Cabela’s had $376 million in debt at the end of 2005. Now? It has $4.4 billion. The balance sheet has been so obliterated that I would automatically disqualify it from investment consideration because it couldn’t survive the bad times. The stock went from $28 in 2007 to $4 in 2008, and the company is far, far more leveraged now than it was back then. Cabela’s shareholders may not know it, and they will go to their graves with the memory of the sweet $66.50 per share buyout, but the Cabela’s business was managed in such a way that it was destined for the corporate graveyard the next time a 1973 or 2009 type of economic shows up.
It is almost comical how leveraged Cabela’s permitted itself to become. It is earning $200 million per share in profit while carrying $4.4 billion in debt. Every dollar in profit was carrying $22 in debt. That is so fiscally irresponsible it is unbelievable. In 2008, Cabela’s managed to earn a profit of $77 million during the worst of the recession, and if it had a clean balance sheet, it would be able to survive just fine under those conditions.