Botswana is set to become De Beers' largest shareholder as Anglo American moves ahead with plans to sell the diamond company. President Duma Boko said on Monday that Botswana's stake will double from 15% to 30% under the proposed deal. Anglo is selling its 85% shareholding to a group called the Global Diamond Consortium, led by Gareth Penny.
Why Botswana matters
Botswana's support is key because it has the right of first refusal on Anglo's stake. De Beers' most important mines are in Botswana, held through Debswana, a 50/50 joint venture with a state-owned company. Boko said the governments of Namibia and Angola would also take part, while Richemont, the Swiss owner of Cartier, is among the companies in talks to join the consortium. As Boko put it, Botswana will gain "greater influence in the strategic decisions for decades to come." He had initially said Botswana wanted a majority stake, but the focus has since shifted to growing its minority holding. The consortium says it is also working with Oman towards becoming a co-owner. Boko also framed the stake as more than a bet on natural diamonds, calling it "an investment in technology" and pointing to a planned $600 million synthetic diamond plant in the US that Element Six will take part in.
A sale in a slump
Anglo has been trying to sell its stake since 2024, as part of a restructuring announced while it was fending off a takeover attempt by BHP. The process has been held back by a prolonged slump in diamond prices and growing demand for lab-grown stones. Rough diamond prices fell 32% to $105 a carat in the first half of this year, and De Beers posted a $113 million EBITDA loss. It has already paused output at its Venetia mine in South Africa and shut its own lab-grown diamond unit, Lightbox. Anglo has written down De Beers three times in three years, cutting its carrying value to $2.3 billion in February, and Bloomberg reported in July that it had discussed selling the business for about $1 billion.
Nothing is signed just yet, though. Anglo says it is still working with Botswana, other governments and the consortium towards binding transaction documents, while the consortium says it wants to finalise agreements as soon as possible. If it goes through, the countries that produce the diamonds will, in Boko's words, sit together at the ownership table of the company that markets them.
