Since the turn of the millennium Swedish furniture giant Ikea has made a profit of almost 30 billion dollar, according to a new report.

Ikea’s founder Ingvar Kamprad, one of the richest men in the world, is known for his withdrawn personality and secretive manners. Ikea is an unlisted, family-owned company and traditionally does not release regular earnings reports.

However, figures from the annual reports of Ikea’s Dutch parent company, Ingka Holding, which have never been made public by Ikea, show that the company made a pre-tax profit of astounding 200 billion kronor (€19.6 billion, $29 billion) from year 2000 to 2008.

“We still have a very good financial situation, which means that we can continue to invest billions of kronor in both new stores and lower prices, despite difficult times,” Göran Grosskopf, board chair of Ingka Holding, told business daily Dagens Industri that had got hold of the figures.

In average the company’s profit has been higher than 15 billion kronor per year. The best year was 2007 when it posted profits of 30 billion kronor.

Ikea, the world’s biggest home-furnishings retailer, has spent almost 100 billion kronor to open new stores and some 57 billion kronor have being used for dividends and royalty payments, the newspaper wrote.

The company employs 123,000 people worldwide and has 267 stores in 25 countries, with another 34 operating under franchise. Europe represents 80 percent of Ikea's sales, while North America makes up for 15 percent and the Asia-Australia region five percent.

Ingvar Kamprad, the celebrated super-entrepreneur who founded the company in 1943 as a teenager, now lives in tax exile in Switzerland.

In a tell-all book by his former assistant and right-hand man, Johan Stenebo, Ingvar Kamprad is being slammed as a dictatorial genius who has managed to create a somewhat phony image of himself as a nice and warm old man.