Gross Mismanagement! - March 2026
David Kellie, the former CEO of the Natural Diamond Council, let it all hang out in a final interview. He said, “people keep trying to create a brand for their own (diamond) subset. And that’s holding the market back … The consumer has never shown any propensity to put a value on the country of origin of a gemstone or any other natural resource … It just takes away from the focus on what the industry needs to do.”
I’ve said it before, the first and most important element in diamond marketing is creating aspirational demand. Origin, transparency and sustainability are secondary to desirability.
De Beers, under the management of Anglo American, is a prime example of neglecting the primary importance of desirability. You name the social program and De Beers got behind it. Generic marketing was pushed aside for the complete tenure of their management.
What is more, De Beers promoted their own branded retail stores and branded diamonds under Forevermark. Rather than supporting their downstream clients, they competed with them. I won’t even go into their introduction of Lightbox.
Anglo American has once again devalued De Beers. It is currently valued at 2.3 billion, down from 9.2 billion. Anglo American is completely responsible for fracturing the diamond market and the depreciated value of their diamond assets.
It is a mistake to value a branded diamond over a generic diamond. All diamonds are precious. ‘Diamonds are Forever’ never distinguished one diamond as being better than another, that is why the promotion was successful. Thank heavens Anglo American has decided to off-load De Beers.
The suiters, vying for a share of De Beers, include Botswana, Angola, and Namibia, as well as, a consortium led by Gareth Penny. Gareth is a former CEO of De Beers. He ran De Beers, in the profitable years, before the Anglo American debacle. Gareth has a huge history with De Beers. He understands natural diamonds as well as the unique and complicated structure that is De Beers.
Selling diamonds is not like selling commodities like gold, silver or copper. De Beers is a one-of-a-kind mining and distribution entity and Anglo American is a huge mining conglomerate that can not adapt to the complex infrastructure of the diamond market.
Gareth Penny, on the other hand, understands De Beers. He is a Rhodes Scholar; he worked for De Beers for 22 years, from 1988-2010. He was CEO from 2005-2010. He instigated demand-driven initiatives and is responsible for many of De Beers most successful campaigns. Since his time with De Beers, Gareth has distinguished himself as one of the worlds’ top business managers.
We can only hope that Gareth’s bid for De Beers, coupled with the participation of local diamond producing countries, is successful in getting control of this grossly mismanaged company. He is capable of jump-starting an inevitable turnaround.
And that’s the Regal Imports News for the beginning of March.
