De Beers
DeBeers Group is an international corporation that covers most of the facets of the diamond industry from mining to retailing. DeBeers can trace its roots back to 1888 when then British businessman Cecil B Rhodes took financing from Alfred Beit and NM Rothschild & Sons bank to found the company. By 1926 Ernest Oppenheimer came to South Africa from Germany by way of Britain and had already founded mining company Anglo American with the financial backing of JP Morgan in New York. This was the same time he was elected to the board of De Beers. During the time Oppenheimer was at the helm he built a global chain for the diamond industry until his death in 1957. During the time the consolidation De Beers was said to have control of much of the supply of rough diamonds in the world however much has changed since those early days. In 2011 Anglo American took control of De Beers after buying the Oppenheimers' family stake.
