Ashot Ashkelon Industries Ltd.

Ashot Ashkelon started in 1951 as Kaiser-Ilin Industries, an assembly plant for Kaiser-Frazer cars and Mack trucks, and it kept the metalworking after the vehicle line closed. Israel Military Industries bought it in 1967 and renamed it, and it has been listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since 1992. Elbit Systems inherited control when it acquired IMI in 2018, then sold its 85 percent holding to the private equity firm FIMI Opportunity Funds in June 2022 for about 84 million dollars, leaving roughly 15 percent as free float. The company works to print and to spec on other people's platforms, which is why its name rarely appears on the finished product even when its parts carry the load.

The aerospace division covers six product areas. Engine shafts and rotating parts include high and low pressure turbine shafts and gearbox driveshafts for unmanned aircraft, business and regional jets, military transports and narrow body airliners. Gearboxes, transmissions and gear based products span parallel shaft, planetary and special reduction drives, with spur, bevel, helical and internal gear cutting done in house. High lift system components take in universal joints of several types, kink, T and bevel gearboxes, lever bearing arms and rotary actuation shafts, a line that traces back to a long term Boeing contract signed in 1990 for rudder mechanism transmissions on the 747 and 757. Electro and mechanical assemblies are delivered as turnkey units straight onto OEM assembly lines. Landing gear components cover actuation parts for turboprops and business jets. Tungsten products are balance weights fitted in wings, rudders, elevators, helicopter rotors and propellers, classed as flight safety items.

The land division is smaller in headcount and heavier in metal. Ashot produces and tests a 1,500 horsepower automated transmission with its own steering transmission, retarder, mechanical brake and hydraulic subsystems, and it runs a centre of excellence for final drives with back-to-back spin test rigs on site. Suspension work covers rotary and linear units, shock absorbers, road arms, springs, tension mechanisms and road wheels, and upgrades are a business in their own right, with a tested package that rebuilds transmissions around 900 to 1,000 horsepower engines to extend service life and improve maintainability. The company won the drivetrain and hydro-mechanical suspension work for the Merkava Mk 4 tank and the Namer armoured personnel carrier in 2007. Capabilities stay under one roof: machining, gear cutting and finishing, deep hole drilling and boring, heat treatment, chemical processes, non destructive testing, shot peening, sintering, assembly and testing, backed by chemical, mechanical and metallurgical laboratories and an in-house research and development group. Reliance Gear Corporation in Illinois, a precision gearing maker founded in 1965 and acquired in 2011, is the American arm.