LISTA (also known as LISTA Group, formally LISTA AG) is a Swiss-based manufacturer of furniture for workshops and warehouses. The company’s products include cabinets, shelving, work surfaces, and benches, as well as equipment for materials and parts handling.
History
The company originated in a workshop founded by Alfred Lienhard in 1945 in Herisau.[1] Early products included chairs and tables made of steel tube. An attempt to diversify into appliances by manufacturing refrigerators was not successful and resulted in Lienhard focusing on storage systems for workshops.[2]
By 1951, the company moved to a factory in Erlen in April of that year. Two years later, the name LISTA was first used; the factory briefly produced mopeds, finishing approximately six hundred over several months, but found it was unable to compete with foreign motorbike manufacturers and moped production was stopped.[2] The company was successively named Lienhard Stahlbau (1952), Lienhard AG (1967), and Lista Holding AG (1980).[1]
After 1960 the company expanded into an enterprise producing in Switzerland—including at Dozwil (1960–1995), Degersheim (from 1980), and Arnegg (from 1989)—as well as in the United States and Germany.[1]
In 1970, Alfred Lienhard suffered a heart attack and control of LISTA was transferred to his son, Fredy Lienhard. Fredy continued to expand international business, particularly in the United States, purchasing their partner Deluxe. Over the next few years, offices and warehouses were established in Holliston, Massachusetts, Dallas, Texas, and Long Beach, California. In 1972, Deluxe-LISTA became the LISTA International Corporation.[2] In 2012, Stanley Black & Decker completed the acquisition of Lista North America.[3]
The family business was among the largest employers in the canton of Thurgau, with 228 employees in 1958; 1,836 employees and a turnover of 360 million francs in 1989; and about 1,100 employees in 2004, of whom 700 were in Erlen, with a turnover of 245 million francs.[1]
In 2006 the founding family sold this operating- and storage-equipment business (LISTA Group) to the investment company Capvis[4] (later resold to GreatStar)[5] while the office-furniture business, Lista Office, remained in family ownership (275 employees in 2005; 85 million francs in revenue).[1]
References
This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC-BY SA. Text taken from Lista, Verena Rothenbühler, Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
- ^ a b c d e “Lista” in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
- ^ a b c “History :: LISTA”. LISTA AG. 2014. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
- ^ “Lista Announces Merger with Stanley Black and Decker” (Press release). Lista. Retrieved October 18, 2016.
- ^ “Capvis acquires majority stake in Lista B+L Holding – Capvis AG”. www.capvis.com. Retrieved 2026-06-14.
- ^ “Capvis sells LISTA Group to GreatStar – Capvis AG”. www.capvis.com. Retrieved 2026-06-14.
