Billionaire Johann Rupert’s busy year

Billionaire businessman Johann Rupert has had a busy year, with his companies having sealed major deals throughout 2025.

Rupert currently chairs three prominent companies – Luxembourg-based investment vehicle Reinet, Swiss-based luxury goods giant Richemont and South African investment holding company Remgro.

Rupert’s ties to these companies date back decades, starting with his father, Anton Rupert, who turned a small tobacco company into an industrial conglomerate.

Anton founded Voorbrand, a tiny South African tobacco company, in the 1940s. This company would later become Rembrandt, which dominated the local tobacco market.

As Rembrandt continued to go from strength to strength under Anton’s leadership, it diversified into new sectors like mining, financial services, engineering and food.

Rupert did not initially plan to work in his father’s business, choosing to forge his own path in New York, where he worked for Chase Manhattan and Lazard Frères after dropping out of university.

When he returned to South Africa in 1979, he used the experience he gained at these renowned companies to found Rand Merchant Bank (RMB).

He served as RMB CEO for a few years, until 1984, when the company merged with Rand Consolidated Investments to form RMB Holdings.

It was around this time that Rupert joined Rembrandt, his father’s highly successful business, and played a pivotal role in taking it to even greater heights.

Rupert spun off Rembrandt’s international assets, creating Compagnie Financière Richemont, a Swiss-based luxury goods company.

In the early 1990s, Rupert became the chairman of Rembrandt and was pivotal in leading the company’s international expansion.

It was also during his tenure as chair that Rembrandt and Richemont consolidated their tobacco assets under Rothmans International, which later merged with British American Tobacco (BAT).

The 2000s continued to see significant changes, with Rembrandt restructuring into two publicly traded companies – Remgro, which managed its traditional assets, and VenFin, which handled its technology investments.

In 2009, these companies merged back into Remgro, of which Rupert remains chairman.

A year prior, Rupert also oversaw the creation of Reinet Investments, a company focused on the non-luxury assets spun off from Richemont.

Today, Rupert’s leadership spans Remgro, Richemont, and Reinet – three highly successful and prominent companies in their own right.

Rupert’s interests in these companies have also made him the richest person in South Africa, with an estimated net worth of R321.81 billion.

2025 marked another watershed year for some of these companies, with Rupert having gone on a deal-making spree.

Below is an overview of some of the biggest deals Rupert’s companies sealed in 2025.

Kissing BAT goodbye

Rupert’s often overlooked investment powerhouse, Reinet, had a notable year marked by major deals that have completely transformed the company compared to the start of 2025.

The Luxembourg-based investment vehicle sold its stakes in both BAT and the Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) in 2025.

This marked the end of an era for Reinet, ending its long history with BAT that dates back to Rupert’s time at Rembrandt.

Richemont’s former interest in BAT was Reinet’s principal asset and accounted for around 24% of its net asset value in 2024.

However, between September 2024 and January 2025, Reinet made the surprising decision to sell its stake in the tobacco giant, marking the end of the companies’ long history together.

This transaction raised an estimated £1.370 billion (R31.6 billion) for Reinet at the time, which the company said would be used for future investment opportunities.

However, this was not the last major deal Reinet would make in 2025, as the company also sold its stake in the PIC – its largest holding at the time – in July 2025.

Reinet announced on 3 July 2025 that it has reached an agreement with Athora Holding UK to sell its 49.5% stake in PIC for around R140 billion.

Reinet first invested in PIC in 2012 through an initial £400 million commitment. By the time Reinet sealed this deal, its total investment in PIC totalled around £1.1 billion.

This means that, in the span of just one year, Rupert’s Reinet sold off its two biggest holdings.

Remgro’s spree

2025 also marked a notable year for Rupert’s Remgro, as the South African investment holding company also sealed landmark deals.

The most notable was Remgro finally receiving the green light from South Africa’s competition authorities for its deal with telecoms giant Vodacom.

This came after years of back and forth, with the deal initially rejected by the Competition Commission and Tribunal.

This transaction, which would see Vodacom buy a 30% stake in Community Ventures Investment Holdings’ (CIVH) fibre assets, was first announced in November 2021.

Remgro holds a 57% stake in CIVH, of which Maziv is a subsidiary that was established primarily to facilitate the transaction.

Maziv, in turn, holds the assets of fibre network operator Vumatel and open-access backhaul provider Dark Fibre Africa. 

While a seemingly simple deal on paper, this transaction would result in nearly two years of negotiations with South Africa’s competition watchdog over anti-competitive concerns.

However, a compromise was eventually reached in mid-2025, and following the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s green light, the deal was finally unconditionally approved in mid-November 2025.

Less than a month later, Remgro announced another major deal was in the works that would make it the sole owner of Mediclinic’s Southern Africa division.

At the start of December 2025, Remgro announced that Investment Holding Limited (IHL) proposed a restructuring of its interest in Mediclinic Holdings.

IHL is a Luxembourg-based wholly owned subsidiary of MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company Holding SA.

Mediclinic Southern Africa is the third-largest private healthcare provider in Southern Africa, by number of licensed beds. 

Remgro explained that IHL’s proposed restructuring would result in Remgro acquiring full ownership of Mediclinic Southern Africa.

IHL, in turn, would acquire full ownership of Hirslanden, the Swiss operations of Mediclinic Holdings.

The company said it would enable both Remgro and IHL to tailor their respective clinical and operational strategies to local market dynamics and patient needs.

The golden child shines

Rupert’s biggest company, Swiss-based Richemont, had a slightly less exciting year, sealing only one major deal in 2025.

In April this year, Richemont concluded the sale of YOOX Net-a-Porter (YNAP) to Mytheresa. This deal was sealed relatively quickly, with Richemont first announcing its intentions near the end of 2024.

YNAP is an eCommerce platform that Richemont sold to German luxury platform Mytheresa in exchange for 49,741,342 shares in Mytheresa, which represents 33% of the company’s fully diluted share capital.

However, even without a deal-making spree, Richemont continued to go from strength to strength in 2025.

Boosted by strong demand in the Americas and China, the luxury industry, and therefore Richemont, turned a corner.

In the six months through September 2025, sales in Richemont’s jewellery division jumped by 14%, far higher than analyst expectations of around 10%.

This came as Richemont had withstood the luxury downturn better than most rivals, helped by the appeal of its high-end brands like Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels.

This resilience was recognised by investors in 2025, with Richemont’s share price on the JSE up over 25% in the year to date at the time of writing.