Ingka Group (Ingka Holding B.V and its controlled entities), the world’s largest home furnishing retailer, has signed an agreement to invest and acquire 49% of Traemand, a US based kitchen service company, with an option to buy the remaining shares. Traemand is an existing partner of IKEA Retail US and Canada, providing tools and systems to simplify the customers’ kitchen journey.
Ingka Group is accelerating its retail transformation by stepping up the investments to better meet the increasing needs of its customers. With the investment in Traemand the customer experience will be more simple and seamless.
“We know our customers appreciate our affordable, inspiring and functional kitchen range, in addition, the investment in Traemand makes it possible to integrate the planning and the installation service in the purchase, offering customers an even easier and more convenient experience when investing in a kitchen,” says Marcus Baumgartner, Customer Fulfilment Manager, Ingka Group.
The partnership with Traemand started in 2005, a long-standing and fully dedicated partner for the IKEA kitchen service business in the US and more recently Canada. The company has systems and tools which – when integrated closer to IKEA Retail – will enable a seamless kitchen journey from in-house measurement, online and instore kitchen planning, installation of the kitchen and customer support services.
“For the past 13 years we’ve had a successful partnership with IKEA Retail US, where we have supported thousands of customers in the journey of buying their dream kitchen. This investment makes it possible for us to take the next steps in developing our tools and services to better benefit the many IKEA kitchen customers,” says Bjarne Rasmussen, founder of Traemand.
The investment will allow Traemand to look into possibilities to expand its kitchen service concept outside the US and Canada, in order to further develop the kitchen service business and strengthen the IKEA customer experience.
“We are always striving to develop new and improved services to make our customers’ lives a little bit easier. We see that services connected to planning and getting your kitchen installed are key to our customers. Therefore this investment allows us to better meet their needs with convenient and affordable in-house service,” says Marcus Baumgartner.
The agreement was signed on 12 December 2018. Ingka Group now owns 49% of Traemand. Traemand will continue to be steered by its majority owners.
For more information contact: Ingka Group Media Relations, +46 70 993 6376 or corporate.communications.gl@ikea.com
About the Ingka Group
Ingka Group (Ingka Holding B.V. and its controlled entities) is one of 11 different groups of companies that own and operate IKEA sales channels under franchise agreements with Inter IKEA Systems B.V. Ingka Group has three business areas: IKEA Retail, Ingka Investments and Ingka Centres. It is the world’s largest home furnishing retailer operating 367 IKEA stores in 30 markets. These IKEA stores had 838 million visits during FY18 and 2.35 billion visits www.IKEA.com
Today they have 300 employees and operate in 32 states across the United States and two provinces in Canada supporting seven IKEA stores. It is headquartered in Denver, Colorado and Montreal, Quebec. For more information, visit Traemand.com.
Financial year: 1 September 2018 – 31 August 2019.
Ingka Group, formerly IKEA Group, is the largest IKEA franchisee with 367 IKEA stores in 30 markets, and 158,500 co-workers. The name Ingka is based on its founder’s name, Ingvar Kamprad.
