Bass Pro Shops acquires Hobie

Bass Pro Shops has acquired an Oceanside, California-based maker of sailboats and kayaks with plans to expand production at the Lebanon plant of one of its subsidiaries.

In a deal announced Sept. 24, Springfield-based Bass Pro intends to incorporate Hobie into its White River Marine Group boat manufacturing division. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in a news release, and Bass Pro and Hobie officials didn’t respond to interview requests by press time.

In the release, Bass Pro and White River Marine Group officials said they intend to move production of Hobie products to Lebanon from Mexico through the deal. White River Marine Group will expand its manufacturing facility in Lebanon to accommodate the work.

“Uniting with Hobie is a very proud day in our company’s history,” said Johnny Morris, Bass Pro founder, and Bryan Niketh, president of manufacturing at White River Marine Group, in a joint statement included in the release. “We are deeply committed to Hobie and supporting its dealer network as we embark on a very bright future together.”

White River has more than 110 dealerships inside Bass Pro and Cabela’s stores, as well as 19 free-standing Tracker Boating Center locations. The company sells nine boat brands, including Tracker, Nitro, Ranger and Triton, all-terrain vehicles and side-by-sides, according to its website. White River Marine Group and Hobie products are available in more than 70 countries.

Hobie was started by Hobie Alter in his parents’ California garage in 1950. In addition to its sailboats, the company manufactures and sells stand-up paddleboards, kayaks and boats for recreation and fishing, along with parts and accessories.

The acquisition and planned production shift of Hobie products to Lebanon from Mexico comes as the Trump administration seeks to strengthen U.S. manufacturing by bringing more industry jobs in foreign countries back to America.

Company incentivization
An announcement from the Missouri Department of Economic Development indicates White River Marine Group’s Lebanon expansion would utilize the Missouri Works program, which provides access to capital through withholdings or tax credits for job creation.

Subash Alias, CEO of Missouri Partnership, said his nonprofit economic development organization was involved in discussions this year with Bass Pro and Hobie, along with the DED, the city of Lebanon and Lebanon Regional Economic Development Inc., among others.

“There’s kind of a perception out there that these programs are only meant for large companies and large projects, and that’s not the case,” Alias said of the Missouri Works program, which has different incentive thresholds based on how many positions the company may be adding, ranging 2-100 jobs.

Alias said the DED in 2008 began to contract its business attraction and marketing function to Missouri Partnership, which receives public and private dollars. While the DED works with companies on retention and expansion projects, Missouri Partnership primarily focuses on bringing new companies to the state. For this project, while technically White River is expanding, Alias said it also falls on the attraction project side with Hobie coming to the state.

“There are some shades of gray when it comes to who works on what,” he said. “Whenever we get into these shades of gray, we just grab the phone, call the Department of Economic Development, or they call us; we talk through and then we decide who is the best suited to work the project. And that’s what happened with this one.”

Missouri Partnership helped the companies talk through the incentive process, but Alias declined to discuss specifics of the Bass Pro and Hobie deal. He said that includes the amount and structure of the incentives, noting components of the deal, such as the number of jobs to be added and the size of the physical expansion of the Lebanon plant, are still being determined.

Brian Thompson, president and CEO of nonprofit Lebanon Regional Economic Development Inc., said local officials are excited about White River reinvesting into the community through the acquisition. He said there are no official timelines yet for the expansion.

“We’re very blessed they have chosen and continue to choose Lebanon, Missouri, for these types of developments,” he said, noting White River’s presence in the community stretches back to 1978.

The acquisition and workforce growth investment comes after Bass Pro announced consolidations and layoffs last year among some of its White River operations. In November 2024, the company in a statement indicated part of its White River business in Bolivar was combining into the company’s Lebanon plant as of that month. Additionally, the company said it would close its Miami, Oklahoma, plant in January 2025, relocating its boat production at that facility to one in Clinton, which is in western Missouri.

The statement noted that 81 positions were impacted by the decision involving the Bolivar and Lebanon plants, with 148 positions affected by the Miami closure.

In April 2024, Bass Pro’s White River division laid off 176 employees at plants in Bolivar, Lebanon and Flippin, Arkansas, according to past reporting. Workforce counts after the cuts were nearly 900 in Lebanon, more than 500 in Flippin and roughly 400 in Bolivar.

White River for the past several years has ranked as either the largest or second-largest employer in Lebanon, Thompson said. He said the company’s employee count is close to St. Louis-based Copeland LP, which has a Lebanon plant that manufactures scroll compressors for the heating, ventilation and air conditioning market.

“They are both right around that 1,000 mark at any given point,” Thompson said.

In the workforce
While the unemployment rate in Laclede County took a slight dip in August to 5.5% from 5.6% the month prior, it’s still well above the state jobless rate of 4.1%, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Thompson said Lebanon is not immune to needing more housing to bolster its growing population. The city’s resident count is on the rise over the past 15 years, particularly in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic’s start in 2020. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Lebanon’s population was 15,538 in 2024. That’s up 3.5% from its 2020 total of 15,013.

“If you go back 2010-2020, our growth was 3.7%,” he said. “So, in a four-year window, we’ve almost matched what we had in the prior 10-year window. There’s definitely a need to continue housing developments to sustain that trend and help as far as that, coupled with projects like this and any other future ones that might be on the horizon so that we’re better prepared for them.”

Thompson said Lebanon is blessed to have a large manufacturing base in town.

“I also fully recognize we’re not immune to international and global trends,” he said, referring to past Bass Pro workforce reductions, for which the company last year pointed to “stiff headwinds in the recreational boat industry.”

Still, Thompson said the city also has a strong boat production presence beyond White River, with companies like G3 Boats and Lowe Boats.

“When you have that footprint, you always feel like you’re in the game,” he said.