{"id":6238,"date":"2021-10-15T17:04:20","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T15:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/?p=6238"},"modified":"2021-10-20T10:57:41","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T08:57:41","slug":"a-brief-history-of-luxury-the-crazy-richemont-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/a-brief-history-of-luxury-the-crazy-richemont-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"A brief history of luxury: the crazy Richemont adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Compagnie financi\u00e8re Richemont (CFR), more commonly known as Richemont, is today the world’s second-largest luxury group in terms of turnover, just behind the giant LVMH. The eighth-largest market capitalization on the Swiss Market Index, Richemont’s story began with tobacco plants…<\/p>\n

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Born in 1916 in Graaff-Reinet, South Africa<\/strong>, Anton Rupert<\/strong> was not actually destined for a career in business. The young Afrikaner<\/strong> dreamed of becoming a doctor, a vocation he had to abandon for lack of money to finance his studies. He then turned to the sciences and obtained a degree in chemistry at the University of Pretoria<\/strong> in 1939.<\/p>\n

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Anton Rupert \u00a9 Business Day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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As the Great Depression<\/strong> hit the entire Western world, Anton Rupert<\/strong> made an astonishingly constant assessment of the situation. Despite the unprecedented economic crisis<\/strong>, he realized that people were still using tobacco<\/strong> and alcohol<\/strong> in large quantities. The story goes that he then began making cigarettes<\/strong> in his garage, starting in 1941.<\/p>\n

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With only \u00a310 and the financial support of two investors, he founded the Voorbrand<\/strong> tobacco<\/strong> company. In 1948, the brand was renamed Rembrandt<\/strong>, and expanded into other sectors such as wine and spirits, food, mining, and banking.<\/p>\n

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Anton Rupert<\/strong> took a majority stake<\/strong> in British tobacco<\/strong> manufacturer Rothmans International<\/strong> in 1954 and added Rembrandt<\/strong>‘s foreign interests in 1972. Subsequently, Rothmans International<\/strong> became the fourth-largest tobacco<\/strong> company in the world.<\/p>\n

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But how did the Richemont<\/strong> group, which was then a tobacco<\/strong> company called Rembrandt<\/strong>, manage to make its mark in the world of luxury<\/strong> ? To understand this, we must travel to Paris. In 1959 Robert Hocq<\/strong> founded the leading lighter manufacturer, Silver Match<\/strong>. While designing a solid gold lighter in 1968, Robert Hocq<\/strong> wanted to obtain a license from Cartier<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Cartier facade, New Bond Street, London \u00a9 Kalory<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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With the help of his financial advisor, Joseph Kanoui<\/strong>, the lighter manufacturer managed to convince Cartier<\/strong>. As Cartier<\/strong>‘s activities were doing well, Robert Hocq<\/strong> noticed its potential and looked for a buyout opportunity with investors. One offer caught his attention: that of Anton Rupert<\/strong>, who offered a 20% stake in Cartier<\/strong> America in exchange for a license to produce Cartier<\/strong> cigarettes<\/strong>, which allowed him to sell them for a penny more.<\/p>\n

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In 1979, Robert Hocq<\/strong> was killed by a car in Paris. Anton Rupert<\/strong> took a majority stake<\/strong> in Cartier<\/strong>, which was no longer divided into three companies (France, Great Britain and the United States), but unified as Cartier Monde<\/strong>. In 1988, Cartier<\/strong> expanded its portfolio with the Swiss watchmakers Piaget<\/strong> and Baume & Mercier<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Anton Rupert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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But the Rembrandt<\/strong> company faced difficult days. As the apartheid regime<\/strong> disappeared in South Africa<\/strong>, its activities risked boycott in the face of nationalization. Although he was close to Nelson Mandela<\/strong> and had campaigned for the end of segregation<\/strong> in the country, Anton Rupert<\/strong> tried to protect his company.<\/p>\n

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His son Johann Rupert<\/strong>, a financier at Lazard in New York, came up with the idea of splitting the Rembrandt<\/strong> group into two entities, one where he would keep his South African<\/strong> interests<\/strong> and a second, a new holding<\/strong> company for his international assets<\/strong>, to be located in Switzerland<\/strong>. This is how Compagnie Financi\u00e8re Richemont<\/strong> came into being on August 16, 1988, listed on the Swiss stock exchange<\/strong> and on the Johannesburg<\/strong> stock exchange the following month.<\/p>\n

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Johann Rupert.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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At that time, the company had five business sectors : tobacco, luxury goods, financial services, natural resources, and consumer goods. Later on, he turned to television<\/strong> and ended his activities in the consumer goods sector. Luxury goods<\/strong> and tobacco<\/strong>, which were then the main sources of revenue for the group, fragmented the group into two distinct parts. Tobacco<\/strong> represented 68.2% of the group’s turnover.<\/p>\n

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On the other hand, luxury, grouped under the Vend\u00f4me<\/strong> group in 1993, allows the Richemont<\/strong> group to quickly impose itself. The Cartier<\/strong> brand, for its part, is shaping the Swiss watchmaking<\/strong> landscape, even though it is, for the time being, only a brand management group. Cartier<\/strong> contributed to the transformation of communication in the luxury<\/strong> sector by inserting stories around products for the first time in order to mythologize them.<\/p>\n

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The many anti-smoking policies<\/strong> in the United States and part of Europe from the 1990s will push Richemont<\/strong> to sell Rothmans International<\/strong> to the British American Tobacco<\/strong> group (BAT<\/strong>) in exchange for 23.3% of the company’s shares. Around the same period, Richemont<\/strong> combined its television activities with the Canal+<\/strong> group, in which it then held 15%. He will soon swap his shares for a 2.9% stake in the media specialist Vivendi<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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At the dawn of the year 2000, Richemont<\/strong> decides to merge the Vend\u00f4me<\/strong> group with the rest of the Compagnie financi\u00e8re Richemont. This move was motivated by the purchase of several luxury<\/strong> brands including Lancel<\/strong>, Vacheron Constantin<\/strong>, Shanghai<\/strong> Tang<\/strong>, Purdey<\/strong>, Seeger<\/strong> and Sulka<\/strong>. In 1999, it acquired 60% of French jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Van Cleef & Arpels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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In the same year, the LVMH<\/strong> group emerged as Richemont<\/strong>‘s main rival, with the acquisition of Chaumet<\/strong>, Zenith<\/strong>, TAG Heuer,<\/strong> and Elbel<\/strong>. The Swatch Group<\/strong> also made its mark with the acquisition of Breguet<\/strong>, Glassh\u00fctte Original<\/strong> and Jacquet Droz<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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The early 2000s were a time of acquisitions for Richemont<\/strong>. The group negotiated the financing for the purchase of the LMH<\/strong> watchmaking<\/strong> group (including IWC<\/strong>, Jaeger-LeCoultre<\/strong>, A. Lange & S\u00f6hne<\/strong>), a contract that it succeeded in obtaining at the expense of the LVMH<\/strong> group by making a better proposal than its rival.<\/p>\n

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Anton Rupert<\/strong> died in 2006 at the age of 86. In the following years, Richemont<\/strong> managed to emerge almost intact from the financial crisis<\/strong> of 2008, but suffered more severely from the anti-corruption fight launched in China<\/strong> in 2012 – Swiss watches were then used to bribe senior officials of the Chinese Communist Party<\/strong> – as well as the franc crisis<\/strong> of 2015.<\/p>\n

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Today, while Richemont<\/strong> is emerging as the world’s second-largest luxury<\/strong> group in terms of revenue, several obstacles continue to stand in its way. The political crisis in Hong Kong<\/strong> and the Covid-19 pandemic<\/strong> have weakened the Geneva-based group, which now has 24 companies. In addition, the acquisition of the American jeweler Tiffany<\/strong> by LVMH<\/strong> at the beginning of the year has widened the gap between CFR<\/strong> and the luxury<\/strong> goods leader. It remains to be seen what surprises Richemont<\/strong>, born of tobacco sales, has in store for us in 2022…<\/p>\n

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Read Also > A BRIEF HISTORY OF LUXURY: THE MOROZOV BROTHERS\u2019 COLLECTION<\/a><\/p>\n

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Featured Photo : \u00a9 Maison De Greef<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Compagnie financi\u00e8re Richemont (CFR), more commonly known as Richemont, is today the world’s second-largest luxury group in terms of turnover, just behind the giant LVMH. The eighth-largest market capitalization on the Swiss Market Index, Richemont’s story began with tobacco plants…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"%%post_title%% %%sep%% %%sitetitle%%","_seopress_titles_desc":"The eighth-largest market capitalization on the Swiss Market Index, Richemont's story began with tobacco plants...","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"Richemont,short history of luxury,luxury watchmaking,Anton Rupert,LVMH,Switzerland,South Africa,China,tobacco,luxury,CFR,Compagnie financi\u00e8re Richemont","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-en","category-trends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}