Milwaukee Forge Sells for $4.6 Million

Milwaukee Forge, 1532 E. Oklahoma Ave. Photo by Urban Milwaukee staff.

Milwaukee Forge, a 112-year-old company in Bay View, is being sold to a politically-connected ownership group for $4.6 million.

The company, located at 1532 E. Oklahoma Ave., is now being sold to a private ownership group after being placed in receivership earlier this year. Creditors previously reported the business had at least $9.3 million in outstanding liabilities, including bank loans and unpaid invoices from vendors and equipment suppliers.

Milwaukee Forge, which has operated since 1913, is being sold to an ownership group doing business as Milwaukee Forgetech, Inc. A holding company, Milwaukee Forgetech Holdings, LLC, is registered to Phillip Prange, of Waukesha. Prange is a former lobbyist, well-connected Republican and a co-founder of the publication WisPolitics, and currently the Senior Government Solutions Architect for Fiserv. He is married to Alison Prange, managing director of Michael Best Strategies and the former COO of the 2024 Republican National Convention host committee.

The company provides heat-treating and forging services. It operates out of a 132,000-square-foot facility on an eight-acre property in Bay View owned by an affiliate.

In March, creditors petitioned in state court to have the company placed in receivership. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Thomas J. McAdams granted the petition and ordered the company and its assets placed under the control of a court-ordered receiver, attorney Michael Polsky.

At first, the company kept up operations, and President and CEO Dave Mesick said all employees would stay on. “It’s business as usual,” he said in a press release in March. By June, though, the company filed a notice with the state reporting it would start laying off 67 employees in August as a result of the delayed sale.

Initially, Polsky sought to sell the company’s assets as a going concern. However, attempts to sell the business at auction were unsuccessful. Then, in late August, Polsky sought a hearing before McAdams seeking approval of a sale to Milwaukee Forgetech. McAdams approved the sale Friday, Nov. 13.

It is the second time Milwaukee Forge has been sold out of receivership. In 2010, Mesick led an ownership group that purchased the company for $7.1 million.

City of Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and County Executive David Crowley both wrote letters to the court in support of the sale. The officials wanted to see the company sold in order to continue operating and providing union-represented jobs. The ownership group has indicated it will represent and bargain with the unions representing Milwaukee Forge workers: the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 140 and the United Steelworkers.

“This is a facility with a long history of industrial production and employment that contributed to the city’s economy,” Johnson wrote.

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