For years, the goldmine for Israeli cleantech companies has been the American economy. And as Israel deploys innovative technologies across the Atlantic, it is increasingly breaking ground and gaining profits ahead of American companies.
Just last week, shares of the Reno, Nevada-based unit of Israeli geothermal company, Ormat Technologies (NYSE: ORA), rose more than 2.7 percent to $18.78 in the US stock exchange yesterday, the most since Feb. 24, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. The rise came from a new $61.2 million engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract the company signed on April 25–for two air-cooled Ormat Energy Converters that will be installed at an unspecified North American geothermal plant–that has traders expecting company earnings per share to jump by 30 cents over 2012 and 2013, according to Avondale Partners LLC, interviewed in the article.
Ormat Technologies, is a US subsidiary of Israel-based Ormat Industries (ORMT)–which owns 60 percent of ORA–and was originally founded in the sleepy Israeli city of Yavne, located south of Tel Aviv, in 1972. For over fourty years, the company has been developing geothermal resources, by tapping the natural resources and also building recovered energy-based power plants nearby. It has also branched out to other cleantech fields, such as rooftop solar power, salt wells developments, waste heat recovery systems, and even spent oil-to-energy systems.
Since then, the company has become internationally renowned, with 80 patents and 1,370 MW of geothermal and recovered energy power plants in 71 countries worldwide. At the end of the three-month financial period ending on December 31, 2011, Ormat reported a 33 percent increased in revenue for a total of $124 million for the period.
Ormat will be reporting its 2012 first-quarter earnings on May 8, with Bloomber estimating that sals will have increased 14 percent to $112 million. The company stock has already increased 4.2 percent this year, sending valuations to 36 times estimated earnings.
But even as international expansion is winning Ormat international private sector partnerships and U.S. government financing, the company is also racking up profit back home in Israel. Ormat Industries rose 0.7 percent to 18.52 shekels in the Tel Aviv stock exchange on April 24, Bloomberg reported.
