This is mpv's partner...now wouldn't that be exciting if mpv or a new partner took out this turd....a new partner or 100 percent ownership...what a dream......debeers has done nothing but stall the project.

Bit by Bit

By Charles Wyndham.

The fact that Anglo American in its press release last week setting out its new management structure and reorganised divisions for its businesses made no mention of diamonds or De Beers at all, is surely a sign of the times.

It is less than 10 years ago that Anglo and De Beers had significant crossholdings between each other as part of the Oppenheimer Empire.

Over time this was changed and with De Beers’s privatisation in 2001, De Beers ended up being owned 45% by Anglo, 40% by the Oppenheimers’ and 15% by the Government of Botswana.

So now Anglo, De Beers’ largest shareholder does not see fit to make any mention of diamonds in the context of its major reorganisation, which in turn must raise questions as to how long Anglo is thinking that De Beers will remain part of its portfolio.

The problem may be finding someone else wishing to buy the company or even parts of the company as there might be a substantial difference of opinion as to the value of such assets.

The shortage of cash for De Beers especially in light of its huge debt, has reached epidemic proportions according to some anecdotal information that I have been given, and I am not referring to the no turkeys for the staff.

Turkeys are an interesting point is that in the past the gift of turkeys to the DTC London staff was a personal gift from Sir Philip Oppenheimer and were not paid for by the company, so something may have changed.

However, moving from cold turkey, firstly, I was told that it was Anglo American who are paying the De Beers head office salaries in Kimberley.

Secondly, we all know now that De Beers has decided over a number of years not to spend cash on the necessary stripping of the Venetia mine, so that it is left with a mine requiring hundreds of millions to get back to full production, which in part explains the news from Anglo that De Beers production this year is likely to be only 50% of last year’s.

Thirdly, DTC in London has apparently opened the company gym in 17 Charterhouse Street to the paying public.

I don’t know about you, but to me it is the third bit of gossip that I find most telling.

Not only has De Beers gone bust to all intents and purposes in all but in name, but it has broken the first rule of bankruptcy, ‘Don’t advertise the fact’.

Even Alan Bond got a reprieve by buying the famous Van Gogh Sunflowers for some $40 million all that time ago before he ended up in clink.

From being disembowelled, like in that good old English custom of ‘hang, drawing and quartering’, where the hapless victim was strung up long enough to think or hope he was dead, only to be disembowelled whilst alive, finally being chopped up.

De Beers is clearly in the dismembering stage.

Just to mention a few tit bits.

Koffiefontein, Williamson and Cullinan have gone.

Koffie’s dollar per carat shot through the roof as soon as the mine tendered its goods, compared to the prices that De Beers was achieving through its system.

Cullinan has just reported finding a sensational 500 carater, that is after that splendid blue stone.

I am not sure how much money they hope to make from the gym, but it would be surprising if it will make much of a dent in paying back the $1.5 billion due next March, that is out of $4 billion debt.

Bar these little bumps along the road or the odd flying feather, most of those that knew anything about the business have left so the company’s intellectual capital has gone.

I wonder what other schemes we could propose to help De Beers out of its current difficulties or alleviate the ‘cold turkey’.

My only thought was, perhaps organised tours around No 17 either to look at the last of the diamonds, or the art collection (that is assuming that that has not been sold as well).

A Sandwich board man in Holborn Circus could be a cheap way of advertising the tours.

As Tesco likes to stress in its advertising, ‘Every Little Bit Helps.’