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Cartier owner Richemont is in talks to join a consortium bid to buy diamond giant De Beers

De Beers' Venetia mine in South Africa, which shut in July and has paused production for two years as Anglo American looks to offload the diamond giant amid falling prices.
De Beers' Venetia mine in South Africa, which shut in July and has paused production for two years as Anglo American looks to offload the diamond giant amid falling prices.

Richemont, the Swiss luxury giant behind Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Piaget, is in discussions to join the Global Diamond Consortium — the group in pole position to acquire De Beers from Anglo American. US jewellery giant Signet is also reportedly in talks to join the same bid. Gareth Penny, a former De Beers chief executive, heads the consortium, which already counts the governments of Angola, Botswana and Namibia among its members.

Anglo American is desperate to offload De Beers after a 'protracted' fall in diamond prices, with consumers increasingly switching to lab-grown stones.

The consortium's structure would give the three African governments a 49 per cent stake, with private companies owning the remainder.

De Beers shut its Venetia mine — South Africa's largest diamond operation — in July and has paused production there for TWO YEARS to slash costs.

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