The story
Founded by Yehudit Bronicki in 1994, in United States.1
Ormat was established in 1965 as Ormat Turbines Ltd. (later renamed Ormat Industries), in Yavne, Israel, by engineer Lucien Bronicki, the company's chairman and CTO until 2014, and his wife Yehudit "Dita" Bronicki, who was CEO until 2014.
In the late 1950s Lucien Bronicki worked in a government physics laboratory, where he developed a turbine to produce electricity from a range of energy sources, including solar; the process is known as the organic Rankine cycle, which he co-developed with Harry Zvi Tabor. He retired from the lab to commercialize his ideas. In its early years the company focused exclusively on manufacturing power generation equipment.
The 1970s energy crisis increased interest in efficient generation technology. The firm obtained financial assistance from the Israeli government and raised capital from private investors to build one of the world's first solar-driven power stations. However the power station was not economically viable and was abandoned in 1988.
During the 1980s, the firm developed generation systems utilizing recovered energy, i.e. heat emitted during industrial processes. It also applied its technology to generate electricity from geothermal sources.
In 1986, the firm designed and supplied geothermal power systems to the Kawerau Power Station in New Zealand. Since then, it has built 13 geothermal power plants in that country. In 1989, the firm supplied geothermal equipment for the regional heating system at Sudurnes Iceland, utilizing the abundant local geothermal resources to provide heating for 20,000 people.
In the 1990s the firm decided not only to provide power generation equipment, but also to own and operate alternative and renewable energy power stations.
In 1991, the firm, then known as Ormat Industries, became listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In 1992, Ormat acquired a controlling stake in Bet Shemesh Engines, a manufacturer of parts for jet engines, that also overhauls, maintains and assembles jet engines. In 2005, Ormat sold its shares in the company.
In 2004, Ormat Technologies completed an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange raising $100 million. Ormat Technologies was founded in 1994 as a US subsidiary of Ormat Industries. Following the initial public offering, Ormat Industries was restructured as a holding company that was still listed in the exchange, while shifting all its operations to the subsidiary Ormat Technologies.
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In 2006, the firm received, for the first time, an order to supply equipment for the geothermal power plant in Landau, Germany.
In June 2014, Dita Bronicki resigned from her position as CEO and was appointed to the board of directors of Ormat Technologies. Dita Bronicki was elected as chairman of Ormat. The company selected Isaac Angel as CEO. Angel joined the company in April for an overlapping procedure and began as CEO in July 2014.
In November 2015, Dita and Yoram Bronicki resigned from the company's board of directors, and Gilon Beck was appointed chairman of the board.
As of May 2016, the FIMI fund and Bronicki Investment Fund were the company's largest shareholders, holding 14.83% and 7.23% of the company's shares, respectively. The rest of the company's shares are held by institutional bodies and by the public. In May 2017, the Japanese company Orix acquired the FIMI and Bronicki Investment Fund's share in Ormat for $627 million.
In July 2020, Doron Blachar, the company's former CFO since 2013, was appointed as the company's CEO, while Isaac Angel was appointed chairman of the board.
From Wikipedia’s article on Ormat Technologies, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6