Landis+Gyr

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]

• 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.

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.

• Europe, Middle East & Africa: British Gas; Iberdrola; Électricité Réseau Distribution France (ERDF); E.ON; Järvi-Suomen Energia Oy; Vattenfall; Eskom; RWE.
• Asia Pacific: Energex; Ergon Energy; Ausgrid; Essential Energy; Western Power; ESTA; Genesis Energy Limited; Meralco; China Light & Power; Singapore Power.
• North America: Oncor Energy; Pacific Gas and Electric; Hydro-Québec; AEP Texas.
• South America: Copel; AES Eletropaulo; Ampla – Enel/ENDESA Group; Light; CEMIG; National Electricity Administration, Paraguay (ANDE); Cooperativa Regional de Electricidad, Bolivia (CRE); EDESUR - Enel/ENDESA Group (Argentina); CODENSA – Enel/ENDESA Group (Colombia).

• 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]