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Article: De Beers bows out.
- Article from:
- African Business
- Article date:
- July 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 IC Publications Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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World's diamond giant calls it a day
A diamond may be forever, but De Beers, after a glorious century, is not. Tom Nevin on the death of De Beers and the birth of DB Investments.
They came to praise De Beers, not to bury it; they came both to say farewell to the century-old public entity, and also to welcome in the country's newest, biggest private company. While the diamonds De Beers unearthed may be forever, this was not the case for the company itself.
Its mortality was proven when it was signed into history and removed from public ownership. It was a bitter-sweet goodbye to a South African industrial icon. It ended an era of diamond mining ...