Landis+Gyr AG
TypePublicly traded limited company
SIX: LAND
IndustryElectronics
Founded1896 (1896) in Zug, Switzerland
FounderRichard Theiler
Adelrich Gyr
Headquarters
Cham (ZG)
,
Switzerland
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Andreas Umbach (Chairman)
Werner Lieberherr (CEO)
Products
RevenueUS $1.4 Billion
Number of employees
5,000
Websitewww.landisgyr.com

Landis+Gyr is a publicly listed, multinational corporation operating in over 30 countries and headquartered in Cham, Switzerland. Landis+Gyr makes meters and related software for electricity and gas utilities.

History

Landis+Gyr was founded in 1896 as Theiler & Co. in Zug, in the canton of Zug, Switzerland, by technician Richard Theiler and entrepreneur Adelrich Gyr.[1] It began by manufacturing electricity meters that were developed by Theiler.[1] Heinrich Landis joined the business in 1903,[2] acquired it in 1904 and introduced Karl Heinrich Gyr as a partner in 1905, renaming it Landis & Gyr.[1] The company benefited from the rise of the electronics industry and expanded abroad over the following years.[1] By 1914, when it was made a joint-stock company, it was the largest employer in the canton of Zug, with over 800 employees.[1]

In the 1920s, Landis & Gyr opened offices in New York City and Australia and took over competitors to form a global technology group.[1][3] From the 1930s, the company diversified with telemetry and remote control products.[1] After leadership struggles in the 1950s, a new management reorganized the financing and accounting and converted Landis & Gyr into a holding company.[1] The range was expanded to include service machines, air conditioning and ventilation products.[1] Landis & Gyr increased its personnel, with 14,000 employees around 1970 (5,200 of them in Zug).[1]

From the mid-1970s and especially after 1984, the group was frequently restructured.[1] In 1987, Landis & Gyr was acquired by Stephan Schmidheiny, who sold it to Elektrowatt in 1995.[1] It is today a part of Siemens Building Technologies. The company was also known for producing optical phone cards until 2006. Landis+Gyr phone cards were used in many countries such as Israel, Belgium, Switzerland and more.[3]

Ownership and acquisitions

  • 1976 – Landis+Gyr acquired Duncan Electric Company of Lafayette, Indiana.
  • 1987 – Landis+Gyr acquired MCC Powers of Chicago. MCC Powers had by then been a long established entity in the US building management market. Spurred by the liberalization and deregulation of global markets, Landis+Gyr re-oriented its business, adding electronic products.
  • Late 1990s – In the late 1990s, Landis+Gyr went through a series of different investors and owners, amongst them Elektrowatt, KKR and Siemens.
  • 2004 – Landis+Gyr was acquired by then Australia-based Bayard Capital for an undisclosed amount. Bayard Capital had already acquired the British metering company Ampy Automation-Digilog. As Bayard Capital continued to add other acquisitions to the group, 2008 saw the Landis+Gyr name being extended to the whole group in May 2008. An organizational realignment took place under Bayard Capital's ownership. The company moved to a regional structure, assigning regional corporate structures for North America; South America; UK/Pre-Payment; Europe; and Asia Pacific.
  • 2006 – Landis+Gyr acquired Finnish Enermet Group, and also Hunt Technologies and Cellnet Technologies, both of which are from the United States.
  • 2011 – Landis+Gyr was acquired by Toshiba Corporation of Japan for US$2.3 billion.
  • 2017 – On July 21, 2017, Landis+Gyr listed its shares (ticker symbol: LAND) on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

Utilities

Various utilities have worked with Landis+Gyr in meeting their consumers' demand for energy management tools by rolling out smart meters. Below are some of the utilities that have worked with Landis+Gyr in deploying smart metering technology to energy consumers.

Criticism

  • In 2016, Phil Mocek of MuckRock started investigating a project in which Landis+Gyr was involved.[4] After Mocek received the requested information, Landis+Gyr followed up by filing a lawsuit demanding the documentation not be made public.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Renato Morosoli: Landis & Gyr in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 7 December 2019.
  2. ↑ Renato Morosoli: Heinrich Landis in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 11 November 2008.
  3. 1 2 "History Siemens Building Technologies". Buildingtechnologies.siemens.com. 1998-10-01. Retrieved 2012-12-17.
  4. ↑ "Public Records Request: Smart meter security audit plans schedules proposals contracts discussion results (Seattle)". 12 April 2016. Retrieved 2016-05-26.
  5. ↑ "A multinational demands to know who reads MuckRock". 25 May 2016. Retrieved 2016-05-26.
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