01-28-2018, 10:27 AM
IKEA founder
Ingvar Feodor Kamprad (Swedish: [ˈɪŋːvar ˈkamːprad] (![[Image: 11px-Loudspeaker.svg.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Loudspeaker.svg/11px-Loudspeaker.svg.png)
listen); 30 March 1926 – 27 January 2018) was a Swedish business magnate. He was the founder of IKEA, a multinational retail company specializing in furniture. He lived in Switzerland from 1976 to 2014.
Kamprad began to develop a business as a young boy. He started selling matches at the age of five. When he was seven he began travelling further afield on his bicycle to sell to neighbours. He found he could buy matches in bulk very cheaply from 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. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a cash reward for succeeding in his studies.[6]
IKEA was founded in 1943, selling replicas of Kamprad's uncle Ernst's kitchen table.[7] In 1948, Kamprad diversified his portfolio, adding furniture. His business was mostly mail order.[7] 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.[8]
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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.[9]
The Dutch-registered Stichting INGKA Foundation is named after Ingvar Kamprad (i.e., ING + KA) who owns INGKA Holding, the parent company for all IKEA stores. In May 2006 the charitable foundation was reported by The Economist to be the world's wealthiest charity, however the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has since become larger. Despite its large endowment its primary purpose is corporate tax-minimisation and anti-takeover protection for IKEA.[10] Kamprad was chairman of the foundation.
According to an article in the Swedish business weekly Veckans Affärer in 2004,[11] Kamprad was one of the world's wealthiest people. This report was based on the assumption that Kamprad owned the entire company, an approach both IKEA and the Kamprad family rejected. Kamprad retained little direct ownership in the company, having transferred his interest to Stichting INGKA Foundation and INGKA Holding as part of a complex tax sheltering scheme that leaves his actual degree of control vague.[10]
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.[12] 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 $43.2 billion.[1] Forbes reported Kamprad's net worth as of February 2016 to be $3.4 billion.[12]
More at Wikipedia.
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad#cite_note-Forbes-12]
Ingvar Feodor Kamprad (Swedish: [ˈɪŋːvar ˈkamːprad] (
listen); 30 March 1926 – 27 January 2018) was a Swedish business magnate. He was the founder of IKEA, a multinational retail company specializing in furniture. He lived in Switzerland from 1976 to 2014.Kamprad began to develop a business as a young boy. He started selling matches at the age of five. When he was seven he began travelling further afield on his bicycle to sell to neighbours. He found he could buy matches in bulk very cheaply from 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. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a cash reward for succeeding in his studies.[6]
IKEA was founded in 1943, selling replicas of Kamprad's uncle Ernst's kitchen table.[7] In 1948, Kamprad diversified his portfolio, adding furniture. His business was mostly mail order.[7] 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.[8]
[/url]
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.[9]
The Dutch-registered Stichting INGKA Foundation is named after Ingvar Kamprad (i.e., ING + KA) who owns INGKA Holding, the parent company for all IKEA stores. In May 2006 the charitable foundation was reported by The Economist to be the world's wealthiest charity, however the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has since become larger. Despite its large endowment its primary purpose is corporate tax-minimisation and anti-takeover protection for IKEA.[10] Kamprad was chairman of the foundation.
According to an article in the Swedish business weekly Veckans Affärer in 2004,[11] Kamprad was one of the world's wealthiest people. This report was based on the assumption that Kamprad owned the entire company, an approach both IKEA and the Kamprad family rejected. Kamprad retained little direct ownership in the company, having transferred his interest to Stichting INGKA Foundation and INGKA Holding as part of a complex tax sheltering scheme that leaves his actual degree of control vague.[10]
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.[12] 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 $43.2 billion.[1] Forbes reported Kamprad's net worth as of February 2016 to be $3.4 billion.[12]
More at Wikipedia.
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvar_Kamprad#cite_note-Forbes-12]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.