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Millionaire of the WWF

One of the co-founders of the organization World Wide for Fund Nature (WWF), the multimillionaire and tycoon of the industry Anton Rupert, died the 18 of January in its mother country, South Africa, to the 89 years. Although in the outer one it was hardly well-known, its name in South Africa used to be mentioned to the same height of the Oppenheimer or the Rothschild.

Famous Brands like Cartier, Montblanc, Piaget, Dunhill or Peter Stuyvesant are only some samples of Rupert Empire, born in the town of Graaff Reinet, constructed on the basis of the tobacco and articles of luxury. Servant in humble conditions, the South African began to make cigarettes in his own garage after a brief stage like professor of Chemistry.

From those beginnings a millionaire business arose that expanded by everybody. this Nouveau Riche reunited its activities in the Richemont Group, with soothes in Switzerland, as well as in the tobacco partnership Rothmans Internatirnational. After the fusion of this one with British American Tobacco (BAT), the empire of Rupert maintained a percentage of 28.5% in the second tobacco manufacturing major of the world. Its second to pound was Remgro, an investing group with participation in the mining, the industry, the means and the finances in 35 states. In a moment Rupert recognized the value of the names of the marks. “Before his first cigarettes arrived in 1948 at the South African market, already it had registered names of the marks in 70 countries to protect them of the competition “, declared the spokesman of the family, Hans Knoetze.

Rupert the Nouveau Riche was considered a pioneer of very ample vision. Although to his they accused it critics to have made his fortune at the cost of the apartheid, he was considered inside and abroad a critic of the racial segregation in his country. In 1968, the industralist created the Foundation for the Protection of the Nature of the South of Africa, that more ahead became World Wildlife Fund South Africa. Along with the deceased prince Bernardo of Holland, Rupert established the bases of which today she is international organization WWF. Its last great ecological project was the Peace Foundation Park, created next to Nelson Mandela. Its goal is the creation of zones of protection of the nature beyond the borders.

One of the Nouveau Riche first projects was the extension of the greater National Park of South Africa, the Kruger, to zones of Mozambique and Zimbabwe. President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki said that Rupert was “an authentic philanthropist”, a man who had an essential participation in the arrival from the democracy to his country and that will also remain in the memory by its commitment with the protection of the nature. Rupert, that died in the city of Stellenbosch, had patron as an important proof in programs of cultural, economic, social and educative impulse. After the death in accident with his smaller son, it is now the major, Johann, the one that the familiar empire inherits. So, will next generation copied the Rupert Success? Only time will answer.

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