the world's second largest cigarette producer. Remgro held 10% and Richemont held 18.6% of BAT before unbundling. Rupert's eldest son, Johann Rupert, is now the CEO of Richemont and chairman of Remgro. The Rupert family is also deeply involved in the South African wine and liquor industry, owning the L'Ormarins and La Motte wine estates and having a stake in Rupert & Rothschild Vignerons, the wine-making partnership between the Rupert and Rothschild families (at the time of his death due to a car crash in 2001, Rupert's youngest son, Anthonij, was head of Rupert & Rothschild Vignerons.) The Ruperts also partially control two of South Africa's largest wine merchant houses, Stellenbosch Farmers' Winery (SFW) and Distillers Corporation, who together produce one of every six bottles of wine in South Africa and nearly eighty percent of the country's brandy. These two companies have merged to form Distell Group Limited. Among other interests, the Rupert Group also owns South Africa's second-largest chain of private hospitals, the Medi-Clinic Corporation, with 5,500 beds. According to his biography, Rupert's business career spanned over sixty years. He started his global empire with a personal investment of just £10 in 1941 becoming named on the Forbes list of 500 wealthiest families worldwide. At the time of his death his assets were estimated at $1.7 billion. Politics In 1966, he was mentioned as a possible candidate for Prime Minister as a part of a "Verwoerd must go" campaign. The Cape Province section of the ruling National Party endorsed Rupert over Verwoerd, citing the need to improve South Africa's international standing and Rupert's image as a "moderate" who could unify the country, whilst still maintaining and developing the Apartheid system. Verwoerd was assassinated within one month, and hardliner John Vorster was endorsed by the NP caucus to replace him; Vorster was to become South Africa's longest consecutive-serving head of government. He was a member of the secret Afrikaner society, the Afrikaner Broederbond in the 1940s, but eventually he dismissed it as an "absurdity", and allowed his membership to lapse. Involvement in conservation Rupert was a founding member of the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and it was in his role as the president of the organisation's South African branch that he took a lead in the creation of trans-frontier parks (also known as trans-frontier conservation areas (TFCAs) or "peace parks"), such as the Lubombo Transfrontier Conservation Area. He also established