An affiliate of
Windy City-Fox Motorsports has acquired the former Iron Town Harley-Davidson dealership in New Berlin in bankruptcy court and does not plan to re-open it, according to a news release from Irvine, Calif.-based Performance Brokerage Services, which brokered the sale.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Windy City-Fox Motorsports owns 17 motorcycle dealerships in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, including Harley-Davidson dealerships in Milwaukee, West Bend and Lake Geneva. The company also plans to open a Harley dealership in downtown Milwaukee.
Last year the business entities behind the New Berlin and Janesville Harley-Davidson dealerships filed for bankruptcy and closed the dealerships. Sara Pomeroy bought the Janesville dealership in 2015 and the New Berlin one, previously known as Hal’s Harley-Davidson, in 2016.
“Having sold Hal’s Harley-Davidson to Sara and Eric Pomeroy, it was an exceedingly difficult and emotional process to sell it on their behalf through bankruptcy,” said George Chaconas, executive agent for the transaction and head of the National Harley-Davidson and Powersports Division for Performance Brokerage Services. “After a long marketing and auctioning process, we successfully sold it to Ozzie Giglio (chief executive officer) of Windy City Group. Unfortunately, the dealership will remain closed. The surrounding dealerships will provide support to the current riders.”
The entities that owned the New Berlin and Janesville Harley dealerships, H2D Motorcycle Ventures LLC and JHD Holding Inc., were sued by Harley-Davidson’s financing business, alleging check and inventory fraud along with breach of contract. Harley was
seeking nearly $6.3 million from the two entities.
The two dealerships generated combined gross revenue of $31.7 million in 2017 and $34.1 million in 2018. Through the bankruptcy filing, the dealerships had brought in $6.8 million in 2019.
The dealerships also have combined assets of $10.1 million and around $13.1 million in total claims. The secured claims at the New Berlin dealership included nearly $3.2 million with Harley-Davidson credit and $1.6 million with Byline Bank.
Wisconsin Harley-Davidson in Oconomowoc took over management of the New Berlin dealership in late March of 2019 and
planned to buy the business after lining up financing.
But then Wisconsin Harley-Davidson withdrew from the management agreement on May 31.