TALKS have started over the potential listing of De Beers as 85% shareholder Anglo American sets about the most difficult part of its wide-ranging restructuring.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News said an IPO of the diamond unit was one of two routes available to Anglo. The preferred option was to complete a trade sale amid a backdrop of poor diamond prices.
Anglo’s restructuring, unveiled in May last year just as it fell under a hostile takeover proposal from industry rival BHP, has gone to plan. It sold its metallurgical coal mines in Australia for up to $4bn and will demerge its precious metals business, Anglo American Platinum by June.
Anglo has now started started engaging with major banks about working on a De Beers public listing, said Bloomberg News. A spokesman for Anglo American declined to comment, said the newswire.
The diamond industry is grappling with its deepest crisis in decades and a collapse in Chinese demand and fierce competition from synthetic stones has hammered De Beers’s profits in recent years, said Bloomberg News.
Anglo recently took a $2.9bn impairment on the value of De Beers, after last year announcing a $1.6bn writedown.
Wanblad has emphasised that the company is not in a rush to find a solution for De Beers, as it doesn’t want to destroy value by moving too quickly while the market remains weak.
In February, he said Anglo didn’t expect much progress in exiting the business in the first half of 2025, but hoped its plans to exit would accelerate later in the year.
