Report: De Beers London out of sorts?
May 28, 2008

London—De Beers is shifting some of its sorting operations from its traditional home in London to Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, according to a news report from the BBC.

Referred to as “aggregation,” the operation involves sorting stones from different countries based upon size, shape, color and quality, and it’s a task that has been carried out at De Beers’ London headquarters since the 1930s. The change will mean 50 jobs get slashed at the London sorting facility, the news agency said.

This isn’t the first move by De Beers to shift its attention, and jobs, to Africa. De Beers opened a diamond processing plant earlier this year in Botswana, the world’s largest producer of diamonds and a major shareholder in De Beers.