De Beers
De Beers Group is a British multinational diamond company that specialises in the mining, trading and marketing of diamonds. The company is active in open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial and coastal mining. It operates in 35 countries, with mining taking place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Canada. It also has an artisanal mining business, Gemfair, which operates in Sierra Leone.
From its inception in 1888 until the start of the 21st century, De Beers controlled 80% to 85% of rough diamond distribution and was considered a monopoly. By 2000, the company's control of the world diamond supply decreased to 63%.
The company was founded in 1888 by British businessman Cecil Rhodes, who was financed by the South African diamond magnate Alfred Beit and the London-based N M Rothschild & Sons bank. In 1926, Ernest Oppenheimer, a German immigrant to Britain and later South Africa who had earlier founded mining company Anglo American with American financier J. P. Morgan, was elected to the board of De Beers. He built and consolidated the company's global monopoly over the diamond industry until he died in 1957. During this time, he was involved in several controversies, including price fixing and trust behaviour, and was accused of not releasing industrial diamonds for the US war effort during World War II.
In 2011, Anglo American took control of De Beers after buying the Oppenheimers' family stake of 40% for US$5.1 billion and increasing its stake to 85%, ending the 80-year Oppenheimer control of the company. The company is currently owned 85% by Anglo American and 15% by the Government of Botswana.
In May 2024, Anglo American announced its intention to spin off or sell De Beers.
History
Foundation
The name 'De Beers' was derived from two Afrikaner settlers: brothers Diederik Arnoldus de Beer and Johannes Nicolaas de Beer, who owned a farm named Vooruitzicht near Zandfontein in the Boshof District of the Orange Free State. Diederik and Johannes were direct descendants of the VOC soldier and later farmer, Matthys Andries de Beer, of Vaasa, Finland, who had migrated to South Africa in 1699 via Lübeck. Following the discovery of diamonds on Diederik and Johannes's land, the increasing demands of the British government forced them to sell their farm on 31 July 1871 to merchant Alfred Johnson Ebden for £6,600. Vooruitzicht would become the site of the Big Hole and the De Beers mine, two successful diamond mines. Their name, which was given to one of the mines, subsequently became associated with the company.Cecil Rhodes, the founder of the British South Africa Company, got his start by renting water pumps to miners during the diamond rush that started in 1869, when an 83.5 carat diamond called the 'Star of South Africa' was found at Hopetown near the Orange River in South Africa. He invested the profits of this operation into buying up claims of small mining operators, with his operations soon expanding into a separate mining company. He soon secured funding from the Rothschild family, who financed his business expansion. De Beers Consolidated Mines was formed in 1888 by the merger of the companies of Barney Barnato and Cecil Rhodes. By this time, the company was the sole owner of all diamond mining operations in South Africa.
In 1889, Rhodes negotiated a strategic agreement with the London-based Diamond Syndicate, which agreed to purchase a fixed quantity of diamonds at an agreed price, thereby regulating output and maintaining prices. The agreement soon proved to be very successful – for example, during the trade slump of 1891–1892, supply was curtailed to maintain the price. Rhodes was concerned about the break-up of the new monopoly, stating to shareholders in 1896 that the company's "only risk is the sudden discovery of new mines, which human nature will work recklessly to the detriment of us all".
The Second Boer War proved to be a challenging time for the company. Kimberley was besieged as soon as war broke out, thereby threatening the company's valuable mines. Rhodes personally moved into the city at the onset of the siege to put political pressure on the British government to divert military resources towards relieving the siege rather than more strategic war objectives. Despite being at odds with the military, Rhodes placed the full resources of the company at the disposal of the defenders, manufacturing shells, defences, an armoured train and a gun named Long Cecil in the company workshops.
Oppenheimer control
In 1898, diamonds were discovered on farms near Pretoria, Transvaal. One led to the discovery of the Premier Mine. The Premier Mine was registered in 1902 and the Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough diamond ever discovered, was found there in 1905. Its Thomas Cullinan refused to join the De Beers cartel. Instead, the mine started selling to a pair of independent dealers named Bernard and Ernest Oppenheimer, thereby weakening the De Beers stranglehold.Francis Oats, who became Chairman of De Beers in 1908, was dismissive of the threats from the Premier Mine and the finds in German South West Africa.
However, production soon equalled all of the De Beers mines combined. Ernest Oppenheimer was appointed the local agent for the powerful London Syndicate, rising to the position of mayor of Kimberley within 10 years. He understood the core principle that underpinned De Beers's success, stating in 1910 that "common sense tells us that the only way to increase the value of diamonds is to make them scarce, that is to reduce production".
During World War I, the Premier Mine was finally absorbed into De Beers. When Rhodes died in 1902, De Beers controlled 90% of the world's diamond production. Ernest Oppenheimer took over the chairmanship of the company in 1929, after buying shares and being appointed to the board in 1926. Oppenheimer was very concerned about the discovery of diamonds in 1908 in German South West Africa, fearing that the increased supply would swamp the market and force prices down. Former CIA chief Admiral Stansfield Turner claimed that De Beers restricted US access to industrial diamonds needed for the country's war effort during World War II.
During the early 1930s, the company conducted experimental work which in large part pioneered the use of diamond drills. This was highly preferable to more expensive and rarer carbons previously in use. The Free State Gold Rush was made possible in part due to this innovation, as the fields required deep drilling to reach gold-bearing reefs.
In May 1955, Ernest Oppenheimer opened a new headquarters which combined the operations of Anglo American and the De Beers group. After Ernest died in November 1957, operation of Anglo and De Beers was passed on to his son, Harry Oppenheimer. Under Harry, the company expanded to several different countries, including Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Portugal, Zambia, and Tanzania. In South Africa, Harry opposed apartheid, arguing that it hindered economic growth. Despite this, De Beers has been criticized for profiting from the system during the apartheid period. By 1973, Anglo and De Beers accounted for 10 percent of South Africa's gross national product and 30 percent of the country's exports.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, De Beers attempted to secretly enter the United States' diamond market, being forced to divest its American assets in 1975 to avoid the risk of violating anti-trust laws. Harry Oppenheimer stepped down as the chairman and director of Anglo-American and De Beers in December 1982.
21st-century changes
During the 20th century, De Beers used several methods to leverage its dominant position to influence the international diamond market. First, it attempted to convince independent producers to join its single channel monopoly. When that did not work, it flooded the market with diamonds similar to those of producers who refused to join in, depressing their price and undermining return for the resistant. It also purchased and stockpiled diamonds produced by other manufacturers as well as surplus diamonds in order to control prices by limiting supply. Finally, it bought diamonds when prices fell considerably naturally, to constrict supply and drive their value back up, such as during the Great Depression.In 2000, the De Beers business model changed because of factors such as the decision by producers in Canada and Australia to distribute diamonds outside the De Beers channel, as well as increasingly negative publicity surrounding blood diamonds, which forced De Beers to protect its image by limiting sales to its own mined products.
The combination of a more fragmented and thus more competitive diamond market, increased transparency, and greater liquidity caused De Beers's market share of rough diamonds to fall from as high as 90% in the 1980s to 29.5% in 2019.
Seeing these developing trends, the Oppenheimer family announced in November 2011 its intention to sell its entire 40% stake in De Beers to Anglo American plc, thereby increasing Anglo American's ownership of the company to 85%.
The transaction was worth £3.2 billion in cash and ended the Oppenheimer dynasty's 80-year ownership of De Beers.
From 2016 to 2024, the De Beers Company has released a series of "Modern Slavery Statements" to comply with Section 54 of the United Kingdom's 2015 Modern Slavery Act.
In 2025, De Beers reported holding an inventory of unsold mined diamonds valued at approximately US$2 billion. The company attributed this to a decline in demand for natural diamonds, driven in part by the growing popularity of lab-grown diamonds, which have become significantly more affordable. By 2025, lab-grown diamonds were reported to be approximately 90% less expensive than their mined counterparts, compared to a 10% price difference in 2018.
Marketing
De Beers successfully advertised diamonds to manipulate consumer demand. One of the most effective marketing strategies has been the marketing of diamonds as a symbol of love and commitment. Copywriter Frances Gerety working for N. W. Ayer & Son coined the famous advertising slogan, 'A Diamond is Forever', in 1947. In 2000, Advertising Age magazine named 'A Diamond is Forever' the best advertising slogan of the 20th century. The slogan likely inspired the James Bond book, film and song title Diamonds Are Forever.Other successful campaigns include the 'eternity ring', the 'trilogy ring' and the 'right hand ring'.
De Beers ran television advertisements featuring silhouettes of people wearing diamonds, set to the music of Palladio by Karl Jenkins. The campaign, titled "Shadows and Lights", first ran in the first quarter of 1993. The song would later inspire a compilation album, Diamond Music, released in 1996, which features the Palladio suite. A 2010 commercial for Verizon Wireless parodied the De Beers spots.
In May 2018, De Beers introduced a new brand of jewelry called "Lightbox" made with synthetic diamonds in partnership with Element Six. The synthetic stones started at $200 for a quarter-carat to $800 for a full-carat diamond, about one-tenth the cost of naturally occurring diamonds. The new brand began selling in September 2018, and the stones are produced in Gresham, Oregon, a $94 million facility using the region's cheap electricity, which opened in 2018 with a capacity for 500,000 rough carats of diamonds per year. With prices of lab-grown diamonds continuing to fall, De Beers announced the discontinuation of the Lightbox brand in May 2025, positioning itself in the luxury Veblen good space of mined diamonds.