and more on that-
http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=2582551
Tycoons
Bill v Ingvar
Apr 7th 2004
From The Economist print edition
Is the founder of Ikea richer than Bill Gates?
WHO is the world's richest man? As most tycoons are secretive about their dosh, vast personal wealth is fiendishly hard to measure. Bank accounts are private. Stakes in private companies are tricky to value. Many rich people use opaque offshore vehicles to hoard their cash. The value of works of art varies.
Even so, in recent years Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, and Warren Buffett, boss of Berkshire Hathaway, have usually topped rankings such as the annual Forbes rich list. But Veckans Affarer, a Swedish business magazine, thinks they are all wrong. Forget the American tycoons: Ingvar Kamprad, the famously frugal founder of Ikea, a Swedish furniture chain, is the world's richest man. Mr Kamprad's personal fortune is $53 billion, says Veckans Affarer, compared with Mr Gates's paltry $47 billion and Mr Buffett's $43 billion.
Bo Pettersson, author of the Swedish article, says that he came up with his estimate of Mr Kamprad's fortune by digging around in the available information on Ikea's profitability in order to estimate the value of the firm. As a Swedish private company Ikea has chosen not to reveal its profits.
Much depends on whether Mr Kamprad still owns Ikea. In effect, he does, says Mr Pettersson. Stichting INGKA, a Dutch charitable foundation Mr Kampard established with his Ikea shares in 1982, makes only minor donations to good causes. It is, claims Mr Pettersson, mainly an investment vehicle for Mr Kamprad, a “senior advisor” to INGKA. Wrong, says Ikea: Mr Kamprad gave Ikea to the foundation.
Ikea is unhappy about being owned by the world's richest man because that does not fit its folksy, thrifty image, claims Mr Pettersson. And Mr Kamprad, who avoids Sweden's high taxes by living in Switzerland, is not popular at home. If Americans still claim that the world's richest man is one of them, most egalitarian Swedes are unlikely to argue.
