Africa-Press – Botswana. Angola is now bidding for overall control of De Beers, with a proposal to buy Anglo American’s entire 85 per cent stake, according to news sources.
It’s only a month since Diamantino Azevedo, Angola’s minister of mineral resources (pictured), announced plans to acquire only a minority stake in the diamond miner, as part of a pan-African partnership with Botswana, Namibia, South Africa.
There appears to have been a sudden and dramatic shift since then, with reports that suggest Angola is now in a head-to-head battle with Botswana, which announced in July 2025 that it wanted “full control of this strategic national asset”.
Anglo American aims to complete its divestment of loss-making De Beers by the end of the year to focus on copper and other more profitable assets.
Endiama, Angola’s state-owned diamond producer, has submitted what its CEO Jose Manuel Ganga Junior described as “a concrete and well-defined proposal” for a majority stake in De Beers. He said they were interested in De Beers’ proprietary mining technology.
Angola overtook Botswana in 2024 as Africa’s top diamond producer by value for the first time in two decades ($1.412bn to $1.356bn).
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