Changes are coming to Iola’s Orscheln Farm and Home franchise.
The store is one of 73 Orscheln locations that are being acquired by Bomgaars, an Iowa-based farm and home supply retailer.
The transaction will make Bomgaars the second-largest farm and ranch retailer in the nation based on total store count.
The acquisition was announced in October as part of a larger deal revolving around the sale of Orscheln to Tractor Supply Co. After a year of investigating the matter, the Federal Trade Commission approved the Orscheln-Tractor Supply deal, provided a portion of the stores go to a third-party participant — Bomgaars in this case — to circumvent potential antitrust concerns. Eighty-one Orscheln stores will become Tractor & Supply locations, including one in Garnett. Twelve Orscheln stores also were acquired by Buchheit Enterprises in Missouri and Illinois.
Bomgaars spokesman Heather Korbe said the timing of the Iola store’s name change is still to be determined, although Orscheln employees here already have been retained by the new owners.
“They’re a part of the Bomgaars team,” she said in a telephone interview. “We asked them all to stay, and retained everybody interested in remaining. We’re very excited to have them all on board.”
Like Orscheln, Bomgaars specializes in farm and ranch materials.
“We carry a lot of the same things, but with different focuses on product lines we carry,” Korbe said. For example, Bomgaars carries a wide selection of Dewalt power tools.
Bomgaars sells lawn and garden plus nursery items, clothing and footwear, farm, pet and automotive supplies, paint, hardware, tools, housewares and toys.
EXACTLY when the store’s name will change has yet to be determined, Korbe said.
The plan is for the first Orscheln store to change over in Lincoln in January, with the other 72 occurring over the subsequent 15 months.
“There are a lot of factors outside of our control,” she said, such as when computer systems can be changed over to Bomgaars systems, and appropriate signage arrives.
THE BOMGAARS operation started in 1944 in Iowa, and eventually expanded to include South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and now Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
“We’re very excited to be coming to those markets,” Korbe said.
