Who Owns Cabela's?

Dick Cabela started the business at his kitchen table in Chappell, Nebraska in 1961, placing a newspaper ad for hand-tied fishing flies he had imported from Japan. When the flies sold out, Dick, his wife Mary, and his brother Jim expanded the mail-order catalog into a national direct-mail operation.

The catalog business made Cabela's a household name among hunters and anglers decades before it had physical stores. Its first retail location opened in Sidney in 1987, evolving over time into the company's signature format: enormous destination stores with museum-quality taxidermy dioramas, aquariums, shooting galleries, and archery ranges that turned shopping into tourism.

The company went public on the NYSE in 2004 and spent the next decade building superstores across the West, Midwest, and Canada, at times reaching store footprints exceeding 200,000 square feet. World's Foremost Bank, the bank it owned to issue its branded Visa card, became a significant profit engine.

Growth stalled in the mid-2010s as big-box outdoor retail consolidated and e-commerce pressure mounted. Activist investor Elliott Management pushed for a sale in 2015, and Bass Pro Shops agreed to acquire the company in October 2016 at $65.50 per share. Regulatory concerns over the combined credit card operation delayed closing until September 2017, when the $4 billion merger was completed.

Under Great American Outdoors Group, the brands share a loyalty program (Bass Pro Shops & Cabela's CLUB), combined distribution, and joint private labels, while keeping separate store identities. The Nebraska headquarters in Sidney remains operational despite periodic speculation about consolidation into Springfield, Missouri.