Ingvar Kamprad

( Listen? / I ) Ingvar Feodor Kamprad ( born March 30, 1926 in the Församling Pjätteryd, community Älmhult ) is a Swedish entrepreneur and the founder of the furniture company IKEA. According to Forbes, he is one of the richest people in the world.

Life

Kamprad was born the son of a derived from the Altenburger Land in Thuringia landowner family. In 1943 he founded at the age of 17 years, the company IKEA. The acronym IKEA is made up of the initials of his name, IK, the initial letter of the name of his father's farm, Elmtaryd, and the first letter of his native village in the municipality Agunnaryd Ljungby where he grew up.

Originally Kamprad acted with many different goods, including with matches and pens. It was not until 1947 he took on furniture in its range, this year, he also released his first catalog. From 1952 he concentrated entirely on the furniture mail order. The first IKEA store was opened in Älmhult ( southern Sweden) in 1958, and his first foreign furniture store he opened in 1963 in Oslo ( Norway). The first house outside Scandinavia was opened in Spreitenbach in Switzerland in 1973, the first in Germany in 1974 in Eching near Munich, the first Austrian in Vienna in 1977. Today, there are 317 IKEA furniture stores.

In 1973 left Kamprad in Sweden, only to Denmark, then to Switzerland, where he lives in the village of Epalinges. He plans to return in the fall of 2013 to Sweden in the near Älmhult as hold him since his wife's death in 2011, fewer and fewer in Switzerland.

Kamprad stunned the public with his honest acting personal confessions that he had a strong reading and writing difficulties (dyslexia ) and an eternal struggle against the " demon alcohol " lead.

Due to its origins in the historical province of Småland Kamprad refers to himself as a miser and bargain hunters. He has been repeatedly voted as the most popular manager in Sweden.

Forbes estimated his wealth in 2010 to 23 billion U.S. dollars. Thus he was led to number 11 in the list of the richest people in the world. According to the magazine balance sheet, its wealth to 35 to 36 billion Swiss francs (2009 ) estimated that he was the richest resident of Switzerland. He will benefit from the lump-sum taxation. The amount of the lump-sum taxes paid by Kamprad is not known. In 2011, Kamprad lost its lead and fell out of the TOP100 Forbes list. His fortune was estimated at 6 billion U.S. dollars.

Family

Kamprad was married twice. Last until her death in December 2011 to Margaretha, from this marriage produced three children: Peter Arras Feodor (* 1964 ), Hans Jonas Ingvar (* 1966) and Niclas Achim Mathias ( b. 1969 ). From his first marriage he has an adopted daughter.

Relationship to National Socialism

1994 reported Swedish media about Ingvar Kamprad's relationship with Nazi groups. The Swedish tabloid " Expressen " revealed that he had the right organization Nysvenska Rörelsen of Per Engdahl, a friend and well-known Nazis until 1945 supported financially. Since 1942, Kamprad was an active member of this organization. Kamprad originally from Bohemia grandmother was a follower of the Nazis. Through them, so Kamprad, he had been supplied with Nazi reading. As a result of these media reports IKEA boycott was publicly called for. Kamprad apologized in 1994 in a multi-page handwritten open letter to his employees and customers and described the payments today as the "greatest stupidity of my life ." In 2008, he added, in a television interview that he had " more with Mussolini than the other guy " sympathizes. Irritability have him the " cooperative spirit".

End of August 2011 it was announced that he was also an official of the fascist party Svensk Socialistisk Samling (SSS ). The Swedish television journalist and author Elizabeth Katherine Åsbrink wrote in her book Och i Wienerwald står träden kvar (and still are in Wienerwald the trees ), Kamprad had members of the SSS recruited and spent a lot of time and energy in his own words on this activity. In 1943 came the time of his 17 -year-old targeted by the secret police, which docked a file on him, quoting from the Åsbrink. The author further asserts Kamprad's links with the network of the SSS and the right leadership figure Per Engdahl were very intense even after the war until the 50 years inside.

Kamprad and IKEA today

A large part of IKEA 's assets will be managed because of the tax advantages of the Stichting INGKA Foundation ( INKA Foundation ) based in the Netherlands, whose board Kamprad belongs. The value of the Foundation was recently estimated at 36 billion euros. Kamprad in 1983 was awarded the Växjö University honorary doctorate from Lund University and on 11 February 2006, with whom he feels a connection for some time.

The Ikano corporate group with the IKANO Bank, formerly a subsidiary of IKEA, is also part of the Kamprad family.

Reception

Under the title The Miracle of Sweden was first performed in 2009 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg a musical furniture Saga of Erik Gedeon and Klas Abrahamsson on the life of Kamprad. In the novel An honest offer of Norwegian author Frode Grytten the plan, Ingvar Kamprad plays abduct a major role. He appeared in 2012 in the publishing Nagel & Kimche as a German translation of the original Norwegian " Saganatt ".

412671
de