Dynamic duo sells Renton Ikea back to parent company

The men who launched Ikea's Renton store 12 years ago sold back their majority share to its Swedish corporate parent last week for an undisclosed sum.

They and the store's new manager said there will be no noticeable changes in the way the store runs.

Best friends Anders Berglund and Bjorn Bayley said they sold their 61 percent ownership Jan. 9 because "it was time."

"We're not getting any younger, and we have other things we want to do in our lives," said Bayley, 59.

In the short term, he plans to visit his mother in Sweden.

But eventually, he said, the two men want to work on another venture together, "maybe investments or something."

The pair met in 1979, when they were sent by Ikea to turn around its stores in Canada.

Bayley was put in charge of the Canadian operation, and Berglund, 57, likes to say his only job description was to "go with Bjorn because he's not good with numbers."

The Renton store was part of an Ikea experiment to see whether owner-operators could make a difference in the United States, the two men said in a joint cellphone interview from a restaurant parking lot in Vancouver, B.C.

Bayley lives in Bellevue and Berglund lives on Fox Island, south of Gig Harbor.

While the Renton store has done exceptionally well — its $140 million in annual sales is the highest among the chain's North American stores — the experiment has not always been comfortable for the corporate parent, Bayley said.

He declined to elaborate.

Berglund said a nearly $9 million remodel last year was necessary and not part of a plan to sell the 336,000-square-foot store.

"We have really tried to not look at when or if we would sell, but do business as usual until the very last day," he said.

The store's new manager is Laurie Helm, who began working there about a year after Berglund and Bayley opened it.

Customers and the store's roughly 550 employees should notice little change, she said.

The store has a multiyear plan to slowly transition retirement benefits and make other administrative changes to match the corporate parent.

In all other respects, Helm said, "we're continuing to do what they've taught us to do."

Berglund and Bayley "created such a culture and environment for people to grow and learn and push themselves and take risks," Helm said.

The sale "really is nothing that the co-workers will feel," she said, "except they'll miss seeing Anders and Bjorn every day."

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com