The man who forced many of us to pickup and use a screwdriver and allen key has passed way. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Swedish furniture giant Ikea, has died at the age of 91.
The furniture giant said Kamprad passed away at his home in southern Sweden on Saturday.
Founded in 1943 by Kamprad when he was a teen, Ikea began developing its own furniture in the mid-1950s, popularising renowned Scandinavian design – sleek and functional on an industrial scale and conquering first Europe and then North America before taking on the rest of the world.
He got the idea for flat-pack furniture as he watched an employee taking the legs off a table to fit it into a customer’s car and realised that saving space meant saving money.
Kamprad has been previously ranked among the world’s 20 richest people by Forbes magazine. His personal fortune was recently estimated at more than 30 billion euros (USD45 billion) and Ikea is now heading for 50 billion euros in annual revenues.
