John Bredenkamp
| John Bredenkamp | |
|---|---|
| Born |
John Arnold Bredenkamp 11 August 1940 Kimberley, South Africa |
| Nationality | Zimbabwean, South African and Dutch |
| Education | Prince Edward School |
| Known for | founder, Casalee Group |
| Net worth | £700 million |
John Arnold Bredenkamp (born 11 August 1940) is a Zimbabwean businessman and former rugby player. He is the founder of the Casalee Group.
Born in Kimberley, South Africa, Bredenkamp moved with his family to Southern Rhodesia while he was still a child. He was orphaned in his mid-teens on his birthday when while he was riding his bike, on return he found his father had shot his mother and sister and then shot himself. His sister survived the shooting. He was educated in Southern Rhodesia at Prince Edward School, Salisbury. Of Dutch ancestry, Bredenkamp registered as a Rhodesian citizen in 1958. He is reported to have lost Zimbabwean citizenship "by default" in 1984, but this was restored to him shortly thereafter.
Bredenkamp is reported to hold Zimbabwean, South African and Dutch passports. The matter of his nationality was a matter of dispute with some Zimbabwean officials towards the end of 2006.
As a Rugby Union international, he captained Rhodesia from 1965 to 1968.
After his graduation, Bredenkamp joined Gallaher Limited, an international tobacco company in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), as a leaf buyer. In 1968 he was transferred to Niemeyer in the Netherlands, where he rose to the position of leaf director.
After leaving Gallaher in 1976 Bredenkamp founded the Casalee Group of companies registered in Antwerp, Belgium. It is believed that the Casalee operation was involved in the sale of Rhodesian tobacco on world markets, through evasion of UN sanctions. Casalee was primarily a leaf tobacco merchanting company but was also engaged in general trading and an active initiator of counter trade and barter deals. The Casalee Group grew over 16 years to become the fifth largest tobacco merchant in the world and the biggest non-US leaf tobacco company. The Group employed 2,500 people and had offices in all the major tobacco growing countries in the world including the USA (Winston-Salem), Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Greece, India, Indonesia, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey and Yugoslavia. The company owned tobacco-processing factories in the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Brazil.
The Casalee Group of companies was sold in 1993 to Universal Leaf Tobacco, the largest leaf tobacco company in the world. Since then, Bredenkamp has expanded his business interests into many other different areas, mainly through the Zimbabwe registered Breco company.
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