ANGLO American had not entered into an exclusive agreement with any of the bidding consortiums for De Beers, said the group’s CEO, Duncan Wanblad.
“We are not exclusive with any particular consortium at this point in time, and there is more than one in the process,” he said in response to media questions. Wanblad was presenting the firm’s interim results today in which Anglo reported basic underlying share earnings of 58 US cents per share (2025: 15c/share).
Wanblad added that Anglo had “a lot of work to do to get this all tied up in the next few months”. He said he was “very positive” about progressing the sale of De Beers.
It was widely reported that Anglo had chosen Global Diamond Consortium, believed to be led by former De Beers MD Gareth Penny and consisting of producer nations Angola and Namibia as well as some diamantaires.
Moeti Mohwasa, Botswana’s minister for state president, defence and security, was also quoted as telling his country’s parliament that Anglo had run a competitive process among three shortlisted parties before settling on the Global Diamond Consortium.
Said Wanblad today: “We’re pretty much in the final stages of it at this particular point in time, but it’s also probably one of the most challenging parts of the sale process, given the number of parties we need to get aligned.”
“But as I said a little earlier, we are hopeful that we’ll get to conclusion here during the second half of this year,” he added.
Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday that Anglo was selling its 85% stake in De Beers for as little as $1bn, more than half its book value as of December 31 of $2.2bn. Citing people familiar with the transaction, the newswire said the consortium would pay roughly $750m upfront and $250m later for Anglo’s 85% stake, with further payments tied to future performance.
De Beers reported a negative earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) of $113m in the six months ended June. This was an improvement compared to a$189m loss in the comparative period in 2025 which Anglo said was a result of De Beers achieving trading profits despite lower average prices for rough diamonds.
Nonethelesss, the diamond sector is under severe pressure. “Near-term rough diamond trading conditions are expected to remain challenging, particularly in lower-value categories,” said Anglo in its commentary to its results.
“While demand for larger, higher-quality natural diamonds remained resilient, smaller and lower-quality diamonds continued to face pricing pressure from the impact of synthetic lab-grown diamonds.”
China approvals for Teck
Anglo posted an underlying Ebitda of $4bn, a 35% increase year-on-year, largely driven by copper which accounted for $2.9bn of Ebitda for the period (2025: $1.76bn). Anglo’s iron ore operations generated Ebitda of $1.17bn ($1.41bn).
In April, Anglo agreed the sale of its steelmaking coal assets in Australia with Dilmar Ltd, a privately held UK firm, for up to $3.88bn in cash, including an upfront payment of $2.3bn. The sale, and the divestment from De Beers, is ahead of Anglo finalising its merger with Canada’s Teck Resources, currently waiting on Chinese regulatory approval.
Asked whether China had requested the divestment of certain assets, Wanblad told media that “nothing is unusual at this particular point in time”.
“We’re still very much on track to see completion [of the merger with Teck] happen somewhere between September of this year and March of next,” he said. Wanblad added that large deals in the mining sector were taking “a bit longer” than five years ago.
“I think that was factored into our thinking in terms of the 12 to 18 months we said it would take to get regulatory approvals here,” he said, adding there was no indication that mining deals were “impossible or difficult to get done”.
