FRI AM News: WisBusiness: the Podcast with Paul Raasch, Zilli Hospitality; Abbott acquiring Exact Sciences for $21 billion

November 21, 2025

— This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Paul Raasch, president of Zilli Hospitality in Waukesha.

The special events and catering business has been running corporate gatherings, weddings, fundraisers and galas for more than 50 years. Raasch discusses the company’s trajectory as well as broader trends in the industry, including workforce challenges.

“Things have changed a lot with the gig economy,” he said. “Many other retail establishments, or other industries, are paying ultra-competitive wages. So as our business is growing, that’s kind of been a challenge for us to find strong, competent staff to add to our workforce.”

Along with a growing trend toward sustainability in the hospitality industry, he points to rising demand for “unique and immersive” personalized events.

Raasch also discusses some of the ripple effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was massively disruptive to events hosting.

“We were in a complete shutdown mode; it was very scary, traumatic, and a lot of unknowns,” he said, adding “what we learned is that we have to obviously listen to our clients, be aware of our surroundings. We were always high on sanitation, but we had to take sanitation to a whole new level, and we’ve carried that through ever since.”

While the corporate side of the business dwindled for several years, there’s since been a comeback for weddings and other gatherings starting in 2023, driving Zilli Hospitality’s growth since then.

“People are saying, ‘Let’s entertain again, let’s get married, let’s have a lavish event’ … so we’ve seen kind of this resurgence of corporate entertaining, the weddings getting larger with guest counts and wanting to do different things and bring people back together,” Raasch said.

The company is planning a move into a new headquarters in Brookfield, bringing workers in from satellite offices to a larger space that includes a large warehouse and kitchen.

“Doubling or almost tripling of our current footprint is going to just allow us to become, you know, really efficient, it’s going to provide us a whole new way of catering, it’s going to increase our capacities to continue our growth pattern,” he said.

Listen to the podcast and see the full list of WisBusiness.com podcasts.

— Abbott’s $21 billion acquisition of Exact Sciences will bring the Madison-based diagnostics company’s cancer tests to millions more people, the businesses announced.

Under terms of the deal released yesterday by Exact Sciences, the company will keep its presence in Madison. Current CEO and Chairman Kevin Conroy will stay on in an “advisory role to support the transition” into being a subsidiary of Abbott, which has headquarters in Illinois.

In a statement on the acquisition, Conroy said “our journey has just begun.”

“Abbott’s culture of innovation and global commercial reach will help accelerate our mission of eradicating cancer and expanding access to our tests worldwide, while delivering immediate and substantial value to our shareholders,” he said.

Exact Sciences has a variety of cancer tests, including its Cologuard test for colorectal cancer, the Oncotype DX test for breast cancer patients, the Cancerguard early detection blood test, and the Oncodetect test for assessing cancer recurrence risk.

The acquisition has an estimated total equity value of about $21 billion and an estimated enterprise value of $23 billion, according to the announcement. It’s expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to shareholder approval and other conditions. The deal had unanimous approval from both companies’ boards of directors.

Exact Sciences is projected to generate more than $3 billion in revenue this year. Once the acquisition is finished, Abbott will have more than $12 billion in total diagnostics sales annually, the release notes.

See the release.

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— Vantage Data Centers, which is developing the $15 billion Port Washington data center project, has pledged $3 million to an environmental project in the area.

The Denver-based data center operations company yesterday announced the donation to the Valley Creek Corridor Revitalization Project in Port Washington, an effort of the local government and the Lakeshore Natural Resource Partnership.

The Valley Creek project is located south of the planned Lighthouse data center campus, for which partners announced details last month. The project is part of OpenAI and Oracle’s push to expand AI infrastructure, dubbed “Stargate.”

The campus, which will include four data centers, is scheduled to be completed in 2028. It’s expected to create more than 4,000 construction jobs and at least 1,000 long-term direct jobs.

Local officials this month reportedly approved a $458 million tax incremental finance district for the project, which has been the subject of local complaints about potential impacts on the environment such as water consumption.

Port Washington Mayor Ted Neitzke IV said he and the Common Council have been exploring the idea since January and have “determined that this project is a generational opportunity for Port Washington because of the economic, infrastructure and sustainability benefits it will deliver with no risk to the city or its taxpayers.”

Yesterday’s donation announcement references the company’s “dedication to pursuing water positivity” for the Lighthouse campus, meaning it would restore more freshwater than the company uses for the project.

Vantage Data Centers says the campus will use a “closed-loop” liquid cooling system to reduce water usage. Once online, the project is projected to use less than 22,000 gallons of water per day, equal to about 65 residential homes, according to the company. The developer also says it won’t contract for any new private infrastructure, or discharge or withdraw water directly from nearby Lake Michigan.

See the release.

— The village of Slinger is getting a $165,000 grant for a road project supporting Allegis Corporation moving part of its operations from Illinois to Wisconsin.

Gov. Tony Evers yesterday announced the Transportation Economic Assistance program grant will support the construction of a new road within the Merchant Village commercial park, which will be used by the manufacturer’s materials converting division. The company’s move will create 33 new jobs, according to the release.

The TEA program, under the state Department of Transportation, provides grants like these to develop transportation infrastructure with a broader goal of attracting and growing businesses in Wisconsin. The state has awarded 32 such grants since 2019 totalling more than $16 million.

See the release.

Madison’s Exact Sciences will be acquired by Abbott health care company

Tourism up, office workers down: 6 downtown Madison report takeaways

TOPICS

AGRIBUSINESS

– Wisconsin launches new wetland mitigation bank for farms

BIOTECH

– Exact Sciences to be bought by Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories

– Abbott Laboratories to buy Exact Sciences in $23B deal

CONSTRUCTION

– How much work do Panther Arena, High Life Theatre need? Study underway.

– Neenah evaluates proposal to construct $43 million, 236-unit downtown apartment complex