Billionaire Johann Rupert’s investment giant takes a hit

Reinet’s investment vehicle, Reinet Fund, has reported a notable decline in its net asset value (NAV) in the last three months of 2025.

This comes after a notable year marked by major deals that have transformed the company since the start of 2025.

Reinet Investments was created as a result of the restructuring of Richemont, the Rupert family’s Swiss luxury goods business that owns brands like Montblanc, Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels.

The Rupert family – in particular, billionaire Johann Rupert and his father, Anton – founded both Richemont and Reinet, as well as holding company Remgro.

Johann Rupert remains involved in all three companies and currently serves as the chairman of Reinet.

Reinet’s main investment vehicle is Reinet Fund, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reinet Investments.

Reinet Fund is a closed-end, specialised investment fund established in Luxembourg and holds all of the investments within the company’s structure.

The fund represents a substantial element of Reinet’s balance sheet and, up until a year ago, held the Rupert family’s substantial and historical stake in British American Tobacco (BAT).

On Thursday, 22 January 2026, Reinet released the fund’s updated NAV figures as at 31 December 2025.

This revealed a notable decline in the fund’s NAV, which went from €6.66 billion at the end of September 2025 to €6.60 billion at the end of December.

The company said this represents a decrease of €68 million over the three-month period.

Broken down on a per-share basis, this means Reinet Fund’s NAV per share amounted to €38.47 at the end of December, down from €38.87 in September.

These NAV figures represent Reinet Fund’s shareholding in UK-based Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), its other investments and cash resources, together with other assets and liabilities. 

A busy year

Over the past year, Reinet has undergone some major changes that have altered some of the Reinet Fund’s biggest shareholdings.

Most notably, the investment vehicle sold part of its stakes in both BAT and the 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.

Anton Rupert’s business empire started in the 1940s, when he founded a tiny South African tobacco company, Voorbrand.

This company would later become Rembrandt, which dominated South Africa’s local tobacco market.

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

Johann became involved in his father’s business in 1984 and, from then on, took the business to even greater heights.

He spun off Rembrandt’s international assets, creating Compagnie Financière Richemont.

It was during Johann’s tenure as chair that Rembrandt and Richemont consolidated their tobacco assets under Rothmans International, which later merged with BAT.

The 2000s continued to see significant changes under Johann’s leadership, 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 Johann remains chairman.

Around the same time, Johann also oversaw the creation of Reinet Investments, which focused on the non-luxury assets spun off from Richemont.

Therefore, Richemont’s former interest in BAT became Reinet’s principal asset, and still accounted for around 24% of its NAV in 2024.

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

This transaction raised an estimated £1.37 billion for Reinet at the time, which the company said would be used for future investment opportunities.

The deal-making did not stop there, as the company announced in July 2025 that it was also in advanced talks to sell its stake in the PIC – its largest holding at the time.

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 announced this deal, its total investment in PIC totalled around £1.1 billion.

This means that, in the span of just one year, Reinet entered into deals to sell off its two biggest holdings.