🗞 Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad is dead

Ingvar Kamprad made Ikea a giant in the furniture industry. Now the billionaire Swede died at the age of 91 years.

Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad is dead. The entrepreneur died on Saturday at the age of 91 after a short illness, his company said. Kamprad was born on March 30, 1926 in Smaland in southern Sweden. He fell asleep peacefully with his loved ones in his house, according to the Ikea website. "Ingvar will be greatly missed and remembered by his family and Ikea employees around the world," it said.

Kamprad embodied the perfect businessman with southern Swedish characteristics, Ikea praised the company founder. "He worked hard, was stubborn, warmhearted and mischievous." He had worked to the end and remained true to his motto that most of it still had to be done.

At the age of 17 - in 1943 - he founded the company that became world famous: Ikea. The acronym stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. E and A are reminiscent of the Elmtaryd farm near Agunnaryd, where Kamprad grew up.
At first there were pens, purses, picture frames, table runners, watches, jewelery and nylon tights on offer. Kamprad delivered them by bicycle. Furniture came in 1947, until the opening of the first furniture it took almost ten years. In 1951 the first catalogue appeared, delivered by milkmen.

Shortly after, Kamprad completely moved to the furniture business. In 1956, for the first time, a piece of furniture for self-construction was offered with the "Lövet" table - the legs were not connected to the table top. Allegedly, Kamprad had come up with the idea when he observed an employee how he unscrewed his legs from a table so that the furniture fit into the customer's car.
The concept of selling simple, stylish and comparatively cheap furniture in space-saving packages and offering it for self-assembly worked out. Ikea created furniture such as the Regal Billy or the swing armchair Poäng.

In order to save taxes, Kamprad converted the company into a foundation in the Netherlands in 1982. The Group is now split into many companies registered in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Sweden and the Netherlands. The furniture business made Kamprad one of the richest people in the world. The family's fortune is estimated at more than 40 billion euros.
Meanwhile, Ikea is the number one in the furniture trade worldwide, branches can be found in 40 countries. At the end of August, the company had 163,000 employees, the retail sales of the group amounted to 34.1 billion euros, just under five of them in Germany. The profit was 4.2 billion euros.

Kamprad had withdrawn from operational business in 1988, the company said. In an advisory capacity, he continued to work for Ikea. In 2013, he relinquished his post on the Ikea board, announcing that he would return to Sweden after four decades abroad.
Kamprad managed that personal problems and missteps were not associated with the Ikea brand. In 1994, the Swedish newspaper Expressen reported that in the 1940s and 1950s he had contacts with the Swedish fascist leader Per Engdahl and sympathized with his views. In a letter to Ikea employees, Kamprad acknowledged this and called it "a part of my life that I bitterly regret".

Source: dpa, AFP

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