IKEA making it one of the largest users of wood in the retail sector. Most of IKEA's stores and factories were previously owned by INGKA, a holding company controlled by the Stichting INGKA Foundation, one of the 40 wealthiest foundations in the world. Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in 1943 as a mostly mail-order sales business. It began to sell furniture five years later. The first Möbel-IKÉA store was opened in Älmhult, Småland, in 1958 (Möbel means "furniture" in Swedish). The first stores outside Sweden were opened in Norway (1963) and Denmark (1969). The stores spread to other parts of Europe in
Ingvar Ambjørnsen Ingvar Ambjørnsen Ingvar Even Ambjørnsen-Haefs (born 20 May 1956) is a Norwegian writer. He is best known for his "Elling" tetralogy: "Utsikt til paradiset" (1993), "Fugledansen" (1995), "Brødre i blodet" (1996), and "Elsk meg i morgen" (1999). "Brødre i blodet" ("Blood brothers") was turned into a successful movie, entitled "Elling", which received an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Film category in 2001. The English translation of the novel is called "Beyond the Great Indoors". Born in Tønsberg and raised in Larvik, his debut novel was a semi-autobiography called "23-salen" ("The 23rd Row"), in which he criticized Norway's efforts to