employed by the organization’s national chapter, 12 workers, including several union leaders, will be reinstated — out of some 70 workers who were recently laid off.

In exchange, the union agreed to forgo a 7% raise for workers the organization had previously agreed to in negotiations. It also agreed to withdraw several unfair labor practice charges it had filed with the National Labor Relations Board alleging the organization had deliberately delayed bargaining and retaliated against union leaders.

The deal was struck mere hours before picket lines were scheduled to be held at 8 a.m. Tuesday at the organization’s offices in Los Angeles, Oakland and Washington, D.C. The deal appears to have, at least for the moment, put to rest internal turmoil at the environmental group over allegations of retaliatory layoffs and financial mismanagement.

Walter Keady, newly elected president of the Progressive Workers Union, said in a statement that the vote to strike “showed that Sierra Club’s unions are committed to protecting one another in the face of financial trouble at the organization.”

“No deal is perfect, but we are excited that this agreement meets our strike platform and avoids unnecessary harm to the Sierra Club community that could have occurred during a strike,” Keady said.

The Sierra Club agreed that if fundraising stays on track, it will not carry out additional layoffs for at least the next 10 months. Those who will not get their jobs back will receive additional severance and layoff benefits under the agreement.

The deal also settles issues raised in contract talks that have dragged on for the last several months. It covers issues related to overtime hours, pay raises for added job responsibilities, and use of generative AI, among others.

Final negotiations are scheduled over the next week, and a contract agreement is expected to be ratified by the end of the month.

Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous announced the deal in an email to Sierra Club staff midday on Tuesday.

In the email, he thanked the union’s leadership “for their commitment and willingness to work together to reach an agreement” and he emphasized the organization’s “mission critical work” to protect clean air and water.

“We all share a deep love and commitment to the Sierra Club and the dedicated staff and volunteers who are the lifeblood of our organization,” Jealous wrote.

The storied Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, which was long considered one of the region’s top classical music venues, is for sale after being owned by a local church for the last two decades.

Harvest Rock Church is asking $45 million for the 1,200-seat auditorium near the Old Pasadena district that has also hosted jazz greats including Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck and Dizzy Gillespie. It has been called “the Carnegie Hall of the West” by fans.

The evangelical Christian Harvest Rock Church is based on the property and uses the auditorium for services. It also rents the venue to the Pasadena Symphony and the Colburn Orchestra as well as other performers that the church finds compatible with its religious mission.

The church recently paid off its mortgage on the property, Pastor Che Ahn said, and decided to sell it to make a move to a bigger facility somewhere in the Los Angeles region.

“We’re hoping that someone will buy it to really restore it to the original purpose and intent of that building,” he said.

The Ambassador Auditorium was intended to be a showplace for live performances when it opened in 1974. The Times called it “A new Taj Mahal for the arts.”

It was also the centerpiece for Ambassador College, operated by the Worldwide Church of God on a 40-acre campus near the intersection of Colorado and Orange Grove boulevards that has been largely redeveloped in recent years.

Harvest Rock Church and Maranatha High School bought a 13-acre portion of the campus site with five buildings including the auditorium from Worldwide Church of God in 2004 for an undisclosed amount. The auditorium controlled by Harvest Rock Church is assessed at $13.5 million, public records show.

Ambassador College founder Herbert W. Armstrong was a televangelist who set out to call attention to his ministry by building a lavish auditorium where he could broadcast services and host high-profile nonreligious events, including an opening performance by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on April 7, 1974.

The auditorium made a big impression on local music aficionados, said Donna Perlmutter, who was a music critic at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner newspaper when it debuted.

“We were, at the time, bowled over by the presence of it,” she said. “It was to compare with any marvelous auditorium in Europe.”

That it had been created by a bombastic radio and television evangelist known for making dark end-times prophesies seemed unusual, she said.

“It was almost comical to think of who it was who erected this magnificent place,” Perlmutter said of Armstrong. “It was such a weird juxtaposition.”

Jazz greats who have performed in the 1,200-seat Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena include Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck and Dizzy Gillespie.

(Ambassador Foundation of Pasadena)

The acoustics are “optimal,” she said. “It bears a bright, undistorted sound. No singer could want more.”

The hall’s design by the architectural firm Daniel, Mann, Johnson & Mendenhall (DMJM) strived for a mid-century version of glamour, with a main lobby chandelier composed of 100 custom bulbs and 1,390 crystals in three tiers of polished bronze.

Finishes include walls of Brazilian rosewood and rose onyx, African shedua wood railings and ceilings adorned with hand-rolled 24-carat gold leaf.

The auditorium is set in a 500,000-gallon water pond that holds a 37-foot solid bronze egret sculpture designed by British sculptor David Wynne, who also famously made a bronze sculpture of the Beatles’ busts in 1964 and is said to have introduced them to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Potential buyers of the auditorium include the city of Pasadena, private investors, or a group of investors seeking “to acquire a landmark with profound historical significance,” said real estate agent Isidora Fridman of Compass, who has the listing with Lauren Rauschenberg. The property at 131 S. St. John Ave. will officially go on the market July 9, Compass said.