Anton Rupert dropped out of medical school because of money. He started making cigarettes in a garage with £10.
From a dry-cleaning business to the Rembrandt Group, Anton Rupert built a business empire that also funded education, art and conservation.
Anton Rupert was born in 1916 and raised in the small town of Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape. He dropped out of medical school because of a lack of funds, then earned a chemistry degree at the University of Pretoria, where he also lectured for a short time. After that he started a dry-cleaning business.
A garage start
Later, with an initial investment of £10 and two fellow investors, he began manufacturing cigarettes in his garage. He established the Voorbrand Tobacco Company in 1939, manufacturing snuff, and soon renamed it Rembrandt. From Stellenbosch he built it into the tobacco and industrial conglomerate Rembrandt Group, which later split into the investment company Remgro and the Swiss luxury goods group Richemont.
At its peak the empire included hundreds of companies in 35 countries on six continents, with combined yearly net sales of about 10 billion dollars. Richemont’s brands include Cartier and Montblanc.
Beyond business
Rupert was deeply involved in environmental conservation, and since 1964 foundations established by Rembrandt have used part of the group’s profits to promote education, art, music and the preservation of historical buildings. He also played an important role in the South African Small Business Development Corporation, whose loans to small businesses have created nearly half a million jobs since 1981.
