Mercury Marine buys Menomonee Falls company in $910 million deal

Mercury Marine, in Fond du Lac, will soon be getting a Menomonee Falls company in a $910 million acquisition by Mercury's parent company, Brunswick Corp. 

Brunswick is acquiring Power Products – Global Marine & Mobile from Genstar Capital, a San Francisco private equity firm.

Power Products sells electrical equipment used in boats, including lighting, wires, cables and switches. The company has 630 employees worldwide, including about 150 at its Menomonee Falls headquarters.

Power Products, which has 11 brands, will be integrated into Mercury Marine's parts and accessories business, but the headquarters and operations will remain in Menomonee Falls, said Mercury Marine President John Pfeifer.

"This is a business we bought because it's strategic and we like the product positions they're in. This is a growth piece of our company," Pfeifer said.

Mercury, which employs about 3,200 people in Fond du Lac and more than 6,000 worldwide, is a division of Brunswick Corp.

Mercury has its own bragging rights, too, as the world's largest marine engine manufacturer.

The company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on research and development to support the design and manufacture of new products, and it has greatly expanded the Fond du Lac operations.

Power Products has operations in the U.S., the Netherlands, New Zealand, China and other countries. Its products include everything from wires and cables to advanced marine electronics.

Boat-makers have embraced new technology, from docking a boat with a joystick to creating a wake-surf wave from a wristwatch. Boaters now want engines that are big, quiet and as easy to operate as their car.

Mercury’s “Joystick Piloting” is like playing a video game, but with a powerful outboard engine. The company's "Skyhook" is a virtual anchor that, with the push of a button, works with satellite coordinates to anchor a boat in a precise or difficult location.

Mercury had more than $2.6 billion in sales in 2017. With the addition of Power Products, the company expects to top $3 billion this year.

Since 2009, the company has added several thousand jobs in Fond du Lac, and it continues to hire in a variety of fields including engineering and skilled trades.

"We are growing at a really healthy clip," Pfeifer said.

The U.S. recreational marine industry supports 650,000 jobs and last year had $37 billion in sales. There are more than 10 million registered boats in the nation, including many with older technology.

"When we can, we try to make things that can be retrofitted," Pfeifer said.