25 Facts About De Beers

1.

De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond sourcing, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors.

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2.

De Beers is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and coastal mining.

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3.

De Beers built and consolidated the company's global monopoly over the diamond industry until his death in 1957.

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4.

Name 'De Beers' was derived from the two Dutch settlers, brothers Diederik Arnoldus de Beer and Johannes Nicolaas de Beer, who owned a South African farm named Vooruitzicht near Zandfontein in the Boshof District of Orange Free State.

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5.

De Beers invested the profits of this operation into buying up claims of small mining operators, with his operations soon expanding into a separate mining company.

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6.

De Beers soon secured funding from the Rothschild family, who would finance his business expansion.

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7.

De Beers Consolidated Mines was formed in 1888 by the merger of the companies of Barney Barnato and Cecil Rhodes, by which time the company was the sole owner of all diamond mining operations in the country.

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8.

De Beers 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".

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9.

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.

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10.

De Beers ran television advertisements featuring silhouettes of people wearing diamonds, set to the music of 'Palladio' by Karl Jenkins.

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11.

In May 2018, De Beers introduced a new brand called "Lightbox" that are made with synthetic diamonds.

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12.

De Beers Consolidated Mines is responsible for the De Beers mining in South Africa.

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13.

In 2008, De Beers began production at the Snap Lake mine in the Northwest Territories, Canada; this was the first De Beers mine outside Africa and was Canada's first completely underground diamond mine.

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14.

De Beers opened the Victor mine in Ontario, Canada, the same year, a day after Snap Lake.

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15.

De Beers pioneered the approach in 2008 when it broke with 44 years of direct sales to hold the diamond industry's first online international auction sale.

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16.

In February 2020, De Beers reported its worst set of earnings since the company was bought by miner Anglo American in 2012.

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17.

De Beers plc was originally incorporated as De Beers Societe Anonyme in 2000 in Luxembourg.

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18.

De Beers plc is the holding company of The De Beers Group of Companies.

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19.

The first De Beers boutique opened in 2002 on London's Old Bond Street as the brand's flagship store.

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20.

In 1999, De Beers Group stopped all outside buying of diamonds in order to guarantee the conflict-free status of their diamonds effective from 26 March 2000.

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21.

In 2018, De Beers used blockchain technology to successfully track 100 high-value diamonds.

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22.

In September 2017, De Beers partnered with UN Women to help the advancement of women within the company and the countries it operates in.

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23.

De Beers appealed the decision but ended up paying the settlement in 2013.

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24.

In February 2006, De Beers entered into legally binding commitments with the European Commission to cease purchasing rough diamonds from Russian mining company Alrosa as of the end of 2008 in order to ensure competition between the two companies.

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25.

The South African Department of Mineral Resources disclosed that De Beers did not authorise them to publish figures involving values, sales, pricing and other data, preventing transparency of the industry.

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