are many such stories of assistance to employees, such as the case of Annies Breytenbach’s wife Loretta who needed eye treatment that was not available in South Africa at the time; she was sent abroad at the company’s expense. On one occasion a female employee told Huberte that married women were not members of the pension fund. Huberte wasted no time in having the anomaly set right. She and other company wives arranged Christmas parties with presents for staff and their children, and she personally congratulated employees who excelled at sport in any way. Her view was that as empathetic wife of the chief executive she could mean much more to the staff than she would have been able to accomplish as a career woman with an occupation of her own.
In Huberte’s view, Rupert had the ability to inspire people to achieve beyond themselves, based on qualities like integrity, purposefulness and honesty. ‘The people who worked with him all ended up as inspired, better people, intensely loyal. This is what makes a leader; someone who can achieve this. It is not enough to be entrepreneurs with capital in the bank. Without the human material Anton had around him, people he could inspire, he wouldn’t have been able to accomplish anything.’7
Loyalty would become one of the core concepts of the Rembrandt Group. On the occasion of Rupert’s 80th birthday in 1996, the business journalist David Meades wrote that Rupert gave ‘new meaning’ to the word: ‘It is probably the single strongest building block of his business empire. His people are willing to sacrifice everything for the group.’8
Rupert expressed his own views on character as the most important ingredient of leadership in a lecture given in 1965 that was published in 1967 in his book Leiers oor leierskap (Leaders on leadership). A good manager lives by ‘a code of values that emanates from his ethical and spiritual life’. He singles out loyalty as the quality of character he prizes above all others – ‘the one quality that cannot be bought with money and has to be earned.’
Indeed, Rupert demanded undivided loyalty. For him it began in the family circle. He believed that an unfaithful husband or wife who became disloyal to a marriage partner could also become disloyal towards the group, and how could someone like that be trusted in his or her work? For him, office relationships between married and unmarried staff were a cardinal sin. Everyone in the Rembrandt Group knew that, and a few individuals who transgressed were transferred or went to work elsewhere in the days before the community norms became more accommodating.
Rupert regards loyalty as one of the supreme virtues to such an extent that he relishes an anecdote about himself. Once when he had to handle a difficult situation concerning a colleague, his friend Prof. James Yeats of Stellenbosch told him: ‘Anton, you are too loyal.’ Rupert stood up, walked round his desk and shook Yeats‘s hand: ‘Thank you, Jamie, thank you; it is the biggest compliment you could have given me.’
When married staff of Rembrandt had to go overseas on business their spouses often accompanied them. This was at Huberte’s insistence. She felt strongly that neither partner’s personal development should lag behind: they should share mind-broadening experiences and build their marriages on a basis of equality, with successful marriages also being an asset to the group. When Johann Rupert took over the reins of Rembrandt he continued the policy.
The Ruperts’ humane empathy ensured a committed workforce. In 1997 their son Johann, testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, could claim a staff turnover of only two percent over more than 50 years.9
Loyalty was one of the factors that helped Distillers as well as the later Rembrandt to go from strength to strength. Another contributing factor to his business success was Rupert’s ability to be ahead of his competitors as far as scientific innovation was concerned. A trained scientist himself, he constantly exploited new technologies as they became available.
Distillers’ first technical manager, the Berlin-trained perfectionist Gerhard Schröder, quickly established a laboratory despite the rather primitive conditions. Schröder left most of the laboratory work to Alfred Baumgartner, who had obtained his doctorate in plant physiology summa cum laude at the University of Freiburg. In Baumgartner’s opinion Rupert could not have had anyone better than Schröder: ‘Gerd Schröder was married to Distillers. He never rested until a task had been completed to perfection and he was always prepared to be on duty at any hour, night or day.’10
As early as 1947 Schröder ordered from France the equipment needed to launch the only modern, fully automated sparkling-wine cellar in the country. Four kinds of sparkling wine were produced under the brand name La Residence.
In 1951, when Rupert first heard about cold or ‘controlled’ fermentation, a process devised by the German Wilhelm Geiss in California, Distillers immediately ordered four high-pressure tanks from Germany. With state-of-the-art equipment and stringent quality control they were able to produce wines of standardised, predictable quality for the mass market. Popular brands like Grünberger Stein with its distinctive flagon (modelled on the Bocksbeutel used by the Franks in Germany) and Kupferberger Auslese are still top sellers today.
As in the case of tobacco, Rupert initially marketed a wide range of brands to suit all tastes. Some were competing with each other, a technique he often followed since it kept everyone in the group on their toes. In the end, however, they reduced the number of brands, concentrating on the top sellers − household names like Oude Meester and Richelieu brandy, Old Master medium sherry, Theuniskraal Riesling and Stellenheimer Rooderust, La Residence sparkling wine and liqueurs like Van der Hum and Amarula.11
While a success story was unfolding in the liquor industry, the dramatic expansion of Rupert’s tobacco empire as well as a controversial beer war lay ahead.
Chapter 7
Rembrandt: birth of a masterpiece
Rupert’s study of world markets as well as his own observations during the Depression had convinced him that ‘tobacco and liquor had the best growth potential because I noticed during the depression of the Thirties that people didn’t smoke less and, if anything, they probably drank more’.1 Undaunted by the unsuccessful attempts of Voorbrand to produce cigarettes for this lucrative market, he persisted in pursuing his dream of manufacturing cigarettes. The Rembrandt Tabakvervaardigingskorporasie van Suid-Afrika Beperk (Rembrandt Tobacco Manufacturing Corporation of South Africa Limited), in which Voorbrand was taken up, was founded in 1946. As a whole the group concentrated on tobacco and liquor because of the growth potential Rupert saw in these markets, but also because the first shareholders were mainly wine and tobacco farmers.
In the initial years Rupert devoted himself more to the tobacco interests while Hertzog mostly attended to the liquor interests. Hertzog tended to keep a lower profile – it was better that way, he often told friends and relatives, as a team could only have one captain: ‘Anton is the masthead.’
The shift in emphasis represented by the name Rembrandt was an important innovation in its own right. Rupert gave much thought to a new name: ‘As much labour (thinking) goes into a good name as into the whole product.’ He knew that Voorbrand was not suitable for the cigarette with which he wanted to conquer the world market; especially not the choosy Afrikaner market that tended to mistrust its own. He was contemplating Cigarette Cézanne when one night he dreamt about Rembrandt’s paintings. When he woke up, he knew instantly what the name of his company would be, and roused Huberte to share his brainwave. ‘We were so excited, we never thought about sleep again,’ she recollects. ‘We made tea and talked till daylight. Both of us knew the name was spot on.’
Rembrandt was a name with universal appeal and a symbol of quality, with the emotional force of the works of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669), the greatest painter of his time and creator of the world-famous Nightwatch that hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. As a name, Rembrandt was immediately recognisable and easily pronounceable in both Afrikaans and English and other world languages.
