There are plenty of instances when a diamantaire tries to take his bankers “to the cleaners.” There are instances where an insolvent diamantaire will pay trade debts and leave the banks waiting. Read More...

Will De Beers survive? This was one of the responses in our inbox to last week’s editorial, “Giving Credit to De Beers”... Read More...

The publication of the De Beers annual results has always represented an occasion for considerable pride in which the chairman would face analysts and journalists. Read More...

The KPCS is not a private business. The members are representatives of 49 governments who take the position of their respective governments. Read More...

A few hours at the 2009 Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town was sufficient to hear enough De Beers-related gossip to keep any investigative journalist busy for months researching whether or not there is fire burning under all the smoke. Read More...

In the current crisis environment, in which every rough diamond carat supplied to the market may be one carat too many, Alrosa is perceived to be acting responsibly and admirably by taking itself “out of the market” and, instead, selling its current output to the federal government’s Gokhran precious stones and metals depository. Read More...

There are a number of diamond/commodity linked structured products (derivatives) on the market, which ostensibly, or potentially, provide investors with considerable upside gain when cashing in on the rising value of the underlying diamond commodity. Read More...

DTC Managing Director Varda Shine has approached the Competition Authorities in Brussels for approval to make important changes to SoC. The DTC has accepted constraints on its own ability to sell rough to avoid any possible abuse of dominant power. These constraints now seriously impair the DTC’s ability to sell its rough. Read More...

De Beers’ London office will lay off 25 percent of its staff. As with every major undertaking at the organization, it has construed an elaborate “selection framework” within which selection activities related to this major downsizing in London is taking place. Read More...

An Indian diamond manufacturer shared with me his decision to send a few thousand workers home and to supply throughout 2009 all existing clients from his inventory. He will review the situation within a year, and when the decision is made to restart manufacturing, he’ll need between two and three months to implement such a re-opening. Read More...