The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World. - book reviews

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Oct 25, 1993 | by Helle Bering-Jensen

These were the people who came together to form the De Beers company, named after the farm on which a rich lode had been discovered (and which was foolishly sold 6,000 pounds).

The stroke that made De Beers into the worldwide cartel it is today came in 1889, when it amalgamated with the Kimberley mine. The largest check ever written until that time, for 5,338,650 pounds, sealed the deal. Soon afterward another ambitious young English-man, Ernest Oppenheimer, who was fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe, bought the company, and in 1918 he expanded its powers through the Anglo-American Corp. Today De Beers controls more than 1,300 businesses and 90 percent of the world's diamonds. Every one of its corporations, Kanfer writes, can be traced to the Oppenheimer family.

How long De Beers can keep its grip on the diamond market remains to be seen. Political turmoil in South Africa, smuggling from the mines of Angola and the future of Russia all will have something to do with it. (During the Soviet era, the communists silently sold their Siberian diamonds through De Beers, while denouncing the company.) The vast riches of the Russian mines may cause diamond prices to tumble and break the cartel wide open.