the diamonds business

Filed in archive Global Economy on July 25, 2004

The Economist had one of this wonderful in-depth business analysis in the last issue about the diamonds business. The article highlights a new entry into the secretive business from Israeli Lev Leviev who threatens the DeBeers cartel.

Source: The Economist

"Like the Oppenheimers, Mr Leviev has made himself very rich over the past three decades. An Israeli of Uzbek descent, he is reputedly worth around $2 billion. Though he has interests in transport and property, his real love is diamonds. His Lev Leviev Group is the world's largest Cutter and polisher of them. He has mining interests too: his fleet of clanking mining ships began operating off Namibia's coast earlier this year, sucking up diamonds from the sea bed. He boasts it is the world's second-largest fleet; only De Beers has a bigger one.

And Mr Leviev recently moved into diamond retailing. He claims that he is the only tycoon with interests in every stage of production from "mine to mistress" (a canard in the industry holds that men buy more diamonds for their mistresses than for their wives). But his real power lies in the cutting and polishing businesses."