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Diamonds are forever
McLaren may have unexpectedly snared Fernando Alonso and persuaded Vodafone to decamp from Ferrari come 2007, but have the Italians caught the biggest fish about, one able to comfortably service the team's stratospheric long-term budgetary needs, and then some?
Although denied by a spokesperson for diamond trading house De Beers, mining industry sources suggest that Ferrari signed a long-term agreement, beginning next year, with the Kimberley, South Africa-based company, which is predominantly owned by the Oppenheimer family.
De Beers has reinvented itself following a (voluntary) 2001 delisting and a number of long-running skirmishes with various monopoly commissions, and the company has embarked upon an aggressive marketing strategy designed, in its own words, "to reinvigorate the industry and to grow demand for diamond jewelry in order to compete more successfully with luxury goods competition."
