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Editorial
Bass Pro, Cabela's purchase offers lessons for towns
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
In 1961, Dick Cabela started selling fishing flies by mail from his kitchen table in Sidney, Neb., with the help of his wife, Mary and brother, Jim.
Today, the company he founded has 85 retail stores, primarily in the western United States and Canada.
Fishing also spawned the Bass Pro company, when Johnny Morris began selling high-quality fishing tackle in his dad's liquor store in Springfield, Mo. The Ozarks was a fertile market for Bass Pro, which founded its catalog in 1974 and now has 99 stores, primarily throughout the eastern United States and Canada.
In a $4.5 billion deal announced Monday, Bass Pro is paying Cabela's shareholders $65.50 cash per share to purchase the company, a 19 percent premium over Friday's closing price.
Rumored since an investment firm began pushing for changes last fall, the deal has naturally caused consternation in Sidney, where about 2,000 jobs in a town of 7,000 depend on Cabela's.
Sidney residents and Nebraska politicians are encouraging Bass Pro to maintain significant operations in the state after the deal closes sometime next year.
It's not unreasonable to expect the western Nebraska location to serve regional stores of the combined company and valuable, experienced employees to continue to contribute to the company's success.
But there are sure to be changes to increase efficiency and take advantage of the economies of scale.
McCook has experienced similar disruptions over the years, such as a reduced number of railroad employees in the early 1990s, market cycles in the oil and agricultural industries and the loss of the TRW plant in the early 1980s.
But there are at least a couple of lessons to be learned from the example of Bass Pro and Cabela's.
For one, large successful businesses can grow from small beginnings. The U.S. mail served as the infrastructure that made the growth of the two sporting goods stores possible. There are plenty of examples of what is possible today because of today's light-speed infrastructure, the Internet.
For another, no community should take a major local industry for granted. That's why diversification and continuing economic development efforts, like the one in place in McCook, are so important.