So I am a bit new to this conversation but am in the outdoor industry. It was well known that Cabela's was a sinking ship for the past 4 years or so. Pretty much everything bad said on this site about the stores and merchandising is true according to the vendors that I speak with. Why would BP buy s company that was a year or two away from drowning anayway? Why not just let them dissolve themselves and then no more competitor?
And when is the exact date of closure (if known)?
Thanks for securing the point. As stated, there are plenty of companies meeting street expectations, cabelas did not so hence the failure.
Didnt they go public back in 2002? That was 15 years ago so if you cant figure something out in that time, you have a bad business model
What are you talking about: The reports are overblown.
You tell the street how much you will make next quarter. Then you either meet, beat or miss expectations. It's pretty simple.
Cabela's keeps guiding lower and then missing those numbers...what's overblown about that?
Once you go public, ....it's all about...YOU'RE GROWING OR YOU'RE DYING.
There's no screw the street...if you don't deliver the street screws you!
He wasn't referring to the "street", he said others in the industry. There are plenty of public companies satisfying the "street". Stop using that as an excuse.
This has become a gossip website. Take a look at the financials. Cabela's is making money but it is just not "enough" for the street. Screw the street and it's influence. Most if all of the reports are overblown.
Great explaination, thank you.
The sinking ship part was based on what others say in the indistry, not a personal opinion. It does seem that a lot of people that deal with the merchants and others at Cabelas think that the company severely lacked the current knowledge (maybe outside of guns) and drive to succeed going forward. It was a given that money and margin was most important, not technology and customers...despite what management said. What has happened seems like a natural path when that stuff is ignored.
To say Cabela's was a sinking ship is a gross overstatement. It had some great sales in the Obama years but sales were slowing and their customers were getting older. In a nutshell, like most of retail, they didn't have any pricing power with a strong competitor like BP around. If BP hadn't taken them over they could have limped through the next decade, but the share price would have slipped to all time lows. That draws in activist investors. The big mistake the company made was going public. It opens you up to all kinds of disruptive forces. BP didn't wait because they wanted to grow and dominate the market quickly. It has just added all those new stores to it's footprint and now has few serious competitors. Now they can begin to sell off the bits they don't want and start raising prices. They will now be the largest gun dealer in the world. With the current state of retail, only time will tell if it was a good move.