About Us

As a truly African company employing more than 6,200 people in various business sectors, the Ohlthaver & List Group is rooted in, and committed to, Africa and all her people. The Group emerged from the early Ohlthaver & List Bank Kommission partnership between Hermann Ohlthaver and Carl List in 1919; subsequently Ohlthaver & List Finance and Trading Corporation Limited (Olfitra) was established in Namibia on the 13th of May 1923. The Group’s Headquarters is located in Windhoek, Namibia.

Today, O&L is Namibia’s largest privately held group of companies, with revenues contributing roughly 4% to GDP. It has business interests in food production, fishing, farming, retail trade, information technology, property leasing and development, renewable power generation, marine engineering, steel retailing, advertising and the leisure and hospitality industry.

The parent companies of Olfitra are O&L Holdings (Proprietary) Limited and List Trust Company (Proprietary) Limited, with the controlling shareholder of the O&L Group being the Werner List Trust.

With annual revenues of over N$5 billion, O&L is a major contributor to state coffers and is in the position of being a significant contributor to GDP in Namibia. Wherever it operates, this diverse group is actively engaged in uplifting the lives of its employees, its consumers, and society generally. We at O&L are relentless in our pursuit of a sustainable future for all and therefore passionately embrace our Purpose: ‘Creating a future, enhancing life’ in everything we do, while actively pursuing our Vision, which is: ‘To be a catalyst for positive change, creating new realities and fulfilling dreams’.

O&L Purpose

O&L’s Vision 2025 Breakthrough Strategy is our new aspiration to realize the dreams of O&L in pursuit of our Purpose, Creating a future, enhancing life. It brings to life to the Vision of what we want to create for O&L and beyond, by 2025, and it describes our journey as we again prove that nothing is impossible.

Our Vision for these next six years is a powerful complement to our Purpose: We are a catalyst for positive change, we deliver new realities, we fulfill dreams.