IKEA Founder  Ingvar Kamprad  Dies At 91 : The Two
Ingvar Kamprad
IKEA Founder   Ingvar Kamprad   Dies At 91
 Ingvar Kamprad  the man who created IKEA   leaves behind a professional legacy that's all about simplicity: sleek  affordable  Scandinavian-designed furniture with wordless assembly instructions.
 His  personal legacy  however  is more complicated: from a reputation for strict frugality to flirtations with fascism.
 Kamprad  died Saturday at the age of 91 at  his  home in Smaland in southern Sweden  with  his  loved ones by  his  side  according to a statement from IKEA.  The company  says  he  had faced a "short illness."
" His  legacy will be admired for many years to come and  his  vision â to create a better everyday life for the many people â will continue to guide and inspire us " says Jesper Brodin  the CEO and president of the IKEA Group.
 The company Kamprad  founded at 17 grew into a multinational behemoth  with nearly 400 stores worldwide  almost a billion store visits per year and more than $36 billion in annual retail sales in Europe alone.
Though  the company  â which never went public â was and remains secretive about  its  finances   it  did reveal  its  balance sheet for the 2009 fiscal year. NPR's Jacob Goldstein reported the upshot of the financial disclosure in 2010:
" The company  is sitting on a huge pile of cash  and managed to grow throughout the economic turbulence of the past few years. "In  its  2009 fiscal year  Ikea made $3.5 billion in profits on $30.2 billion in revenues. And the company was holding $19.7 billlion in cash at the end of that year. (Ikea reported results in euros; I converted the figures to dollars at the current exchange rate.)"
 Kamprad  was born March 30  1926 and â despite struggles with dyslexia â exhibited an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age  selling matchboxes as a small child.  He  quickly realized  he  could buy them dirt cheap in bulk and then sell them for a low price while still earning a profit.  He  later moved on to selling fish  Christmas decorations and pens.  He  ran advertisements in local papers and also distributed a "makeshift mail-order catalog " as the Associated Press reports.
At the age of 17   he  formed IKEA  an acronym built from  his  own initials and those of  his  family farm (Elmtaryd) and the local parish (Agunnaryd).
In 1950   he  added furniture sourced from local manufacturers to  his  catalogs and  when it became evident that it was  his  most popular product  it became  his  sole focus.
 Kamprad 's lightbulb moment arrived in the 1950s when  he  saw an employee removing the legs from a table to help a customers transport it.  He  pioneered flat-pack furniture that would fit snugly inside its box  saving space and money. What's more  the costs of assembly would be eliminated by letting consumers build their own furniture.
 Kamprad  prioritized an image of austerity for  himself  and  his  company  even though Bloomberg Billionaires Index calculated  his  wealth at $58.7 billion and ranked  him  the eighth wealthiest man in the world. In a book  he  wrote about IKEA's history   he  wrote that  he  often perused local vegetable markets just before they rolled up shop for the night  always on the hunt for a better deal.  He  reportedly drove a modest Volvo  flew economy class (and made  his  executives do the same)  ate cheap meals and stayed in budget hotels.  He  spent many years living in Switzerland to avoid Sweden's steep taxes  a decision that rankled some in  his  home country.
Thrift was one of the virtues  he  laid out in a manifesto  he  published in the 1970's titled  "The Testament of a Furniture Dealer."
Reporters later found that  his  reputation for penny-pinching was not entirely accurate  however  as the New York Times reports:
" His  home was a villa overlooking Lake Geneva  and  he  had an estate in Sweden and vineyards in Provence.  He  drove a Porsche as well as the Volvo.  His  cut-rate flights  hotels and meals were taken in part as an exemplar to  his  executives  who were expected to follow suit  to regard employment by Ikea as a life's commitment â and to write on both sides of a piece of paper."
IKEA Founder   Ingvar Kamprad   Dies At  [TGT] 
leaves behind a professional legacy that's all about simplicity: sleek  affordable  Scandinavian-designed furniture with wordless assembly instructions.
 His  personal legacy  however  is more complicated: from a reputation for strict frugality to flirtations with fascism.
  [TGT] died Saturday at the age of 91 at   [TGT]   home in Smaland in southern Sweden  with   [TGT]   loved ones by   [TGT]   side  according to a statement from IKEA.  The company  says  he  had faced a "short illness."
" His  legacy will be admired for many years to come and  his  vision â to create a better everyday life for the many people â will continue to guide and inspire us " says Jesper Brodin  the CEO and president of the IKEA Group.
 The company Kamprad  founded at 17 grew into a multinational behemoth  with nearly 400 stores worldwide  almost a billion store visits per year and more than $36 billion in annual retail sales in Europe alone.
Though  the company  â which never went public â was and remains secretive about  its  finances   it  did reveal  its  balance sheet for the 2009 fiscal year. NPR's Jacob Goldstein reported the upshot of the financial disclosure in 2010:
" The company  is sitting on a huge pile of cash  and managed to grow throughout the economic turbulence of the past few years. "In  its  2009 fiscal year  Ikea made $3.5 billion in profits on $30.2 billion in revenues. And the company was holding $19.7 billlion in cash at the end of that year. (Ikea reported results in euros; I converted the figures to dollars at the current exchange rate.)"
 Kamprad  was born March 30  1926 and â despite struggles with dyslexia â exhibited an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age  selling matchboxes as a small child.  He  quickly realized  he  could buy them dirt cheap in bulk and then sell them for a low price while still earning a profit.  He  later moved on to selling fish  Christmas decorations and pens.  He  ran advertisements in local papers and also distributed a "makeshift mail-order catalog " as the Associated Press reports.
At the age of 17   he  formed IKEA  an acronym built from  his  own initials and those of  his  family farm (Elmtaryd) and the local parish (Agunnaryd).
In 1950   he  added furniture sourced from local manufacturers to  his  catalogs and  when it became evident that it was  his  most popular product  it became  his  sole focus.
  [TGT]  's lightbulb moment arrived in the 1950s when  he  saw an employee removing the legs from a table to help a customers transport it.  He  pioneered flat-pack furniture that would fit snugly inside its box  saving space and money. What's more  the costs of assembly would be eliminated by letting consumers build their own furniture.
  [TGT] prioritized an image of austerity for  himself  and  his  company  even though Bloomberg Billionaires Index calculated  his  wealth at $58.7 billion and ranked  him  the eighth wealthiest man in the world. In a book  he  wrote about IKEA's history   he  wrote that  he  often perused local vegetable markets just before they rolled up shop for the night  always on the hunt for a better deal.  He  reportedly drove a modest Volvo  flew economy class (and made  his  executives do the same)  ate cheap meals and stayed in budget hotels.  He  spent many years living in Switzerland to avoid Sweden's steep taxes  a decision that rankled some in  his  home country.
Thrift was one of the virtues  he  laid out in a manifesto  he  published in the 1970's titled  "The Testament of a Furniture Dealer."
Reporters later found that  his  reputation for penny-pinching was not entirely accurate  however  as the New York Times reports:
" His  home was a villa overlooking Lake Geneva  and  he  had an estate in Sweden and vineyards in Provence.  He  drove a Porsche as well as the Volvo.  His  cut-rate flights  hotels and meals were taken in part as an exemplar to  his  executives  who were expected to follow suit  to regard employment by Ikea as a life's commitment â and to write on both sides of a piece of paper."