INTERNATIONAL - Billionaire IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, who turned a business he launched as a teenager into one of the world’s best known furniture brands, has died at the age of 91, the Swedish company said yesterday.
IKEA’s simple but sturdy designs and self-assembly products are now familiar in homes around the globe and the retailer is aiming to generate 50billion (R736.1bn) in annual revenues by 2020.
Kamprad started IKEA in 1943 when he was just 17, but his big break came in 1956, when the company pioneered flat-pack furniture.
He got the idea when he watched
an employee taking the legs
off a table to fit it into a customer’s car and realised that it could be developed to save money on transport, storage and sales space. The business now has around 400 stores.