Cabela considering potential buyouts
Cabela's Inc., which came under pressure from activist investor Elliott Associates last month, is fielding potential takeover interest and weighing whether to begin a sales process, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The retailer of hunting, fishing and camping supplies is working with its regular advisers at Guggenheim Partners, which has begun reaching out to a small group of potential private-equity buyers and strategic acquirers, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the matter is private. Competitor Bass Pro Shops is working with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to help it explore a bid for Cabela's, other people said.
Cabela's board hasn't authorized a formal strategic review or given advisers an official mandate to seek buyers, one of the people said.
Private-equity firms including KKR & Co., Hellman & Friedman and TPG Capital may also be interested in bidding for the company, the people said. Several buyout firms have expressed interest in a deal that may value Cabela's at a per-share price in the mid- to high-$50s, two of the people said.
The shares rose 10 percent to $46.10 on Friday after Bloomberg News reported on the deliberations. They closed at $33.42 on Oct. 27, the day before Elliott disclosed an 11 percent stake in the company and said it may push for a shake-up or leveraged buyout.
-- Bloomberg News
Online cooling worries Target, Wal-Mart
Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. both saw a big slowdown in online sales growth last quarter, fueling concern that the brick-and-mortar chains aren't transitioning fast enough to e-commerce.
Target's Internet sales grew 20 percent third quarter, missing the 30 percent gain it expected, the retailer said last week, while Wal-Mart posted quarterly e-commerce growth of 10 percent, compared with 16 percent in the second quarter and 21 percent a year earlier.
The deceleration underscores the challenge of competing with Amazon.com Inc., the world's largest Internet retailer. Wal-Mart is spending as much as $1.5 billion this year to improve its e-commerce operations, and investors expect to see a big bump in sales. Target also has stepped up its online investments.
Total e-commerce sales increased 15 percent in the U.S. last quarter, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Online sales accounted for 7.4 percent of total retail sales in the quarter.
-- Bloomberg News
Dunkin' Donuts testing online options
NEW YORK -- Dunkin' Donuts is testing delivery and on-the-go ordering.
The doughnut and coffee chain said recently that delivery has started in Dallas and will spread to Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington in coming weeks. Delivery orders need to be made on the app or website of DoorDash, the delivery company with which Dunkin' Donuts is partnering.
Tests of on-the-go ordering are taking place at stores in Portland, Maine. Customers place orders on the Dunkin' Donuts app in advance and pick them up at a store.
With the tests, Dunkin' Donuts is catching up with rivals. Seattle-based coffee chain Starbucks Corp. already offers on-the-go ordering at 7,400 company-owned U.S. stores and is testing deliveries in certain cities.
Dunkin' Donuts is owned by Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin' Brands Group Inc.
-- The Associated Press
Google integrating apps into browsers
Mobile applications brought the power of the Internet into smartphones, turning them into gateways for services and information. Now, as apps become more central to people's digital lives, Google is looking to bring some of that technology back to the Web.
Google will start including data from popular apps into browser-based search results, helping users find information even if they haven't downloaded the software onto their devices, the Web company said last week. And Google is taking the idea one step further, by letting people run apps right inside their Internet browsers.
Some apps don't have a corresponding website, making it harder for Google to scour them for information to include in its search engine. To fix this, Google has spent the past two years creating tools for developers that make it easier for its search engine to peer into apps.
The efforts are aimed at making it easier for Google to put relevant ads in front of people -- whether they're on smartphones or laptops. That's critical in a world where seven of every eight minutes on mobile phones in the U.S. are spent interacting with apps and media, according to Comscore.
-- Bloomberg News
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