Maison 39 of 100 · Fine Jewelry
De Beers
The reading
The cartel that taught the world to want diamonds, now a jewellery maison and a rough-diamond merchant in a market that is being repriced by lab-grown goods. The brand question of the decade: can natural scarcity be re-sold as ethics rather than as monopoly.
The house
- Origin
- South Africa Founded in Kimberley, South Africa; headquartered in London
- Founded
- 1888
- Atelier
- Fine Jewelry
- Ownership
- Anglo American (85%) / Government of Botswana (15%) as of 2026-09-23 A sale to the Global Diamond Consortium was announced and is expected to close in Q4 2026; this field is correct as of 2026-09-23 and is on the /corrections/ watch list.
- Signature
- A Diamond Is Forever / Forces of Nature
- Register note
- Diamond supply + jewellery This line is the register’s own characterisation, not a sourced figure; see Méthode.
Where it sits in this register
Its ownership is filed here as Anglo American (85%) / Government of Botswana (15%); this register names no single parent above it. It is the register's only maison from South Africa. Of the fifteen houses filed under Fine Jewelry, it is the 14th. Against the whole register by founding year it comes 35th of a hundred. South Africa is No. 40 of the hundred economies in this register's atlas, at $480B — International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, April 2026.
Either side of it in the register
Also from South Africa
No other maison in this register is filed to South Africa.