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- JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Harry
Oppenheimer, the South African mining magnate who died on Saturday aged
92, amassed most of his fortune from diamonds -- and the De Beers company.
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- It all started on a humble farm in South Africa's northern
Cape owned by hapless brothers Diederik and Johannes De Beer who sold their
land in 1871 for six thousand pounds sterling, at the time a substantial
sum.
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- But barely months afterwards, a rich vein of diamonds
was discovered on the property which was to become known as the Big Hole
of Kimberley and the centre of South Africa's diamond-mining industry.
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- Although they passed up an incalculable fortune, the
brothers' name lived on.
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- In 1885 politician Cecil Rhodes and his partner Charles
Rudd began buying up claims held by the De Beers Mining Company and Kimberley
Mines. The two companies were merged and De Beers was formally registered
in March 1888.
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- Oppenheimer's father, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, meanwhile,
had been sent out to Kimberley by a firm of London diamond dealers.
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- He soon made a name as an astute buyer and clever businessman.
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- In the early 1900s he began buying up mining interests
in neighbouring Namibia (then still South West Africa), with American backing.
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- In 1917 he formed the Anglo American Corporation and
by 1920 his Consolidated Diamond Mines had become a force in the mining
industry.
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- By the end of that decade, he had taken control of De
Beers Consolidated Mines, and his control of the diamond industry had begun.
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- Sir Ernest's shrewdest move was to establish a central
selling organisation that would stabilise sales and keep prices at a premium
-- a system which exists to this day and which has allowed De Beers to
maintain its tight grip on the precious gem business.
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- Sir Ernest then began grooming the young Harry in the
ways of the precious metals industry and branched out into gold, under
the Anglo American umbrella, and copper.
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- When Harry Oppenheimer took over control of De Beers
and Anglo American at the death of his father in 1957, he quickly realised
he needed to expand the diamond market.
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- Through slick advertising campaigns -- Oppenheimer's
"A Diamond is Forever" slogan stands out -- De Beers began making
enormous profits.
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- Until the end of World War II, less than one percent
of Japanese brides wore diamond wedding rings. A relentless De Beers campaign
raised that figure to 70 percent in the post-war years.
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- In Germany, De Beers introduced the concept of a triset,
a third wedding band studded with diamonds, in 1967 and that country became
the third largest diamond-consuming nation.
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- Despite a gradual erosion of its monopoly in recent years
through unofficial sales by Russia, Angola and Sierra Leone, De Beers continues
to dominate the world's diamond industry.
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- The company earlier this month posted a huge increase
in earnings for the first half of the year, with combined own earnings
rising to 696 million dollars from 231 million dollars in the same period
of 1999.
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- Such results have been fairly consistent over the past
decades, allowing Oppenheimer to be listed by Fortune magazine as among
the 20 wealthiest people in the world.
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