UK Edition
De Beers owner moving into mining giant’s historic home
Anglo American will move into the former home of its famous De Beers diamond operations in Charterhouse Street, central London, after the mining giant confirmed that plans to sell the property had been ditched.
The fortress-like site was built in 1979 but the street, near the Hatton Garden jewellery quarter, was home to De Beers from the 1930s. At one time, around 90pc of the world’s diamonds passed through its vaults.
The building has one of the few helipads in central London. De Beers staff left Charterhouse Street to take up space in Anglo’s offices near Trafalgar Square a few months ago as part of a wider restructuring.
But with Anglo’s lease expiring in 2020, the company has decided it is more cost effective to move back to Charterhouse Street and renovate it.
A sale of the building was considered more likely last year, when Anglo was looking to cut costs in the wake of a downturn in commodity prices. Since then, the FTSE 100 miner has staged a strong recovery. Anglo has owned 85pc of De Beers since it bought out the controlling Oppenheimer family in 2011.
In an exclusive interview, Bruce Cleaver, the chief executive of De Beers, said: “Charterhouse is a great location but it’s quite an old building and needs a bit of modernising. But it’s part of the heritage of De Beers – and Anglo too, which had an office there before it listed in London in 1999.”
The building’s basement vaults and large, windowed “sightholder” rooms have been vacant since De Beers moved its sorting and sales operations to Gaborone, Botswana, in 2013.
De Beers’ move back would provide a boost to Hatton Garden, which some smaller diamond businesses have left because of high rents.