The De Beers Diamond Company is well known, internationally based diamond trading and mining company. It has guarded the diamond flow in to the United States market for past several decades. Conceivably, a more suitable title for De Beers would be cartel as it started as groups of producers whose objective was to control supply of diamonds, fix prices and limit competition, and the groups actually did what it is decided at the very beginning.
The name “De Beers” originated with two Afrikaner farmers Johannes Nicholas de Beers and Diederik Arnoldus De Beers. These two brothers found diamonds on their farm and it was hard for them to protect these diamonds from the invasion of mad diamond seekers. They decided to sale the farm and land. The land consisted of two large mines: Kimberly and De Beers.
As two entities appeared on the top for acquiring the land, two colossal battles flamed in the next few years. The entities fought for acquiring the land included the prospective investors, Charles Rudd and Cecil Rhodes and the mining company Barnato. After acquiring the De Beers mine, they wanted Kimberly mine as well. The transaction started, each of potential buyers was ferociously involved and was buying stock in the “Kimberly Central”. Finally Rudd and Rhodes won the battle and pushed Barnato to agree to a merger with De Beers.
In its entire history, De Beers has been enclosed with the different contentions from all sides. An evident cartel, the Diamond industry was monopolized by the group for decades and the group remain the powerful players in the diamond industry. The companies involved in the cartel, promoted the mythology related to diamonds (Hart, 2001), hype them as highly valuable and rare. Actually, at one point in the ...
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...een surrounded by contention from all sides. An obvious cartel, they monopolized the diamond industry for decades and remain a powerful player in the diamond industry. De Beers flourished and grew over the years, establishing itself as an international diamond cartel that was highly successful, ruthless against its competitors, and king in the world of diamonds. With a wealth of diamonds at its fingertips, the possibilities were endless. They encouraged the mythology surrounding diamonds, touting them as rare and highly valuable. With diamond values in the billions, the company still kept a stronghold on its diamonds and touted them as rarities. Diamonds are not rare and the only reason they have been so is because of De Beers. Their strict regulation of diamonds has supported ridiculously high prices and an artificially inflated value that remains to this day.
Deep within African mines, elusive diamonds lay enveloped in the Earth’s crust. Possessing much influence, beauty, and tension, nature’s hardest known substance causes parallel occurrences of unity and destruction on opposite sides of the globe. Diamonds, derived from the Greek word "adamas", meaning invincible, are formed deep within the mantle, and are composed entirely from carbon. Moreover, only under tremendous amounts of heat and pressure can diamonds form into their preliminary crystal state. In fact, diamonds are formed approximately 150km- 200km below the surface and at radical temperatures ranging from 900-1300 C°. When these extremes meet, carbon atoms are forced together creating diamond crystals. Yet how do these gems, ranking a ten on Moh’s hardness scale, impact the individual lives of millions of people besides coaxing a squeal out of brides-to-be? These colorless, yellow, brown, green, blue, reddish, pink, grey and black minerals are gorgeous in their cut state, but how are these otherwise dull gems recognized and harvested? Furthermore, how and why is bloodshed and violence caused over diamonds in Africa, the supplier of approximately 65% of the world’s diamonds? (Bertoni) The environmental, social, and economic impact of harvesting, transporting, and processing diamonds is crucial because contrary to popular belief, much blood has been spilled over first-world “bling”.
DeBeers had the buying power to control over 80% of all mined diamonds. They also through cleaver strategic planning had control over most of the diamond cutting and polishing industry.
Deutsche Brauerei has been a family owned and operated corporation for 12 generations, which has created a high level of focus and control. Each generation has kept the management and operations processes relatively simple, centered on brewing practices and quality. Deutsche Brauerei’s rapid growth in recent years can be attributed to several factors. First and foremost, the company’s success is centered on the product itself, which has won numerous quality awards and is quite popular in Germany. Another contributing factor to the recent growth may have been a bit inadvertent. The purchase of new equipment in 1994, which was necessary as a result of a fire that destroyed the old equipment, allowed the company to increase brewing capacity and efficiency. Finally, Deutsche Brauerei’s decision to enter the Ukranian market in 1998 contributed significantly to the rapid growth. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. brought market reforms, and Deutsche Brauerei jumped on the opportunity to enter the fragmented beer industry, capture the large population and capitalize on the prime location in Europe. Lukas Schweitzer was savvy enough to hire local expert Oleg Pinchuk away from a competitor as the marketing manager, and Oleg was instrumental in building the business in Ukraine by securing accounts and implementing the field warehousing to support distributors. Deutsche’s beer was hugely popular in the Ukraine almost immediately, and volume sales more than offset the depreciation of the Ukrainian currency. Sales in Ukraine accounted for 28% of Deutsche’s total sales, and skyrocketed from 4,262 euros in 1998 to 25,847 euros in 2001.
In Nicky Oppenheimer's speech, he states that diamonds are a valuable luxury desired by many and DeBeers strives to preserve their value. Furthermore, he claimed that it is essential for DeBeers to "be able to clear the market of all rough diamond production". Other companies who deal with this luxury will be motivated by evil greed, so DeBeers has the duty to ensure that these types of companies will not gain power. From the discovery of diamonds in certain countries in Africa, DeBeers has allowed their economies to drastically grow. Oppenheimer also brings up an interesting point when he compares how similar the diamond and oil industries are with their regulations standards, which lessens the negative views on DeBeers' brand, since they
This relates back to Congo, where violence spurred by ethnic rivalries is due to local groups’ desire to make money by getting into the extractive industries. In another example, Newmont, an American company, mines Ghanaian gold and pays the government part of the profits. Here, Burgis shined the spotlight on an environmental issue: the sodium cyanide spill in Kwamebourkrom that killed aquatic life and posed hazardous living conditions for locals (Burgis, 134). Finally, in the last few chapters, Burgis touched on Cecil John Rhodes’ legacy as the founder of De Beers, blood diamonds, imperialism, and violence carried out by local governments and mining companies in order to protect their interests.
For the past 112 years, De Beers has dominated the diamond industry. Established in April 1880 by Cecil John Rhodes and his partner, Charles Dunell Rudd, De Beers rose to prominence, merging with Barney Barnato’s Kimberley Central Mining company and acquiring more and more mines (Hauser, 2002). The ...
In “ “Blood Diamonds” and Africa’s Armed Conflicts in the Post – Cold War Era, “ Orogun (2004) said that diamonds are referring as “clean stones”. This article explains about the black market is really happening in African. I am using this article to support how the black market of diamond trades is still not regulated, and they defined it as “licit” trade.
Final contribution of de beers to the diamond pipeline is the promotion of diamond jewelry for the industry; through advertising campaigns developed from extensive market research; trade promotional activities and jewelry design competitions
Some of the highest producing diamond mines are countries in Africa. Countries that had some of the highest rate of conflict were Angola, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. The ...
Said to be a girl's best friend, diamonds are often seen as a symbol of poverty, war, and death for many Africans. Due to the cruel and inhuman manner by which these diamonds are mined and process, the trade of these illicit gems must be stopped. Conflict diamonds or blood diamonds are often associated with war, forced labor, child labor, and smuggling. Paul Orogun wrote an article for in the journal, World Affairs, where he describes some of the brutal conflicts in recent African history. “Blood Diamonds and Africa's Armed Conflicts in the Post—Cold War Era”, in which he talks about the conflicts associated with the illegal diamond trade. Orogun de...
In Zaire, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, many children wake up to go mining for diamonds instead of going to school. When we think of diamonds, we tend to think of a precious gift that is a rarity which is tended to be given in proposals or other special occasions. The truth is, diamonds are quite common in west and central Africa, but to profit more off these blood diamonds the industry markets them off to be much more rare than they actually are. Blood diamonds, why are they called blood diamonds? Possibly because they are made by the bloody hands of small children who are in physical, mental, and emotional harm from working this burdensome job every day.
Out of all the earth’s major natural resources, diamonds are the most sought after and most mysterious. Throughout history, the virtuosity and resistance of diamonds have caused fighters and lover’s great pain and happiness. For centuries, the value of the diamond commodity became increasingly popular. However, it wasn’t until the mid 1900s, when diamonds permanently made their signature as the world’s most indispensable symbol of love and affection (Howard, Vick 2008). Soon after, diamond rings became the 21st century standard of engagement rings. Without a doubt, everybody in society knows how valuable this commodity is. Nonetheless, what truly makes this commodity more valuable are the stages it goes through from the diamond mines to th...
The value of diamonds lies on their physical properties that make them suitable for many applications. Natural diamonds are only of high value if they are scarce in nature. Realizing this, De Beers Consolidated Mines was formed to control the supply of diamonds from mines across the world. The diamond market is influenced by mine production, rough diamond distribution, preparation/cutting, and retail markets. The project will be concentrating on the retail markets for diamonds and other high end jewelry.
The film marker is trying to raise awareness of the illicit conflict diamond trade and reinforcing the Kimberley process1 and showing how it will stem the flow of conflict diamonds. This is successful mainly due to the public outburst after the movie. The great impact of the movie has caused diamond companies like De Beers2 to start a pre-emptive PR (public relationship) campaign, even before the movie was released to inform people that their diamonds are conflict-free.
The third determinant of the diamond – related and supporting industries looks at the industry suppliers and...