LONDON — The complex ownership structure behind Ikea, the world’s largest furniture retailer created by billionaire Ingvar Kamprad, became more transparent last week after Ikea’s franchiser published its financial performance publicly for the first time.
The new details allow for a more complete valuation of the secretive Ikea empire, increasing the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimate of Kamprad’s fortune by more than $1.4 billion, to almost $39 billion.
The financial details were contained in the 2011 annual report issued by Inter Ikea Group, Ikea’s franchiser. It disclosed a January transaction to acquire Ikea’s closely held intellectual property, including the Ikea trademarks, by Inter Ikea Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Inter Ikea, for $11 billion. It also published financial information for Inter Ikea including revenue and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
“Our ownership structure has been very complicated in the past and we saw an advantage in simplifying all of that and consolidating control under Ikea’s franchiser,” said Anders Bylund, a spokesman for Inter Ikea.
