In October 2022, the Federal Trade Commission voted 5-0 to force one retail chain to hand dozens of stores to another one.
The winner was a family-owned farm store company from Sioux City, Iowa, founded in 1944, that most Americans have never heard of.
It did not bid in an auction. It did not outmaneuver anyone in a boardroom.
It got the stores because federal antitrust regulators decided a competitor needed to exist, and Bomgaars was the company willing to take them.
Which is remarkable. But it is also just the most dramatic example of something Bomgaars has been doing quietly for twenty five years.