This story is part of the 30th anniversary issue of BizTimes Milwaukee, published on March 17. Paid subscribers can see the digital edition of the magazine.Â
Mergers and acquisitions have played a major role in shaping southeastern Wisconsin’s business landscape over the past three decades.
Here’s a look back at some of the M&A deals that have made the biggest impact on the region during that time.
Strattec from Briggs & Stratton
Glendale-based automotive supplier Strattec Security Corp. was originally a division of Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton, a manufacturer and marketer of lithium-ion batteries, standby generators, energy storage systems, lawn and garden, turf care and job site products. In 1995, Strattec spun off from Briggs & Stratton and became its own independent business, specializing in the manufacturing and distribution of automotive locks and keys. Strattec now supplies its products to big-name automotive companies like General Motors, Ford Motor Co., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Honda, Tesla, Aston Martin and Harley-Davidson. Beginning in 2000, Strattec began signing alliance agreements with several global companies expanding their product offering and distribution channels to the global market. Today, Strattec employs more than 3,300 employees and has an annual revenue of more than $490 million.
Firstar-U.S. Bank
Milwaukee-based Firstar Corp., founded in 1853 and renamed First Wisconsin National Bank in 1919 and renamed Firstar in 1988, acquired Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp in a $21 billion deal in 2001. At the time of the acquisition, Firstar and U.S. Bank were led by brothers John F. Grundhofer and Jerry A. Grundhofer. While Firstar made the acquisition, the companies began operating under the U.S. Bank name once the deal closed. U.S. Bank, now headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a Fortune 500 company with more than 70,000 employees and roughly $40 billion in revenue. The company operates more than 2,000 bank branches in 26 states across the country.
Milwaukee Tool acquired by TTI
Hong Kong-based manufacturer Techtronic Industries acquired Brookfield-based Milwaukee Tool Corp. in 2005 in a $626 million transaction. The acquisition was part of Milwaukee Tools’ former holding company Atlas Copco Corp.’s efforts to sell its electric tools sector. Revenue at Milwaukee Tool has grown significantly over the past two decades, from around $500 million in the early 2000s to $13.7 billion in 2023. The company has transitioned from a focus on corded power tools to cordless tools, power tool accessories and hand tools. The company employs nearly 8,500 people and has made strides to expand its local footprint in recent years, expanding its Brookfield headquarters, opening a new office in downtown Milwaukee, acquiring several buildings in Menomonee Falls and opening a plant in West Bend.
Miller’s journey to Molson Coors
In 2008, Chicago-based Molson Coors and former partner SABMiller, created by a merger of South African Breweries and Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Co., formed a joint venture called MillerCoors. SABMiller had a 58% stake in MillerCoors while Molson Coors maintained a 42% stake. In 2016, Anheuser-Busch InBev acquired SABMiller for $107 billion, which resulted in the company’s divestment from MillerCoors. As a result, Molson Coors absorbed the forfeited stake; the MillerCoors corporate name was retired in early 2020 as the company reorganized as Molson Coors Beverage Co. Molson Coors sells a variety of alcoholic beverages like Coors Light, Miller Lite, Molson Canadian, Carling, Staropramen, Coors Banquet, Blue Moon Belgian White, Blue Moon LightSky, Vizzy, Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, Creemore Springs and more. Most recently, Molson Coors announced that it would close the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co. brewery in Chippewa Falls and its craft beer brewery near downtown Milwaukee. The company said it will consolidate beer production from those facilities at its Miller Brewing Co. facility on the west side of Milwaukee. Miller acquired Leinenkugel in 1988.
Midwest Express expires
Oak Creek-based Midwest Airlines, formerly Midwest Express, was acquired by Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings in 2009. Famous for its warm chocolate chip cookies served in flight, Midwest Airlines was a staple of Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport from 1984 to 2010. For a short time after its 2009 acquisition, Midwest continued to operate under its name until Republic Airway Holdings dropped the name in a merger with another one of its subsidiaries, Denver-based Frontier Airlines. The Midwest Airlines brand was eliminated, but its notoriety in Milwaukee has remained. In 2019, a group of business and airline professionals spearheaded an effort to bring back Midwest Express Airlines and signed an agreement with Portland, Maine-based Elite Airways LLC for its resurgence. Efforts to recover the airline failed in 2020 when Midwest Express ended its partnership with Elite and sued the company for a breach of their agreement.
Fiserv-First Data
In December 2019, Milwaukee-based Fiserv began the process of acquiring New York-based First Data Corp. for $22 billion, Fiserv’s largest acquisition and one of the largest financial deals between two Fortune 500 companies to date. Fiserv provides back-end processing for banks and credit unions while First Data was a giant in point-of-sale transactions. In making the acquisition, Fiserv was given an end-to-end solution in the payments space and the ability to offer the Clover merchant system through its bank customers. Fiserv reported $20.5 billion in revenue for 2024, up 7.1% from $19.1 billion in 2023, a new high for the company.
Wisconsin Energy buys Integrys
In June 2015, Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Energy Corp. completed its $9.1 billion acquisition of Chicago-based Integrys Energy Group, the largest non-bank acquisition made by a Wisconsin company at the time. The acquisition of Integrys created the company name WEC Energy Group, which it operates under today. Its principal utilities – We Energies, Wisconsin Public Service, Peoples Gas, North Shore Gas, Michigan Gas Utilities, Minnesota Energy Resources – boasted $29 billion in assets, 9,300 employees and roughly 60,000 stockholders in 2015. WEC has about 7,000 employees, reported revenue of $8.6 billion in 2024 and serves nearly 4.7 million customers across Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.
M&I Bank becomes part of BMO
In December 2010, Bank of Montreal Financial Group, the corporate parent of Chicago-based Harris Bank, announced it had reached an agreement to acquire Milwaukee-based Marshall & Ilsley Corp. in an all-stock transaction valued at about $4.1 billion. At the time, M&I was Wisconsin’s largest bank with close to 200 offices throughout the state. The merger would blanket both companies under the BMO Harris name, expanding its footprint in the Midwest and Canada. Today, BMO is the eighth largest bank in North America by assets totaling $1.41 trillion, operating more than 1,000 branches and employing more than 55,000 people. M&I’s former headquarters building at 770 N. Water St. in downtown Milwaukee was acquired by Wauwatosa-based real estate developer Irgens as part of a deal with BMO Harris to build the new BMO Tower next door at 790 N. Water St.
Johnson Controls-Tyco deal and spinoffs
Based in Cork, Ireland, with its primary North American operations headquartered in Glendale, Johnson Controls International plc has made several acquisitions and undergone significant mergers in the past 30 years. Starting in September of 2016, Johnson Controls and Princeton, New Jersey-based Tyco International completed their $16 billion merger. One month later in October, Johnson Controls spun off its automotive seating and interiors manufacturing business, Adient. Plymouth, Michigan-based Adient now employs 70,000 people across 200 manufacturing facilities in 30 countries. In May 2019, JCI sold its power solutions business, now known as Clarios, to Canada-based Brookfield Business Partners for $13.2 billion. Clarios, still based in Glendale, manufactures automobile engine batteries in more than 50 facilities worldwide and distributes them to more than 100 countries.
Froedtert Thedacare
Wauwatosa-based Froedtert Health and Neenah-based ThedaCare launched their combined health system, Froedtert Thedacare Health Inc., on Jan. 1, 2024. Froedtert Health – in partnership with the Medical College of Wisconsin – operates Froedtert Hospital, the only academic medical center and adult Level I Trauma Center in eastern Wisconsin. Froedtert’s more than 45 health centers and clinics and 13,000 employees joined forces with ThedaCare, which operated eight hospitals and nearly three dozen clinics and health care centers in northeast and central Wisconsin, with nearly 7,000 employees. Froedtert ThedaCare Health is led by Dr. Imran Andrabi, who had previously served as president and CEO of ThedaCare since 2017.
Kroger acquires Roundy’s
Cincinnati, Ohio-based The Kroger Co. closed on its $800 million acquisition of Milwaukee-based Roundy’s in December of 2015. At the time, Roundy’s operated 151 stores, with 101 pharmacies, including the Pick ’n Save- and Metro Market-branded stores in Milwaukee, the Copps Food Center-branded stores near Madison and in northern Wisconsin, and the Mariano’s-branded stores in Chicago. Roundy’s also occupied two major distribution centers in Oconomowoc and Mazomanie, both of which are still operational today. The Roundy’s brand name was mostly removed in the acquisition and replaced by Kroger branding, with the exception of its distribution facilities and a small number of products sold within the grocery stores. Kroger has roughly 414,000 employees and reported an operating profit of $828 million for the third quarter of 2024.
Quad’s Worldcolor deal kicks off consolidation
In July 2010, Sussex-based Quad/Graphics acquired Montreal-based Worldcolor in a $1.3 billion deal. The acquisition of Worldcolor, a rival printing company previously known as Quebecor World, made Quad a publicly traded company and increased its quarterly net sales from $471.6 million to $1.2 billion within a year. On the heels of its Wolrdcolor acquisition, Quad agreed to an asset swap with Montreal-based Transcontinental Inc. in 2011, which allocated Transcontinental’s Mexican assets and its black-and-white book printing business to Quad in exchange for seven of Quad’s Canadian facilities. In November 2018, Quad attempted to acquire Chicago-based LSC Communications for $1.4 billion. In 2019, however, the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division sued to block the acquisition, which in turn, switched Quad’s focus to the consolidation of operations. Today, Quad’s largest concentration of production facilities resides in Wisconsin. At the end of 2024, Quad’s net sales were $2.67 billion, down 9.7% from the prior year as the company manages the decline of certain print products and continues to transition towards being a marketing experience company.
Komatsu buys Joy Global
In 2000, Milwaukee-based Pawling and Harnischfeger merged with another Milwaukee-based manufacturing company Joy Mining Machinery, creating Joy Global. Joy Global, headquartered in Milwaukee, became a well-known machinery manufacturer and distributor, competing with large companies like Caterpillar, which had corporate offices and facilities in the southeast region of Wisconsin as well. In early 2016, Joy Global announced plans to close its welding and heavy machinery manufacturing divisions, eliminating more than 130 jobs. Later that year in July, on the heels of closing its welding and heavy machinery divisions, Joy Global was acquired by Tokyo, Japan-based Komatsu in a $3.7 billion transaction. Komatsu Mining now has five facilities in southeastern Wisconsin, including its $285 million headquarters and manufacturing campus that opened in June 2022 in Milwaukee’s Harbor District.
Briggs & Stratton bankruptcyÂ
In September 2020, Wauwatosa-based Briggs & Stratton Corp. completed its sale to an affiliate of New York-based private equity firm KPS Capital Partners on the heels of Briggs’ bankruptcy filing. The small engine and turf care product maker had filed for bankruptcy protection in mid-July before entering into an agreement with KPS to buy nearly all of its assets for $550 million. The offer was made to serve as the stalking horse bid for a court-supervised auction of the company but was ultimately cancelled after not receiving any qualifying bids. As part of KPS’ acquisition, unsecured creditors were expected to receive seven to 10 cents on the dollar in recovery. Since the acquisition, Briggs & Stratton has experienced some fluctuation in its business, including the closure of two local facilities in Wauwatosa and Germantown and the appointment of two new CEOs – Steve Andrews to replace Todd Teske and Kristina Cerniglia to replace Andrews.
Bucyrus bought by Caterpillar
Peoria, Illinois-based construction, mining and engineering equipment manufacturer Caterpillar acquired Oak Creek-based mining equipment company Bucyrus International in 2010 as one of the largest acquisitions in Caterpillar’s history. The $7.6 billion deal, plus the assumption of $1 billion of Bucyrus’ debt, resulted in the relocation of Caterpillar’s global mining headquarters to Oak Creek. Upon the closure of the deal, all Bucyrus products were rebranded under the Caterpillar name. After the acquisition, Caterpillar’s operations remained in Oak Creek until 2016, when the company announced it would move its mining division headquarters to South Milwaukee and relocate up to 200 jobs to Tucson, Arizona. Caterpillar maintains manufacturing operations in South Milwaukee, but consolidated those operations and sold half of the campus in 2018.
Advocate Aurora’s deals
In December 2017, Milwaukee-based Aurora Health Care and Downers Grove, Illinois-based Advocate Health Care announced plans to merge, creating what is now Advocate Aurora Health. At the time, the newly incorporated Advocate Aurora Health organization operated 27 hospitals and employed more than 3,300 physicians and nearly 70,000 associates and caregivers. Five years later in 2022, Charlotte, North Carolina-based Atrium Health merged with Advocate Aurora Health, creating a combined organization called Advocate Health, now the third-largest nonprofit health system in the U.S. Advocate Health continues to use the Advocate, Aurora and Atrium brands in their respective communities, while maintaining a strong presence in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. Today, Advocate Health operates 67 hospitals across Wisconsin, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama and employs roughly 150,000 people.
