Antitrust regulators gave the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s merger the go ahead after the Federal Trade Commission concluded its investigation into the $4.2 billion buyout.
Bass Pro Shops, which is privately owned and has 99 stores with 20,000 employees, will acquire Cabela’s, which has 19,000 employees and 85 stores in the U.S. and Canada. Despite being bought by Bass Pro, the Cabela’s brand will be kept.
The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter as long as Synovus Financial and Capital One Financial buys Cabela’s financial unit.
The buyout initially agreed upon was for roughly $5.5 billion, but the merger was amended when Capital One hit some hurdles in its efforts to purchase all of World’s Foremost Bank, a subsidiary of Cabela’s. Now Capital One will buy Cabela’s credit card business and Synovus will acquire the assets and deposits of World’s Foremost Bank.
The deal went through with Cabela’s agreeing to be bought at $61.50 a share, down from the original price of $65.50 a share.
