The Rembrandt Group is a South African tobacco and industrial conglomerate founded by Afrikaner tycoon Dr Anton Rupert who oversaw its eventual transition to the industrial and luxury branded goods sectors. Rembrandt was split into Remgro (an investment company with financial, mining and industrial interests) and Richemont (a Swiss-based luxury goods group).
Dr Rupert originally established the tobacco company "Voorbrand" in the 1940s. He soon renamed it Rembrandt Ltd.
Rembrandt's overseas tobacco interests were consolidated into Rothmans International in 1972.
In 1988, the Rembrandt group founded the Swiss luxury goods company, Richemont, which in turn acquired Rembrandt's shares in Rothmans. Richemont also owns such luxury brands as Cartier (jewellery); Alfred Dunhill and Sulka (designer clothing); Seeger (leather bags); Piaget, Baume & Mercier and Vacheron Constantin (Swiss watches) and Montblanc (pens).
In 1995 Rembrandt and Richemont consolidated their respective tobacco interests into Rothmans International, which was at the time the world's fourth largest cigarette manufacturer.
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“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
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