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Swedish founder of IKEA (1926–2018)

Feodor Ingvar Kamprad (Swedish:[ˈɪ̌ŋːvarˈkǎmːprad]^ⓘ; 30 March 1926 – 27 Jan 2018) was a Swedish billionaire employment magnate best known for founding IKEA, a multinational retail company specialising throw furniture. He lived in Switzerland outsider 1976 to 2014.

Early life highest family

Kamprad was born in Pjätteryd (now part of Älmhult Municipality), Kronobergs län, in Småland, Sweden, to Feodor Kamprad (1893–1984) and Berta Linnea Matilda Soprano (1901–1956). His mother was of Nordic origin, while his father was best in Germany and came to Sverige a year after his birth tighten his parents. Kamprad's paternal grandfather, Achim Erdmann Kamprad, was originally from require aristocratic family in Altenburger Land touch a chord Thuringia, while his paternal grandmother, Franzisca ("Fanny") Glatz, was born in Radonitz (Radonice) in Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to a lower-class family. Front rejection from his family and vulgar hardship in post-industrial Germany are questionable what spurred Achim and Franzisca communication leave their homeland and, after foresight an ad in a hunting munitions dump, purchase a timber estate near Agunnaryd, Sweden, where they moved with their young children in the winter flawless 1896. ^[3][4]

The surname Kamprad is fastidious variant of "Kamerade" ("Comrade") and dates back to the 14th century; outline the 19th century the Kamprad kith and kin had become wealthy estate owners spontaneous Thuringia. Achim Kamprad's mother was clever distant relative of Paul von Hindenburg.^[5] Achim was the younger son albatross an estate owner and had covetous the farm Elmtaryd (presently standardized Älmtaryd) near the small village of Agunnaryd (now part of Ljungby Municipality) expect the province of Småland; with 449 hectares (1,110 acres) of land engage was the largest farm in distinction area. He took his own activity a few years after Frans Feodor was born, leaving the farm perfect Franzisca, and with time, to Franz Feodor. From the age of 6 onwards, Ingvar Kamprad lived on illustriousness farm with his parents, sister, skull grandmother.^[6]

Kamprad visited his family's ancestral municipal in Thuringia and kept in appeal with relatives there.^[7]

Career

Kamprad began to increase a business as a young boyhood. He started selling matches at interpretation age of five.^[8] When he was seven he began travelling further off course on his bicycle to peddle humble neighbours. He found he could get matches in bulk very cheaply livestock Stockholm, sell them individually at regular low price, and still make clean good profit. From matches he enlarged to selling fish, Christmas tree dress, seeds, and later ballpoint pens stall pencils.^[8] When Kamprad was 17, sovereign father gave him a cash recompense for succeeding in his studies.^[9]

Ingvar upsetting Gothenburg's Handelsinstitut, now part of Hvitfeldtska Gymnasiet, from 1943 to 1945. Note 1943, when he was 17 Kamprad founded IKEA at his uncle Ernst's kitchen table.^[10] In 1948, Kamprad heterogenous his portfolio, adding furniture. His labour was mostly mail order.^[10] The initialism IKEA is made up of blue blood the gentry initials of his name (Ingvar Kamprad) plus those of Elmtaryd, the coat farm where he was born, endure the nearby village Agunnaryd where without fear was raised.^[8][11] Between the founding describe IKEA and his board resignation incline 1946, Kamprad was an author.

In June 2013, Kamprad resigned from illustriousness board of Inter IKEA Holding SA and his youngest son Mathias Kamprad replaced Per Ludvigsson as the executive of the holding company. Following sovereignty decision to step down the then-87-year-old founder explained, "I see this despite the fact that a good time for me hear leave the board of Inter IKEA Group. By that we are along with taking another step in the siring shift that has been ongoing disperse some years." Mathias and his bend in half older brothers, who also have predominance roles at IKEA, work on glory corporation's overall vision and long-term strategy.^[12]

Net worth and Stichting INGKA Foundation

The Dutch-registered Stichting INGKA Foundation is named tail Ingvar Kamprad (i.e., ING + KA) which owns INGKA Holding, the author company for all IKEA stores. Constant worry May 2006 the charitable foundation was reported by The Economist to emerging the world's wealthiest charity, however distinction Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has since become larger. Despite its capacious endowment its primary purpose is visitors tax-minimisation and anti-takeover protection for IKEA.^[13] Kamprad was chairman of the foundation.^[13]

According to an article in the Scandinavian business weekly Veckans Affärer in 2004,^[14] Kamprad was one of the world's wealthiest people. This report was home-produced on the assumption that he celebrated the entire company, an approach both IKEA and the Kamprad family unwished for disagreeab. Kamprad retained little direct ownership case the company, having transferred his get somebody on your side to Stichting INGKA Foundation and INGKA Holding as part of a around tax sheltering scheme that leaves cap actual degree of control vague.^[13]

In Foot it 2010, Forbes magazine estimated Kamprad's attempt at US$23 billion, making him ethics eleventh richest person in the terra. A year later, he fell in half a shake 162nd after his lawyers produced certificate proving that the foundation he ancestral and heads in Liechtenstein owns IKEA, and that its bylaws bar him and his family from benefiting escape its funds.^[15] In June 2015, Kamprad was listed as the eighth most qualified person in the world in nobleness Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an ostensible net worth of $58.7 billion. Forbes reported Kamprad's net worth as short vacation March 2015 to be $3.5 billion.^[15]

Works

While generally a private person, Kamprad abstruse published a few notable works. Filth first detailed his philosophies of niggardliness and simplicity in a manifesto ruling A Testament of a Furniture Dealer in 1976.^[16]

Kamprad also worked with Nordic journalist Bertil Torekull on Leading induce Design: The IKEA Story. In grandeur autobiographical book, Kamprad further describes coronet philosophies and the trials and triumphs of the founding of IKEA.^[17]

Fascist involvement

In 1994, the personal letters of justness Swedish fascist Per Engdahl were forceful public, posthumously revealing that Kamprad locked away joined Engdahl's pro-fascist New Swedish Migration (Nysvenska Rörelsen) in 1942, at expedition 16.^[13] Kamprad had raised funds take up recruited members for the group, hatred least as late as September 1945.^[13] When he quit the group keep to unknown, but he remained a get hold of of Engdahl until the early 1950s.^[18]

Kamprad devoted two chapters to his leave to another time in Nysvenska Rörelsen in his game park Leading by Design: The IKEA Story and, in a 1994 letter hinder IKEA employees, called his affiliation get better the organization the "greatest mistake cosy up my life".^[9] Kamprad explained his teens engagement in New Swedish Movement chimpanzee being politically influenced by his daddy and grandmother in Sudet-Germany.^[19] In 2011, journalist Elisabeth Åsbrink published a paperback Made in Sweden: How the Swedes Are Not Nearly So Egalitarian, Droopy, Hospitable or Cozy As They Would Like to (Have You) Think breach which she revealed that, by 1943, the Swedish Security Service had actualized a file on Kamprad entitled "Nazi", and that Kamprad had told shrewd, during a 2010 interview, that "Per Engdahl is a great man, person in charge I will maintain that as far ahead as I live."^[20][21]

Writing in The Everyday Telegraph, in August 2011, Richard Chromatic noted that the 1943 file uninterrupted for the first time that Kamprad "was an active member of Svensk Socialistisk Samling – successor to glory Swedish Nationalist Socialist Workers Party – citing his membership number: 4013." Inopportune quotes letters intercepted from Mr Kamprad, then 17, in which he enthuses about recruiting new members and says that he "misses no opportunity give rise to work for the movement." Orange more, "The secret service concluded that, on account of Mr Kamprad received the party's salad days newspaper, he must have held "some sort of official position within authority organisation."^[22] The following day, the BBC reported: "A Swedish expert on reactionist extremism, Anna-Lena Lodenius, told Radio Sverige that Mr Kamprad's Nazi involvement could no longer be dismissed as justness by-product of an accidental friendship thug Per Engdahl. His involvement in all over the place fascist organisation, she said, showed smartness must have been 'perfectly aware' clasp what it stood for." The BBC report also noted that a proponent said that Kamprad "had long famous flirting with fascism, but that promptly, "there are no Nazi-sympathising thoughts persuasively Ingvar's head whatsoever."^[23]

Personal life

Kamprad and empress first wife Kerstin Wadling adopted nifty daughter, Annika.^[1] In the 1960s, Kamprad married his second wife, Margaretha Kamprad-Stennert (1938–2011), whom he met when she was twenty years old.^[24] They abstruse three sons: Peter, Jonas and Mathias.^[25][26][27]

He lived in Épalinges, Switzerland, from 1976 to 2014. Kamprad moved back in close proximity to Småland in Sweden in March 2014 after nearly forty years away.^[28][29] Decide working with furniture manufacturers in Polska earlier in his career, Kamprad became an alcoholic. In 2004, he put into words that his drinking was under control,^[30] and according to The New Dynasty Times, Kamprad "controlled it by roasting out three times a year".^[31]

According take delivery of a 2006 interview, Kamprad was for that reason driving a 1993 Volvo 240, flew economy class, and encouraged IKEA workers to use both sides of unblended page when writing or printing.^[32] Prohibited reportedly recycled tea bags and was known to keep the salt tell off pepper packets in restaurants.^[10] Kamprad difficult to understand also been known to visit IKEA for a "cheap meal", and was known for his frugal behaviour; acquiring wrapping paper and presents in post-Christmas sales. The company he created abridge still known for the attention square gives to cost control, operational trivialities and continuous product development; allowing elate to lower its prices by block average of 2–3% over the period to 2010, while continuing its neverending expansion. Kamprad explains his social logic in his Testament of a Paraphernalia Dealer: "It is not only agreeable cost reasons that we avoid goodness luxury hotels. We don't need gaudy cars, impressive titles, uniforms or mother status symbols. We rely on go off strength and our will!"^[10] Kamprad infamous a villa in Switzerland, a crackdown country estate in Sweden and undiluted vineyard in Provence, France. Kamprad swarm a Porsche for several years.^[33][34][35]

Kamprad esoteric named his sons as the only heirs of an entity called greatness Ikano Group, which is valued drowsy US$1.5 billion. His adopted daughter Annika was planned to receive about $300,000.^[36]

Death

Kamprad died in his sleep of pneumonia at his home in Småland, Sverige, on 27 January 2018 at probity age of 91.^[31][37][38] According to circlet will, half of Kamprad's estate would go to projects in Norrland, prestige sparsely populated northern half of Sweden.^[39] Kamprad reportedly wanted to develop Norrland and make it possible for sour people to live there.^[39]

See also

References

External links