Defense company to buy Wisconsin shipyard with plans to invest $350M
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By Danielle Kaeding, WPR
The owner of a Superior shipyard will sell to a Miami-based defense firm that’s set to invest $350 million there as the Trump administration seeks to increase domestic shipbuilding.
Fraser Industries announced the sale Wednesday to Wildcat Defense, part of the Miami-based Wildcat Equity Partners. The announcement comes as the Trump administration has sought to revitalize American shipbuilding. Fraser Industries CEO Patrick Kelly said owners didn’t make the decision lightly and he believes the investment will allow the company to accelerate plans for growth.
“It’s about investing in people, expanding our capabilities, building a stronger future for American shipbuilding and ship repair on the Great Lakes,” Kelly said. “For everyone in this room, all of our employees, it means a more secure job, a bigger job and opportunities under new ownership that comes with that investment and growth.”
Wildcat is acquiring Fraser because it’s responding to the challenges facing the maritime industry and President Donald Trump’s maritime action plan that calls for modernizing the nation’s shipbuilding industry and industrial defense.
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The White House is seeking to counter China’s dominance in global shipbuilding. China makes up roughly half of commercial shipbuilding while the U.S. makes up less than 1 percent.
Eric Nicolaides, chairman and CEO of Wildcat Equity Partners, said the U.S. Navy estimates that shipbuilders and suppliers will need roughly 250,000 workers over the next decade to meet demand in new construction. As part of the acquisition, he said Wildcat hopes to grow the shipyard’s year-round workforce of roughly 200 employees.
“This is a very rare and privileged opportunity where we actually are desperate for more workers, and I would imagine we’ll be able to hopefully grow the workforce here even more over the coming years,” Nicolaides said.
The shipyard in Superior has been building boats since 1890. Fraser Industries is the parent company of Fraser Shipyards, Lake Assault Boats, Northern Engineering and Fraser Terminal.
Fraser and its subsidiaries conduct repairs on the Great Lakes commercial fleet and build a variety of vessels that include police and fire boats, as well as patrol boats for the U.S. Navy that are designed to protect ships and personnel from waterborne threats. The company is under contract to build about 30 boats this year.
The leadership team at Fraser will stay on as part of the acquisition. As part of the deal, Kelly said they’ll be looking to take on more contracts to build more vessels for the U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and other armed forces.
In July, Fraser signed a memorandum of understanding with HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, the parent company of HD Hyundai’s shipbuilding division. The agreement was signed as part of the opening of the Korea-U.S. Shipbuilding Partnership Center in Washington D.C.
The center is overseeing the rollout of South Korea’s $150 billion investment for the U.S. shipbuilding industry. The planned investment is part of a deal reached in November between the two nations to reduce American tariffs on South Korean imports, including automobiles, to 15 percent.
Nicolaides said that he believes modernization and expansion of U.S. shipyards should be done by American firms.
“We should share technology when it makes sense, invest in one another’s strengths and build supply chains that make us more secure, but we should never confuse partnership with dependency,” he said. “A strong partnership makes both countries more capable.”
The city of Superior has been working with Fraser on options for expanding the shipyard through access to public financing and lobbying for federal contracts.
“An expansion like this of potentially hundreds of jobs, definitely hundreds of millions of dollars of new direct investment and real construction — all of that is maybe one of the most significant expansions of our economy that we have seen in a very long time,” said Superior Mayor Jim Paine.
Fraser said it remains committed to its partnership with Fincantieri and Donjon shipyards as they compete to build Great Lakes icebreakers.
Wildcat Defense is a new business seeking to invest in and operate companies across the nation’s defense industrial base. Its launch comes after another Wildcat company offered up to $1.35 billion in September to acquire Austal USA, owner of a major shipyard in Alabama.
The acquisition of the shipyard is expected to close in about three months.
In Wisconsin, a 2024 report found the ship and boat building industry directly or indirectly employed around 5,800 workers, providing nearly $439 million in wages and a $1.2 billion economic output.
