Thank God we are out of Sidney and Cabelas. We were able to sell our large home at a nice profit for a short time living there. It really hurts to see how low Cabelas has fallen. I feel so bad for those that remain in Sidney. It must be scary. We thank our God everyday day that we got out before these things happened. I wish you all luck. One last thing....as an executive at Cabelas I knew the story was too good to be true. I remember telling the consultant that I was not surprised at what was being uncovered. It is unfortunate that the books were cooked to make Cabelas Branded Products look better than they were. When we went through the SKU rationalization process it became very evident to me that it was not going to work.
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I got out of Cabela's Corporate management 7 months ago because I saw the writing on the wall. It's hard to ruin a company with a single decision but I feel that going public back in 2004 will prove to have been Cabela's fatal mistake. Greed and growth led to the demise of the company - being in Cabela's management I saw firsthand extremely poor, and often short-sighted management decisions trying to chase the almighty dollar and EPS pennies. Sidney, Nebraska is going to be a ghost town but even the town has only itself to blame. It bent over backward to provide Cabela's tax-increment financing (TIF) money over the years all the while maintaining an attitude that "Cabela's will NEVER leave Sidney". I'm sure Bass Pro may leave the hourly jobs at the retail store & the distribution center but the big-dollar salaries of Corporate are out of there. I feel for those hourly folks who will now be saddled with an even larger property tax debt, hospital debt, school bond issue debt, water/sewer debt, etc. Hey, but at least Tommy Millner and the EVP team are walking away with millions right - so not everyone is a loser in the Cabela's failure to succeed!
You are probably the only person in Sidney who has not lost money on the sale of their home, especially one of those really nice ones over by WNCC. A real estate agent friend of mine told me that probably half of the homes on the market will probably end up selling for less than the owner paid for them if they were purchased within the last three years. You can go on-line and look at the public tax record to see what someone paid for their property and then cross reference it against realtor dot com to see what it is listed for. By the time the seller pays the fees, they will not be getting an equity check, many of them will have to bring money to the closing table. It's sad.
Thank God I am out of there as well!!! My heart goes to those good and decent hard working people left behind,. That will have to live in what is left in Sidney. To those with the rose colored blinders and glasses who also keep their collective heads up well you know where. I hope you enjoy paying for the mistakes and the massive bills left behind by those forward thinkers. Live well in the fact that due to your following as sheeple to the voices of we know what is best and all is well,. Maybe those crying out that there is a problem were not wrong. The one you worked so hard to silence.
Good 'ol SKU rationalization. The day we realized that if we don't carry market brands that our own product actually looses money most the time.
So many innocent families and businesses have suffered and lost over this whole sorted affair,