• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Milwaukee Ice Plant Closed As Result of Sale to Canadian Company

Posted on: Monday, 19 September 2005, 21:00 CDT

Sep. 20--A longtime Milwaukee ice-producing plant run by Hometown Inc. has been shut down through the sale of the company's packaged ice business to a Canadian company.

Arctic Glacier Inc. of Winnipeg, Manitoba, said Monday that it bought the ice division of Hometown to expand its presence in the Midwest.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Arctic Glacier said it acquired Hometown's production plants in Madison, Neenah and Sturgeon Bay, and its distribution center in Wausau.

It didn't buy the old Milwaukee plant, which employed 12 people.

But it acquired the Milwaukee facility's accounts as part of the deal, said Keith Burrows, vice president for acquisitions at Arctic Glacier.

Hometown also runs a fuel oil and service station business in eastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

Its ice business dated back to 1849. The last day of operation for the Milwaukee ice plant was Friday.

"That is one of the oldest union companies we have," said Dennis Thomas , business representative for Local 200 of the Teamsters.

Thomas said some drivers may find work with Hometown's fuel division, but the others at the Milwaukee ice plant would lose their jobs.

He said he would meet with the company to talk about a severance package for those workers.

Thomas said Hometown, a privately held firm headed by Wes Day, had a good relationship with the union.

"You couldn't find nicer people," Thomas said. "They tried to treat their people right."

Day could not be reached for comment Monday.

Burrows said Arctic Glacier began talking with Hometown in the spring. Hometown suffered a blow in August when executive vice president Donald Swade, who Thomas said led the day-to-day business operations, died.

Burrows said the acquisition strategy of Arctic Glacier, which has been buying up packaged ice producers in the Canada and the U.S. since 1996, is to purchase a large company in a market and grow from there.

He noted that the plant in Madison "is a very, very good plant, and it's possible we might decide to expand that."

Customers in the Milwaukee-area market will receive ice from the other Hometown plants Arctic Glacier acquired, he said.

Arctic Glacier had revenue of $98 million in U.S. dollars last year. The Hometown acquisition is expected to add about $8.6 million in revenue.

-----

To see more of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.jsonline.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

More News in this Category