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Caterpillar Agrees to Acquire Century-Old Fabick Cat Dealership
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Caterpillar Inc. (CAT ) has entered into an agreement to acquire John Fabick Tractor Company (Fabick), a long-standing Cat dealer with more than 100 years of service and customer relationships across portions of Missouri and Illinois, the entire state of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Caterpillar announced September 29, 2026.
Caterpillar described the agreement as a customer-focused decision to support a seamless transition of Fabick’s ownership while maintaining the strong service and local support customers know and value today. The announcement was datelined Irving, Texas. Fabick Cat published the announcement on its own website with a Fenton, Missouri, dateline.
“Caterpillar and Cat dealers share a common mission of solving our customers’ toughest challenges,” said Joe Creed, Caterpillar chairman and CEO. “We look forward to continuing to work with the Fabick team to build on a century of success, further strengthen the customer experience and drive long-term growth across the service territory.”
“We’re incredibly proud of our team and the customer relationships we’ve built over the past 100 years,” said Jeré Fabick, chairman, CEO and dealer principal of Fabick.
Fabick chief operating officer Todd Stanley said the dealership is excited for its next chapter with Caterpillar and that the transaction will enhance its ability to provide customers with services, technology and expertise he described as unmatched.
A Century of Family Ownership
Fabick Cat is the authorized Caterpillar dealer throughout major portions of Missouri and Illinois, the entire state of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, operating 37 locations across the territory, according to the dealership’s company overview. Fabick says the organization grew over more than 100 years from one building in St. Louis with three employees to 37 locations with more than 1,200 employees.
The company was founded by John Fabick Sr., who set out to build a leading service organization and adopted the motto To Ever Serve Our Customers Better. Fabick says those words remain the foundation of the organization. Today, members of the Fabick family’s third, fourth and fifth generations work together in the business under the active leadership of Jeré Fabick as chairman, CEO and dealer principal, with John Fabick IV serving as president.
Fabick attributes the organization’s character to its people, support and facilities, bound together by what it describes as a single concept of total service capability for the equipment owner. The dealership’s product scope spans Cat machines that help maintain infrastructure and support farmers, along with aerial lifts and emergency power generation. The company also describes a deep-rooted history of community involvement and says giving back is celebrated across the organization.
The Independent Cat Dealer Model
Fabick operates within a distribution system that Caterpillar describes as the largest dealer network in the industry. According to Caterpillar’s dealer-network overview, the Cat Dealer Network has 160 independent dealers serving 197 countries, with thousands of branches worldwide, and nearly 180,000 Cat dealer employees. Caterpillar states that Cat dealers are independent businesses, many of them family owned, that the average Cat dealership worldwide is just over 50 years old, and that some dealers are older than Caterpillar itself, which was founded in 1925. Many customer-dealer relationships go back generations, the company notes.
Caterpillar outlines a broad role for those dealers. The company says dealers are locally operated by people invested in their customers’ success, employing long-tenured technicians and industry-specific experts, with 24/7 access to a dealer representative, expert advice and emergency service. According to the overview, a dealership covers equipment needs from purchase to consignment and offers maintenance planning, repair services, protection plans and an inventory of same-day parts; rebuild and upgrade work for older machines; heavy equipment operator training, service technician training and safety consulting; and site analysis with flexible purchase, rental and financing options.
The agreement requires approval by regulatory authorities and is subject to other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close within 30 days, the companies said.
