Editor’s Note: Many Sierra Leoneans know of or have heard of Koidu Holdings, the giant foreign company mining diamonds in Kono district in the east of the country where some of the largest deposits of diamonds in the world can be found. Its owner, Beny Steinmetz, also owned a vast iron ore mine in neighbouring Guinea but lost it when the Guinean government recently investigated him and found him guilty of corruption. Steinmetz was allegedly very close to former Guinean President Lansana Conte and one of his four wives. The majority of Sierra Leoneans do not know anything about Beny Steinmetz who has managed to avoid the Sierra Leone media for years. Here he is in a brief bio from Wikipedia:
Beny Steinmetz (born 1956) is an Israeli businessman, with an extensive portfolio in diamond-mining, engineering and real estate.
Beny Steinmetz (photo) was born in Netanya, Israel in 1956, the fourth child of Rubin Steinmetz.
He inherited the Geneva-based Steinmetz Diamond Group from his father. As the founder of the Beny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR), which is also based in Geneva, he now acts in an advisory role to the company’s Board of Directors.
In December 2008, a three year exploration permit for Simandou Blocks 1 & 2, in The Republic of Guinea, was awarded to BSGR Guinea, after the government of Guinea, under its then president, General Lansana Conté, ordered that it be relinquished by its previous holder, the British-Australian multinational mining company Rio Tinto Group.
Koidu Holdings, which formerly operated as a joint venture, has been wholly owned by the BSGR company since 2007. In 1997, he founded STI Ventures NV, a venture capital firm that invests in start-up companies in Israel. In 1999, he was the owner of Tucows. BSGR and another investment firm, IMR, also control Cunico. A now-defunct company, of which he was a founder and shareholder, Nikanor Plc, listed in London, was acquired by Katanga Mining in 2008. With his company called Scorpio, he owns real estate in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Eastern Europe.
The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI have been investigating BSGR’s acquisition of the rights to extract half of the iron ore deposits at Simandou, Guinea, due to concerns about corruption and bribery
He is also an investor of Gabriel Resources Ltd.
The March 2011 issue of Forbes magazine estimated his personal wealth at US$6 billion. As of March 2011, he was the second richest person in Israel, before Sammy Ofer died in June 2011. According to the Chinese publication Hurun Report’s Global Rich List 2014, Steinmetz is now the second richest Israeli in the world with a net worth of $5.3 billion.
Steinmetz lives in Geneva, Switzerland. He is married with four children. With his wife, he oversees the Beny & Agnes Steinmetz Foundation, which donates to schools, hospitals, army units and the arts in Israel.
In March 2014, it was reported by Swiss daily ”Le Temps” that Beny Steinmetz had sold shares in the Steinmetz Diamond Group (SDG) to his brother, Daniel.
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