Of DTC Botswana, sightholders and 'diamantaires'

WANETSHA MOSINYI
Staff Writer | Friday February 1, 2008 00:00

The highlight of this year's economic landscape will be the launch of the highly anticipated Diamond Trading Company (DTC) Botswana. 

Subsequently, sightholders are setting up shop to be ready for the $360 million rough diamonds they will get from DTC Botswana.

Last year Forbes' magazine published a list of the world's richest people. The diamond industry has its fair share of representatives dubbed 'diamantaires'.

The list includes diamantaires Benny Steinmetz, Nicky Oppenheimer, Lev Leviev and Laurence Graff.

Next week, the Steinmetz Diamond Group (Ascot Diamonds) will officially launch its premises at Diamond Technology Park in Botswana and President Festus Mogae is scheduled to be the guest speaker.

Chairman of the Steinmetz Group, 50-year-old Israeli, Benny Steinmetz, ranks 583rd on Forbes list with an estimated wealth of $1.7 billion.

Steinmetz has diamond-manufacturing licenses in Botswana and others in the Congo, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. He is reported to be De Beers' largest customer.

Laurence Graff is a sightholder in DTC Botswana through Safdico, (South African Diamond Corp). Safdico is already housed at the Diamond Technology Park.

He is the founder of the House of Graff in the heart of London's posh New Bond Street. He is one of the most successful diamond merchants of his generation.

Graff's strategy of 'vertically integration' has been to control every angle of the diamond pipeline, from wholesale and retail, to purchasing a 51 percent stake in Safdico, a De Beers' sightholder in Johannesburg. This gives him access to some of the finest uncut diamonds coming out of South Africa. Graff's net worth is estimated at 2.5 billion dollars.

He has been dubbed the 'King of Diamonds' and the 'King of Bling' by Forbes magazine, selling to the rich and famous from Elizabeth Taylor and Donald Trump, to Larry Ellison.

Then there is Nicky Oppenheimer, the man all the sightholders will be getting rough diamonds from. Ranked 158th of the Forbes list and leading the diamantaires, Oppenheimer, 61, chairs De Beers, the diamond goliath.

His net worth is estimated at more than $5 billion. He is the richest man in Africa. He recently sold off a third of his family's interest in global mining giant Anglo American to Chinese billionaire Larry Yung for nearly $500 million. Lev Leviev is neither involved with DTC Botswana or De Beers. He is ranked 210th and second to Oppenheimer as a diamantaires. The 51-year-old self-made billionaire lives in Israel.

His fortune is estimated at over $4.1 billion. Leviev is the world's largest cutter and polisher of diamonds.

He holds a controlling stake in Africa-Israel conglomerate, a real estate firm also involved in fashion and transportation.

Once a De Beers sightholder, one of the few exclusive direct buyers of De Beers' rough diamonds, Leviev is now the scourge of the giant diamond cartel also known as the 'syndicate'.

The remaining sightholders do not fall under the diamantaires but they are multi-millionaires and their fortunes are still on the rise.

One of them is Isaac Pluczenik, founder of Pluczenik Diamond Company in 1958. The company has grown quickly under his leadership and has factories across the globe, generating annual revenues of close to $1billion.

Kaushik Mehta is known best for founding and building Eurostar, the global diamond mega-conglomerate with an annual turnover of over $1 billion.

As with so many others in the industry, Mehta comes from a diamond background. He is the second son of the late Indian diamantaire Kirtilal Mehta.

Lazare Kaplan was a diamataire in the 1920s and when he died, the company was run by his sons George and Leo in the 1970s.

It was later sold to Maurice and Leon Tempelsman. Clearly, the owners of this diamond and polishing companies do not need cash injection in their operations and its bedrock is based on family generations.

The question now remains will diamond beneficiation directly benefitBatswana not through employment but ownership?

Can the Nchindo's and Dada's of this country match Oppenheimer, Graff, Leviev, Steinmetz or Ganz of the bling world. Well, only time and government will tell.