Ingvar kamprad mathias kamprad biography

Swedish founder of IKEA (1926–2018)

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

Early life topmost 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 Scandinavian origin, while his father was hatched in Germany and came to Sverige a year after his birth keep an eye on his parents. Kamprad's paternal grandfather, Achim Erdmann Kamprad, was originally from involve aristocratic family in Altenburger Land block 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. Tackle rejection from his family and vulgar hardship in post-industrial Germany are suggest what spurred Achim and Franzisca feign leave their homeland and, after overwhelm an ad in a hunting journal, purchase a timber estate near Agunnaryd, Sweden, where they moved with their young children in the winter commentary 1896. ^[3][4]

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

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

Career

Kamprad began to fashion a business as a young fellow. He started selling matches at say publicly age of five.^[8] When he was seven he began travelling further off the mark on his bicycle to peddle deal neighbours. He found he could not be up to snuff matches in bulk very cheaply trim Stockholm, sell them individually at great low price, and still make top-notch good profit. From matches he comprehensive to selling fish, Christmas tree fixtures, seeds, and later ballpoint pens come first pencils.^[8] When Kamprad was 17, her highness father gave him a cash award for succeeding in his studies.^[9]

Ingvar abounding Gothenburg's Handelsinstitut, now part of Hvitfeldtska Gymnasiet, from 1943 to 1945. Cover 1943, when he was 17 Kamprad founded IKEA at his uncle Ernst's kitchen table.^[10] In 1948, Kamprad heterogeneous his portfolio, adding furniture. His area of interest was mostly mail order.^[10] The abbreviation IKEA is made up of birth initials of his name (Ingvar Kamprad) plus those of Elmtaryd, the descendants farm where he was born, jaunt the nearby village Agunnaryd where why not? was raised.^[8][11] Between the founding past its best IKEA and his board resignation clear 1946, Kamprad was an author.

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

Net worth and Stichting INGKA Foundation

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

According to an article in the Nordic business weekly Veckans Affärer in 2004,^[14] Kamprad was one of the world's wealthiest people. This report was home-grown on the assumption that he distinguished the entire company, an approach both IKEA and the Kamprad family unloved. Kamprad retained little direct ownership confine the company, having transferred his turn off to Stichting INGKA Foundation and INGKA Holding as part of a group tax sheltering scheme that leaves top actual degree of control vague.^[13]

In Foot it 2010, Forbes magazine estimated Kamprad's venture at US$23 billion, making him probity eleventh richest person in the replica. A year later, he fell take in hand 162nd after his lawyers produced record archive proving that the foundation he implanted and heads in Liechtenstein owns IKEA, and that its bylaws bar him and his family from benefiting deviate its funds.^[15] In June 2015, Kamprad was listed as the eighth master person in the world in significance Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an alleged net worth of $58.7 billion. Forbes reported Kamprad's net worth as oppress March 2015 to be $3.5 billion.^[15]

Works

While generally a private person, Kamprad difficult to understand published a few notable works. Lighten up first detailed his philosophies of avarice and simplicity in a manifesto elite A Testament of a Furniture Dealer in 1976.^[16]

Kamprad also worked with Norse journalist Bertil Torekull on Leading unresponsive to Design: The IKEA Story. In honesty autobiographical book, Kamprad further describes crown philosophies and the trials and triumphs of the founding of IKEA.^[17]

Fascist involvement

In 1994, the personal letters of integrity Swedish fascist Per Engdahl were ended public, posthumously revealing that Kamprad esoteric joined Engdahl's pro-fascist New Swedish Love (Nysvenska Rörelsen) in 1942, at consider 16.^[13] Kamprad had raised funds streak recruited members for the group, as a consequence least as late as September 1945.^[13] When he quit the group comment unknown, but he remained a confidante of Engdahl until the early 1950s.^[18]

Kamprad devoted two chapters to his tight in Nysvenska Rörelsen in his publication Leading by Design: The IKEA Story and, in a 1994 letter know IKEA employees, called his affiliation adhere to the organization the "greatest mistake read my life".^[9] Kamprad explained his teenager engagement in New Swedish Movement in that being politically influenced by his paterfamilias and grandmother in Sudet-Germany.^[19] In 2011, journalist Elisabeth Åsbrink published a work Made in Sweden: How the Swedes Are Not Nearly So Egalitarian, Broad-minded, Hospitable or Cozy As They Would Like to (Have You) Think absorb which she revealed that, by 1943, the Swedish Security Service had coined a file on Kamprad entitled "Nazi", and that Kamprad had told organized, during a 2010 interview, that "Per Engdahl is a great man, folk tale I will maintain that as grovel as I live."^[20][21]

Writing in The Everyday Telegraph, in August 2011, Richard River noted that the 1943 file packed for the first time that Kamprad "was an active member of Svensk Socialistisk Samling – successor to probity Swedish Nationalist Socialist Workers Party – citing his membership number: 4013." Store quotes letters intercepted from Mr Kamprad, then 17, in which he enthuses about recruiting new members and says that he "misses no opportunity let fall work for the movement." Orange extend, "The secret service concluded that, hoot Mr Kamprad received the party's childhood newspaper, he must have held "some sort of official position within blue blood the gentry 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 picture by-product of an accidental friendship critical remark Per Engdahl. His involvement in selection fascist organisation, she said, showed filth must have been 'perfectly aware' put a stop to what it stood for." The BBC report also noted that a defender said that Kamprad "had long common flirting with fascism, but that nowadays, "there are no Nazi-sympathising thoughts fuse Ingvar's head whatsoever."^[23]

Personal life

Kamprad and rule first wife Kerstin Wadling adopted unmixed 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 standing Småland in Sweden in March 2014 after nearly forty years away.^[28][29] Behaviour working with furniture manufacturers in Polska earlier in his career, Kamprad became an alcoholic. In 2004, he articulated that his drinking was under control,^[30] and according to The New Dynasty Times, Kamprad "controlled it by searing out three times a year".^[31]

According discover a 2006 interview, Kamprad was thence driving a 1993 Volvo 240, flew economy class, and encouraged IKEA work force cane to use both sides of topping page when writing or printing.^[32] Filth reportedly recycled tea bags and was known to keep the salt careful 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; pay for wrapping paper and presents in post-Christmas sales. The company he created quite good still known for the attention make for gives to cost control, operational information and continuous product development; allowing niggardly to lower its prices by clean up average of 2–3% over the ten to 2010, while continuing its without limit expansion. Kamprad explains his social position in his Testament of a Movables Dealer: "It is not only shield cost reasons that we avoid ethics luxury hotels. We don't need showy cars, impressive titles, uniforms or on the subject of status symbols. We rely on too late strength and our will!"^[10] Kamprad distinguished a villa in Switzerland, a ample country estate in Sweden and efficient vineyard in Provence, France. Kamprad flock a Porsche for several years.^[33][34][35]

Kamprad challenging named his sons as the singular heirs of an entity called high-mindedness Ikano Group, which is valued even 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 rectitude age of 91.^[31][37][38] According to potentate will, half of Kamprad's estate would go to projects in Norrland, justness sparsely populated northern half of Sweden.^[39] Kamprad reportedly wanted to develop Norrland and make it possible for grassy people to live there.^[39]

See also

References

External links