De Beers will shine after £4bn Anglo spin-off, insists boss Al Cook

The boss of De Beers has insisted that the company will thrive when it is separated from its current owner Anglo American – with a listing on the London stock market potentially on the cards.

Al Cook pointed out the firm did ‘some of our finest work’ in the 124 years before Anglo took control 12 years ago.

But with Anglo now looking to offload the world’s most prestigious diamond miner, there is speculation it could list on the London Stock Exchange in a £4bn float, or be sold to a buyer such as a sovereign wealth fund.

De Beers is famed for its adverts that declared ‘A Diamond is Forever’ in 1947 and reshaped the entire market for engagement rings.

But it has struggled with a slump in sales and prices, particularly as the popularity of much cheaper lab-grown stones has risen.

Plan: De Beers boss Al Cook (pictured) wants to transform the group into a luxury jeweller, more than doubling the number of its own boutiques from 40 to 100 by the end of the decade

Anglo’s boss Duncan Wanblad said last month that De Beers was one of four businesses it would sell or spin off under a rushed-out strategy that helped fend off a £39billion takeover by rival BHP.

Cook, who has been De Beers chief executive since February 2023, said it was ‘consciously uncoupling’ from Anglo, in a nod to the term used by Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin when they divorced on good terms.

Cook, 49, has now unveiled his own roadmap for De Beers.

He wants to transform the 136-year-old group into a leading luxury jeweller, more than doubling the number of its own boutiques from 40 to 100 by the end of the decade.

While it will continue mining, the goal is to become a rival to high-end houses such as Cartier and Tiffany.

‘Mining will always be necessary and important, and we think we’re very good at it,’ Cook tells the Mail.

‘But it’s got to be so much more than that, if we’re going to be successful in the future.’

Crucially, he wants to make the public fall back in love with ‘natural’ diamonds. He hopes that a customer at one of his stores will be able to pick up any item of jewellery and see from which De Beers mine it originated. 

Sparking: Actress Lily James at a De Beers promotion in London

This is what has driven the name of his ‘Origins’ strategy – though whether it will come up with a new tagline to rival the blockbuster ‘A Diamond is Forever’ remains to be seen.

In this spirit, the group will also stop producing lab-grown diamonds for jewellery after a controversial six-year experiment, though it will continue to make them for industrial purposes such as the next generation of 6G microchips.

Cook is effectively betting the house that people are willing to pay large sums for items from luxury brands, even though cheaper alternatives are available. Cook was an unlikely candidate to lead De Beers, having spent his career at BP, where he was latterly the chief of staff to ex-boss Bob Dudley, and Equinor.

He struck up a conversation with Wanblad’s predecessor Mark Cutifani almost by chance on a Skype call for a charity board meeting during the pandemic – but there were technical issues.

‘The only two people who managed to get on the Skype call out of all of this charity were me and Mark,’ he says. ‘So we start talking.’ After Cutifani wowed him with what De Beers was doing to distribute vaccines in Botswana, Cook suggested a ‘socially distanced coffee’.

‘At the end of the chat I said: “You know, if there ever was an opening in De Beers, and if you were ever going to consider someone who doesn’t know anything about diamonds, I would be interested.”’

De Beers was established by Cecil Rhodes in 1888 and for 80 years was part-owned by the Oppenheimer family. It has had business ties with Anglo for most of its history – but it was only in 2012 when Anglo bought its 85 per cent majority stake.

The remaining 15 per cent is owned by the government of Botswana, where it has mines and holds its regular diamond sales.

The benefit of being owned by a conglomerate such as Anglo, which has a range of metal businesses, is that there is an in-built safety net.

If one commodity has dropped in value, another has probably risen, balancing out these swings.

Bearing this in mind, can De Beers really go it alone? ‘The short answer is: “Yes,”’ Cook says.

‘For 124 years, we didn’t have Anglo American as a majority owner. I think, arguably, some of our finest work was done when we were stand-alone. 

So I feel confident about that. The Oppenheimers and my predecessors did magnificent things as a stand-alone company and I think we can do that again.’

Anglo’s biggest legacy, he says, will be about the technical mining knowhow it has passed on to De Beers. And he insists the split is amicable, even if it will take time.

‘Like any couple that decides to consciously uncouple, we’re certainly starting off with the best of intentions,’ Cook says.

‘And we’ve been dating in one shape or form for 100 years. We’ll do this in a very nice way, I think, and by the end of next year we’ll go our separate ways.’