Johann Rupert, born on 1 June 1950, comes from a wealthy family after his father, Anton, built his fortunes on tobacco.
Last year, Rupert and his family came in second on the Forbes list with a reported fortune of $7.1bn. He is currently number two in Africa and his real-time net worth is reported as $8.8bn. Although he has been in the limelight for his strong political views and connections, Rupert is a very private person.
David Rockefeller (died 2017) was a family friend and Rupert’s boss when he worked at Chase Manhattan Bank in the 1970s.
Gerrit Thomas Ferreira, Paul Harris and Laurie Dippenaar are some of Rupert’s earliest business associates and they are still close. In the late 1970s, their small financial structuring house in Johannesburg, Rand Consolidated Investments, merged with Rupert’s Rand Merchant Bank to become one of the largest financial services firms in
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