By Alan Clemons in Hunting Retailer.
A joint venture led by Sansome Pacific, a real estate investment firm based in San Francisco, has acquired 11 locations of outdoor sports retailer Cabela’s for $324.3 million.
The transaction was structured as a sale-leaseback with the seller, Bass Pro Shops, which owns the Cabela’s brand. The 11-property portfolio spans 1.6 million square feet on 227 acres. Bass Pro Shops is based in Springfield, Missouri; Cabela’s is based in Sidney, Nebraska. The specific locations of the 11 stores were not disclosed.
B+E brokered the deal, claiming it as the largest transaction ever brokered by a digital sales platform. Co-founders Camille Renshaw and Scott Scurich are longtime real estate brokers who founded the company in 2017.
The program “uses artificial intelligence to track the most active buyers in the real-time, net-lease market, much as stock and bond software tracks institutional investors,” according to the company. “The algorithm evaluates a buyer’s past purchases, as well as current acquisition criteria and dollars raised that must be allocated within a given year.”
Bass Pro Shops acquired Cabela’s in 2017 in a blockbuster, $5.5 billion deal. The merger brought together three of the nation’s top outdoor sporting brands: Cabela’s, which specializes in hunting; Bass Pro Shops, which specializes in fishing; and White River Marine Group, a Bass Pro Shops company that specializes in boating. At the time of sale, the combined portfolio of the three brands totaled 184 stores in the U.S. and Canada.
