Anglo American Writes Down De Beers’ Value to $2.3 Billion

By Rob Bates | February 20, 2026

Anglo American wrote down De Beers’ value by $2.3 billion in its 2025 financial report, released today—meaning the diamond giant’s new enterprise value is just $2.3 billion.

This is the third year in a row that Anglo has taken an impairment on De Beers’ book value—which was $9.2 billion in 2023, prior to the initial writedown.

Anglo’s actions came as De Beers reported a $511 million loss for 2025, significantly worse than the $25 million loss it posted in 2024. De Beers’ 2025 revenue was $3.5 billion—an improvement from the prior year’s $3.3 billion—with rough diamond sales totaling $3 billion, up from $2.7 billion in 2024.

In an earnings call following the release of the year-end results, Anglo American CEO Duncan Wanblad said the sale of Anglo’s 85% stake in De Beers was in “the advanced stages of discussions with a select group of interested parties.”

He added that some of the consortia interested in De Beers “include governments, and some of them don’t.” The government of Botswana will be “crucial” in determining the outcome, Wanblad noted. Botswana currently owns 15% of De Beers, but the country’s president has said it wants a majority stake.

Wanblad also mentioned for the first time that the sale of Anglo’s stake might happen in stages.

“There is a possibility that our share will be sold in three parts, potentially, or two parts, potentially,” he said. “That depends on where we get to in the negotiation in the next few weeks.”

He said that all the potential buyers “have deep experience in the type of cycles that are experienced in the diamond businesses, and…recognize the deep value in De Beers and the quality of assets that we have in De Beers.”

In response to a question, Wanblad said that while Anglo prefers to sell De Beers, it might consider spinning it off via a public listing if that doesn’t work out.

“We’ve chosen to prioritize the strategic sale of the business,” he said. “This does not remove the option of being able to list De Beers at a time in the future, but that’s unlikely in the current market environment.”

(Photo courtesy of De Beers)