IKEA Founder Returns to Sweden After 40 Years

The founder of IKEA, 87 year-old Ingvar Kamprad, is returning to his native Sweden after having fled for Switzerland 40 years ago to escape Sweden’s prohibitive taxes. 

Kamprad said he would move back home to Almhult by the end of 2013. It is where he founded IKEA as a shop in his garden selling watches and Christmas cards when he was seventeen years old. 

Kamprad has noticed that Sweden’s center-right coalition government has been cutting income taxes and rid the country of its wealth tax in recent years.

Kamprad said, “Moving back to Sweden gets me closer to my family and my old friends. After my dear wife Margareta died about a year and a half ago, there is less that keeps me in Switzerland.”

While Kamprad prepares to return home, he is also preparing to relinquish power in his company, over which he has maintained tight control along with his family. IKEA has announced that Kamprad is turning over control of a division of the company which owns the brand and directs strategy to his youngest son.