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Ingvar Kamprad

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Ingvar Kamprad
Kamprad holding a microphone
Kamprad in 2010
Born(1926-03-30)30 March 1926
Pjätteryd, Sweden
Died27 January 2018(2018-01-27) (aged 91)
Älmhult, Sweden
OccupationBusinessman
Known forFounder of IKEA
Spouses
  • Kerstin Wadling
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1950; div. 1960)​
  • Margaretha Stennert
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1963; died 2011)​
    [1]
Children4[2]
Signature

Feodor Ingvar Kamprad (Swedish: [ˈɪ̌ŋːvar ˈkǎmːprad] ⓘ; 30 March 1926 – 27 January 2018) was a Swedish billionaire business magnate best known for founding IKEA, which he founded in 1943 and grew into a multinational retail company that became the world's largest furniture seller in 2008. He moved to Switzerland with his Swiss wife in 1976, moving back to Småland in 2014 after her death in 2011.

Early life and family

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Kamprad was born in Pjätteryd (now part of Älmhult Municipality), Kronobergs län, in Småland, Sweden, to Feodor Kamprad (1893–1984) and Berta Linnea Matilda Nilsson (1901–1956). His mother was of Swedish origin, while his father was born in Germany and came to Sweden a year after his birth with his parents. Kamprad's paternal grandfather, Achim Erdmann Kamprad, was originally from an aristocratic family in Altenburger Land in 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. Facing rejection from his family and economic hardship in post-industrial Germany are likely what spurred Achim and Franzisca to leave their homeland and, after seeing an ad in a hunting magazine, purchase a timber estate near Agunnaryd, Sweden, where they moved with their young children in the winter of 1896. [3] [4]

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

Kamprad visited his family's ancestral town in Thuringia and kept in contact with relatives there.[7]

Career

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Kamprad began to develop a business as a young boy. He started selling matches at the age of five.[8] When he was seven he began travelling further afield on his bicycle to peddle to neighbours. He found he could buy matches in bulk very cheaply in Stockholm, sell them individually at a low price, and still make a good profit. From matches he expanded to selling fish, Christmas tree decorations, seeds, and later ballpoint pens and pencils.[8] When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a cash reward for succeeding in his studies.[9]

Ingvar attended Gothenburg's Handelsinstitut, now part of Hvitfeldtska Gymnasiet, from 1943 to 1945. In 1943, when he was 17 Kamprad founded IKEA at his uncle Ernst's kitchen table.[10] In 1948, Kamprad diversified his portfolio, adding furniture. His business was mostly mail order.[10] The acronym IKEA is made up of the initials of his name (Ingvar Kamprad) plus those of Elmtaryd, the family farm where he was born, and the nearby village Agunnaryd where he was raised.[8][11] Between the founding of IKEA and his board resignation in 1946, Kamprad was an author.

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

Net worth and Stichting INGKA Foundation

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The Dutch-registered Stichting INGKA Foundation is named after Ingvar Kamprad (i.e., ING + KA) which owns INGKA Holding, the parent company for all IKEA stores. Kamprad was chairman of the foundation.[13]

According to an article in the Swedish business weekly Veckans Affärer in 2004, Kamprad was one of the world's wealthiest people.[14] However, the report was based on the assumption that he owned the entire company, an approach both IKEA and the Kamprad family rejected since Kamprad retained little direct ownership in the company, having transferred his interest to the foundation.[13]

In March 2010, Forbes magazine estimated Kamprad's fortune at US$23 billion, making him the eleventh richest person in the world. A year later, he fell to 162nd after his lawyers produced documents proving that the foundation he established and heads in Liechtenstein owns IKEA, and that its bylaws bar him and his family from benefiting from its funds.[15] In June 2015, Kamprad was listed as the eighth wealthiest person in the world in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated net worth of $58.7 billion. Forbes reported Kamprad's net worth as of March 2015 to be $3.5 billion.[15]

Works

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While generally a private person, Kamprad published a few notable works. He first detailed his philosophies of frugality and simplicity in a manifesto entitled A Testament of a Furniture Dealer in 1976.[16]

Kamprad also worked with Swedish journalist Bertil Torekull on Leading by Design: The IKEA Story. In the autobiographical book, Kamprad further describes his philosophies and the trials and triumphs of the founding of IKEA.[17]

Fascist involvement

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In 1994, the personal letters of the Swedish fascist Per Engdahl were made public, posthumously revealing that Kamprad had joined Engdahl's pro-fascist New Swedish Movement (Nysvenska Rörelsen) in 1942, at age 16.[13][18] Kamprad had been active till as late as September 1945.[13] When he quit the group is unknown, but he remained a friend of Engdahl until the early 1950s.[19]

Kamprad devoted two chapters to his time in Nysvenska Rörelsen in his book Leading by Design: The IKEA Story and, in a 1994 letter to IKEA employees, called his affiliation with the organization the "greatest mistake of my life".[9] Kamprad explained his teenage engagement in New Swedish Movement as being politically influenced by his father and grandmother in Sudet-Germany.[20]

Personal life

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Kamprad and his first wife Kerstin Wadling adopted a daughter, Annika in 1958.[1] Wadling and Kamprad divorced in 1961 with Annika living with her mother.[21]

In the 1960s, Kamprad married his second wife, Margaretha Kamprad-Stennert (1938–2011), whom he met when she was twenty years old.[22] They had three sons: Peter, Jonas and Mathias.[23][24][25]

He lived in Épalinges, Switzerland, from 1976 to 2014. Kamprad moved back to Småland in Sweden in March 2014 after nearly forty years away.[26][27] While working with furniture manufacturers in Poland earlier in his career, Kamprad became an alcoholic. In 2004, he said that his drinking was under control,[28] and according to The New York Times, Kamprad "controlled it by drying out three times a year".[29]

According to a 2006 interview, Kamprad was then driving a 1993 Volvo 240, flew economy class, and encouraged IKEA employees to use both sides of a page when writing or printing.[30] He reportedly recycled tea bags and was known to keep the salt and pepper packets in restaurants.[10] Kamprad had also been known to visit IKEA for a "cheap meal", and was known for his frugal behaviour; purchasing wrapping paper and presents in post-Christmas sales. The company he created is still known for the attention it gives to cost control, operational details and continuous product development; allowing it to lower its prices by an average of 2–3% over the decade to 2010, while continuing its global expansion. Kamprad explains his social philosophy in his Testament of a Furniture Dealer: "It is not only for cost reasons that we avoid the luxury hotels. We don't need flashy cars, impressive titles, uniforms or other status symbols. We rely on our strength and our will!"[10] Kamprad owned a villa in Switzerland, a large country estate in Sweden and a vineyard in Provence, France. Kamprad drove a Porsche for several years.[31][32][33]

Death

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Kamprad died in his sleep of pneumonia at his home in Småland, Sweden, on 27 January 2018 at the age of 91.[29][34][35]

According to his will, half of Kamprad's estate would go to projects in Norrland, the sparsely populated northern half of Sweden.[36] Kamprad reportedly wanted to develop Norrland and make it possible for young people to live there.[36]

The other half of his estate went to his four children.[37] In 2015, it was reported that Kamprad had named his sons as the sole heirs of an entity called the Ikano Group, which is valued at US$1.5 billion while his adopted daughter, Annika, who lived with him for three years as an infant was planned to receive about $300,000.[21]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA", sweden.se; accessed 28 January 2018.
  2. ^ "Forbes profile: Ingvar Kamprad & family". Forbes.
  3. ^ [1], newyorker.com; accessed 19 December 2024
  4. ^ [2], ikeamuseum.com; accessed 19 December 2024
  5. ^ Thomas Sjöberg Ingvar Kamprad och hans IKEA: En svensk saga Chapter 3
  6. ^ Thomas Sjöberg Ingvar Kamprad och hans IKEA: En svensk saga Chapter 3,4 and 5
  7. ^ Schöne Grüße von Ingvar, zeit.de; accessed 28 January 2018.(in German)
  8. ^ a b c Politi, Daniel. "The Swedish Entrepreneur Who Founded Ikea, Ingvar Kamprad, Dies at 91". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  9. ^ a b Ingvar Kamprad: IKEA Founder and One of the World's Richest People Archived 3 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine About.com Entrepreneurs
  10. ^ a b c d Collins, Lauren (3 October 2011). "House Perfect". The New Yorker. Retrieved 10 October 2011.
  11. ^ Jonas Fredén (24 September 2015)Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA Sweden.se
  12. ^ Gina Chon (5 June 2013). "IKEA's new chairman likes PAX wardrobes, and that's about all we know". Quartz. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
  13. ^ a b c d "IKEA: Flat-pack accounting". The Economist. 11 May 2006. Archived from the original on 2 August 2018. Retrieved 14 August 2021.
  14. ^ "Who's really the world's richest?" CNNMoney.com, 6 April 2004
  15. ^ a b "Ingvar Kamprad". Forbes. Retrieved 17 April 2022.
  16. ^ The gospel according to Ikea The Guardian, 26 June 2000
  17. ^ Kamprad, Ingvar and Torekull, Bertil Leading By Design: The IKEA Story Harper Collins, Sept.1, 1999. ISBN 978-0-06-662038-1
  18. ^ "The Communist Designer, the Fascist Furniture Dealer, and the Politics of Design". The Nation. 20 February 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
  19. ^ Nilsson, Karl N. Alvar Svensk överklass och högerextremism under 1900-talet ISBN 91-86474-34-0 pp. 155–156.
  20. ^ Kamprad I, Torekull, B: "Historien om IKEA: Ingvar Kamprad berättar för Bertil Torekull", Wahlström & Widstrand, Stockholm 1998, ISBN 91-46-17065-0.
  21. ^ a b "Swedish News: Ikea Kamprad's Daughter Snubbed". Norstjernan. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
  22. ^ "Ikea founder mourns death of his wife". The Local. December 2011.
  23. ^ "Ingvar Kamprad i stor sorg". Aftonbladet.
  24. ^ "Ikea founder mourns death of his wife". The Local. 13 December 2011.
  25. ^ "OBITUARY Ingvar Kamprad". thetimes.co.uk. 29 January 2018. Archived from the original on 23 October 2022. Retrieved 23 October 2022.
  26. ^ Mats Bax et al.:Ingvar Kamprad flyttar hem till Sverige igen (in Swedish) Expressen, retrieved 27 June 2013
  27. ^ "Ikea founder moves back to Sweden after 40 years", thelocal.se, 20 March 2014
  28. ^ "It started in a shed" The Age, 15 July 2004
  29. ^ a b Robert D. McFadden (28 January 2018). "Ingvar Kamprad, Founder of Ikea and Creator of a Global Empire, Dies at 91". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 January 2018.
  30. ^ "Cheap is good, says furniture magnate". Neue Zürcher Zeitung. 27 March 2006. Archived from the original on 21 August 2006.
  31. ^ Ikea-Kamprads lyxvillor, Expressen, 22 August 2004
  32. ^ Folkhemsmöbleraren 80 år Archived 11 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Dagens Industri, 29 March 2006
  33. ^ Lyxhusen som Kamprad vill tala tyst om, Dagens Nyheter, 19 August 2004
  34. ^ "Ingvar Kamprad har i stillhet somnat in i sitt hem i Småland. Han föddes 1926 i Småland och redan som 17-åring grundade han IKEA. Ingvar kommer att vara mycket saknad och varmt ihågkommen av sin familj och av IKEA-medarbetare över hela världen.pic.twitter.com/RWTGtukeyI". @IKEASverige (in Swedish). 28 January 2018. Retrieved 28 January 2018.
  35. ^ "Ingvar Kamprad avled på lördagen efter en kort tids sjukdom, bekräftar Ikea för DN." Dagens Nyheter, 28 January 2018.
  36. ^ a b Ellika Nilsson (13 March 2018). "Norrland får del av Ingvar Kamprads arv" – via www.svt.se.
  37. ^ "Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad's will revealed". Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish). 13 March 2018. ISSN 1101-2447. Retrieved 8 February 2025.
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