Al Cook and the De Beers Endgame: Strategy, Origins, and the 2026 Sale

Al Cook took over as chief executive of De Beers in February 2023, and his resume said everything about the company's situation. He was not a diamond man. He came from Equinor, the Norwegian energy major, where he ran a multi billion dollar exploration and production business, and before that spent two decades at BP, finishing as chief of staff to the chief executive. De Beers did not hire a marketer or a gemologist; it hired an operator who had managed large, declining, capital intensive businesses through transition. That choice was a diagnosis.

Cook's strategy is to retreat to the one thing lab grown cannot copy: origin. De Beers has leaned into provenance, traceability, and the story that a natural diamond formed over a billion years carries meaning a factory stone does not. The pitch is emotional and narrow by design, aimed at the buyer who will pay a premium for where a diamond came from rather than what it is. It is a coherent bet, but a defensive one, because it concedes the volume market to lab grown and stakes the business on a shrinking segment of buyers who value origin over price.

The clearest expression of the strategy was closing Lightbox. Keeping a lab grown brand alive while telling the world that natural is the only diamond worth buying was a contradiction, so Cook ended it. The 2025 decision to wind down Lightbox removed the mixed message and committed De Beers fully to natural. It also quietly conceded the argument: De Beers no longer wanted to be in the lab grown business at any price, because any price it set only advertised how cheap the category had become. For the full account, see the Lightbox autopsy.

Cook's real mandate is the exit. Anglo American has designated De Beers non core and is pursuing a sale or spin off, a separation expected to complete in the first half of 2026. After a $511 million EBITDA loss in 2025 and $6.8 billion in writedowns over three years, his job is to present the business as cleanly as possible to a buyer or the public markets: a focused, natural only diamond company with a provenance story, free of the lab grown contradiction. Whether that is enough to find a buyer for an asset in a structurally declining category, with the Government of Botswana holding 15 percent, is the open question of 2026.

Cook's strategy is an admission dressed as a plan. By retreating to origin and exiting lab grown, De Beers is telling buyers that the only thing left to sell at a premium is a story about where a stone came from, because on the stone itself, lab grown is identical and far cheaper. If provenance matters to you, natural is a valid choice. If the diamond matters, lab grown gives you the same 4Cs and certificate for 80 to 90 percent less. Either way, buy on the certificate. Every Draco piece is IGI certified, E to F color, VS2 clarity or better. Compare the two in lab versus natural, or browse certified rings.