Cabela’s Bids Expected This Week

Struggling retailer Cabela’s is expecting bids this week for purchase. Early favorites include Sycamore Partners in partnership with Synchrony Financial and Bass Pro Shops with U.S. bank Capital One Financial Corp., which is interested in Cabela’s credit card business, World’s Foremost Bank, sources told Reuters.

Both groups are slated to make offers this week.

Cabela’s investor Elliott Management last year disclosed an 11 percent stake in Sidney, Nebraska-based Cabela’s and is reportedly urging a sale to pull value out of the hard-hit by recent trends retail operation. Other methods of raising funds for investors include a real estate sale or a spinoff of its credit card business.

Shares in Cabela’s rose as much as 4.5 percent late last week as the reports began emerging that a sale of some shape is in the offing. Stock price picked up 2.9 percent at $53.86 in late trading, giving Cabela’s a market capitalization of $3.7 billion, according to Reuters.

Cabela’s difficulties have been ongoing for some years, and it began pulling away from an expansion-heavy model when data emerged that its stores were cannibalizing business from each other. July brought the first quarter of positive comparable store sales since the third quarter of 2013. The pickup was “attributable to strength in firearms and shooting-related categories, as well as the camping, powersports and fishing categories,” according to a company press release.

Along with the the minority stake held by Elliott, the founding Cabela family still holds a 24 percent stake in the company, which could complicate how any bids are received.