The Rupert family, led by patriarch Johann, have added about $2.8bn to their wealth since the start of the year — cementing their place as SA’s richest family — as companies they hold stocks in, particularly Richemont, enjoy a purple patch.
According to Bloomberg Billionaires index, the family is now worth $16.5bn (R305bn) — nearly what the SA government spends on servicing its debts.
According to the latest data from the National Treasury, public debt transactions accounted for R308bn, or 13.5% of total expenditure in 2022/23.
The lion share of Rupert’s wealth is held in luxury goods maker Richemont, worth nearly R2-trillion on the JSE, where it has its secondary listing — after a 48% rally over the past three months.
Richemont, whose brands include Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Piaget and Chloé, in January reported its highest quarterly sales of €6.2bn for the quarter to end-December.
The Rupert family also owns a large chunk of Remgro and Reinet, worth R76bn and R91bn, respectively, on the JSE.
In a surprise move, the Rupert family in January ended its nearly 80-year relationship with the tobacco industry, when Reinet Investments announced its complete exit from British American Tobacco (BAT) in a transaction worth more than R30bn.
David Lerche, chief investment officer at Sanlam Private Wealth, in a note said Reinet has been reducing its BAT stake for more than a decade.
“As a long-time holder, and given BAT’s importance in Reinet’s history, we would expect Reinet to understand that business very well. While we don’t own Reinet in our client portfolios, we do own BAT and should therefore be alert to any signalling value in Reinet’s actions,” Lerche said.
“In our view, we don’t have to read too much into Reinet’s BAT sale — we suspect that the primary reason was to raise cash for a large transaction. The company merely stated that the proceeds will be used for ‘ongoing investment activity’,” he said.
“By our numbers, from the current BAT price, we expect a five-year internal rate of return from BAT of around 11% in GBP [pounds] terms. This is ahead of the 9.5% that we demand from the stock, but likely behind Reinet’s expected return from a potential new investment should the company be preparing for a significant transaction.”
Pension Insurance Corporation is now Reinet’s largest asset, accounting for over half the net asset value.
Other South Africans who feature on the top 500 richest people on the Bloomberg list include, Nicky Oppenheimer, worth $12bn. The Oppenheimer family in 2012 sold its 40% stake in De Beers to Anglo American for $5.2bn — an inspired move as the diamond producer is now worth far less than it was at the time.
Anglo last week warned it is likely to write down the value of De Beers again after a $1.6bn writedown last year.
Nathan “Natie” Kirsh, is the third South African to make the list, worth $9.7bn — with the bulk of his fortune from US-based Jetro Holdings, which owns restaurant supply stores Jetro Cash and Carry and Restaurant Depot.
Africa’s richest person remains Nigerian industrial mogul Aliko Dangote with a fortune of $27.6bn.
Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Bernard Arnault round up the top five richest people in the world list — with a combined bounty of $1.3-trillion.
Oxfam last month said the wealth of the world’s billionaires surged by $2-trillion in 2024, three times faster than the year before — predicting there will be five dollar trillionaires in the next decade — as the gap between the rich and poor widens.
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