Put Out Your Malms, Because The Founder Of IKEA Has Died Aged 91

The patron saint of every sharehouse’s aesthetic, IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad, has died at home in Sweden at the ripe old age of 91.

Kamprad founded IKEA on the family farm in 1943 when he was 17 years old, but only started going big in 1956 when the company pioneered flat-packed furniture. So you can officially thank him for every time you’ve spent a punishing afternoon assembling a chest of drawers and searching for lost screws.

A statement from IKEA confirmed Kamprad’s death:

One of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 20th century, Ingvar Kamprad, has peacefully passed away, at his home in Smaland, Sweden, on the 27th of January. Ingvar Kamprad was a great entrepreneur of the typical southern Swedish kind — hardworking and stubborn, with a lot of warmth and a playful twinkle in his eye. He worked until the very end of his life, staying true to his own motto that most things remain to be done.

Now, I hate to milkshake duck the recently departed, but I’m gonna do it: Kamprad also faced controversy over the past couple of decades for his involvement in fascist movements back in the 1930s and 40s.

The IKEA founder was a member of the pro-fascist New Swedish Movement, and was strongly believed to have been a member of Nazi party Svensk Socialistisk Samling. For his part, Kamprad called his affiliation with fascism the “greatest mistake of his life,” and a spokesperson said “there are no Nazi-sympathising thoughts in Ingvar’s head whatsoever”.

At the time of his death, Kamprad’s personal wealth was was established at 750 million kronor ($117 million). Records from his estate showed he donated more than $20 million to philanthropic causes in 2012 alone.

Though IKEA is often associated with Swedish identity, Kamprad only returned there in 2011 after living in Switzerland since the 1970s. He left Sweden to escape the country’s high taxes.

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