Ikea founder dies aged 91

Stockholm : Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad has died aged 91, the company said yesterday, leaving behind a global business empire built on revolutionary flat-pack furniture but under investigation over its tax practises in the Netherlands.

The company said in a statement that Kamprad “passed away peacefully surrounded by his loved ones” at his home in the southern Swedish region of Smaland on Saturday “following a brief illness”.

“Ingvar Kamprad was a unique entrepreneur who has meant a lot for Swedish business and who has made home furnishing available for many people, not just the few,” Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told TT news agency.

Born in 1926 to a farming family in Smaland, Kamprad, whose 2017 fortune was estimated at 37.3 billion euros (around $46 billion) according to the Swiss economic magazine Bilan, founded the company at the age of 17.

Despite his enormous success and wealth, Kamprad’s modest spending habits bordered on the obsessive.

In 1973 he fled Sweden’s higher tax structure for Denmark before seeking even lower taxes in Switzerland.

Starting in 2010 Kamprad gradually made way at the helm of the company for his three sons, finally returning to live in Sweden in 2014.