Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea Founder, Dead At 91: Facts About Furniture Tycoon

Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad died on Saturday at his home in Småland, Sweden, the company announced in a statement Sunday. Kamprad was 91, and his peaceful death came after a short illness.

Ikea was founded when Kamprad was only 17 years old, starting out with selling replicas of his uncle’s kitchen table and making it one of the most valuable privately held businesses in the world today.

"We are mourning the loss of our founder and dear friend Ingvar. His legacy will be admired for many years to come and his vision — to create a better everyday life for the many people — will continue to guide and inspire us," said Jesper Brodin, CEO and president of the Ikea Group, in the company’s statement.

Kamprad chose the name for his furniture company by putting together initials of his own name, the name of the family farm where he was born — Elmtaryd — and a nearby village called Agunnaryd. The business was initially only mail-order, and the first store opened in 1958.

He stopped being actively involved in the daily operations of the business in 1998, when he gave up all operational roles in the company. In 2013, he also resigned from the board of the holding company that owns Ikea, which has a very complicated ownership structure.

Kamprad’s Dutch-registered Stichting INGKA Foundation was also one of the largest charities in the world at one time, according to the Economist, before being outdone by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

But Kamprad also infamously supported the fascists during World War II. In 1942, a year before starting Ikea, at the age of 16, Kamprad was raising money and recruiting members for Nysvenska Rörelsen, or New Swedish Movement, a pro-fascist organization. His active support for the group continued till at least 1945. There have also been reports linking him to the Swedish Nazi movement.

In an autobiographical book titled “Leading by Design: The IKEA Story” and in a 1994 letter to employees of the company, Kamprad called his association with fascists the “greatest mistake of my life.”

With his first wife Kerstin Wadling, Kamprad had an adopted daughter, Annika. With his second wife, Margaretha, whom he married in the 1960s when she was 20 years old, he had three sons — Peter, Jonas and Mathias.