RAPAPORT... Rough prices slumped for Stornoway Diamond Corporation inthe second quarter, as market weakness dented demand for the miner's range ofgoods. The average price of the company's sales slid 18% to $76 percarat in the three months ending June 30, compared with $93 per carat a yearago, it said in a statement Wednesday. Sales value grew 57% to CAD 47 million ($36million), driven by an 89% ju...Read More
RAPAPORT... Michael Hill will hand out between AUD 10 million ($7million) and AUD 25 million (just under $17.5 million) to compensate retail employeesin Australia, after discovering it had been underpaying them. The jeweler had been wrongly applying the pay rates mandatedby the Australian government's General Retail Industry Award document, itadmitted in a statement Wednesday, following a review....Read More
RAPAPORT... Cue the sentimental music and emotive narration, Forevermark has launched a marketing campaign for its first bridal collection. The campaign, titled "I Take You, Until Forever," aims to depict the ups and downs of marriage, including the jokes, arguments, surprises and the small moments that go unnoticed, explained director Geej Ower. The two-minute film, which went live on variou...Read More
RAPAPORT... Marie-Chantal Kaninda, executive director of the WorldDiamond Council (WDC), was named as one of the 100 most influential women inAfrica by Forbes Afrique.Kaninda, who joined the WDC in March 2017, was noted forher work to further the interests of individuals and communities involved inAfrica's mining sector, the WDC reported Tuesday. Her r?(C)sum?(C) includes serving as chiefadviser f...Read More
There are many mining and exploration opportunities in Southern Africa, with exploration work growing as more mining companies are focusing on the region, says South African airborne geophysics technology provider Spectrem Air GM Louis Polomé. In the next ten years, remote sensing in terms of geophysics, will play a critical role in the exploration of Southern Africa, for which geological d...Read More
The Angolan government is makingpreparations for setting up the country’s new National Minerals Resources Agency, the country’s State Secretary for Geology and Mines, Jânio Corrêa Victor, stated recently. The new agency will take over the role of minerals and mining rights concessionary from State-owned mining companies. This is part of the Angolan government’s policy...Read More
Stornoway Diamonds, the operator of Quebec’s first diamond mine, has told shareholders that weak conditions in the rough diamond market continue to persist, with CEO Patrick Godin saying on Wednesday that further decreases in pricing were observed during the second quarter of the year.The company, which operates the Renard mine, sold 460 832 ct in two tender sales, netting gross proceed...Read More
RAPAPORT... Michael Hill will hand out between AUD 10 million ($7million) and AUD 25 million (just under $17.5 million) to compensate retail employeesin Australia, after discovering it had been underpaying them. The jeweler had been wrongly applying the pay rates mandatedby the Australian government's General Retail Industry Award document, itadmitted in a statement Wednesday, following a review....Read More
RAPAPORT... LDC, a jewelry manufacturer based in East Providence, RhodeIsland, has acquired precious-metals caster First Casting Company. First Casting was founded by Jerry Traficante and his wife,Susan, in 1980, with the couple continuing to run the company, according to itswebsite. Operating out of Johnston, Rhode Island, it offers casting in preciousand non-precious metals. The business will fu...Read More
RAPAPORT... Alrosa's sales continued to slump in June, closing off afirst half that saw a heavy drop in demand for its rough. The Russian miner's total sales slid 43% to $222.4million for the month, it reported Wednesday. Rough-diamond sales, whichaccount for the vast majority of that revenue, also declined 43% to $219.3million, with polished sales falling 53% to $3.1 million. The manufacturing a...Read More
RAPAPORT... Amid the tech boom that is shaping the diamond industry, a growing number of companies are challenging the grading laboratories, arguing that assessing the 4Cs should not be a subjective science."Five to 10 years from now, diamond grading won't be done by gemologists," claimed Haim Volner, the owner of Shirtal Diamonds, whose subsidiary Shirtal DiaCam is developing an automated solutio...Read More
RAPAPORT... At JCK Las Vegas, lab-grown-diamond exhibitors havemushroomed nearly as much as opinions about the stones themselves. Toaccommodate growing market needs, organizers debuted the Lab-Grown DiamondNeighborhood at the 2018 edition of the trade fair."There may have been exhibitors that had lab-grown in theshow in earlier years, but they weren't grouped together in a neighborhooduntil 2018,"...Read More
Second-hand luxury retailer The RealReal went public earlier this month with an initial goal to raise $270 million. The company ultimately sold 15 million shares at $20 each for $300 million. The RealReal was founded in 2011 by Julie Wainwright and the prospectus is valued at $1.6 billion for the largely online reseller, which also operates three brick-and-mortar stores. The company claims 1.4 mil...Read More
The Indian economic media reported earlier this week that India's government had tabled a proposal to increase import duties on precious metals with 12.5 per cent. This move would have a significant impact on consumer prices paid for gold, other precious metals and the jewelry items these are made with. "It is proposed to increase custom duty on gold and other precious metals from 10 per cent...Read More
The Namibian Deputy Minister of Mines and Energy, Kornelia Shilunga urged African diamond producers to formalize artisanal and small-scale diamond miners to maximize benefits from the sector. According to the South African news source The Southern Times, the minister said this during the African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA) 6th Ordinary Experts meeting in Windhoek earlier this week. "...Read More
RAPAPORT... LDC, a jewelry manufacturer based in East Providence, RhodeIsland, has acquired precious-metals caster First Casting Company. First Casting was founded by Jerry Traficante and his wife,Susan, in 1980, with the couple continuing to run the company, according to itswebsite. Operating out of Johnston, Rhode Island, it offers casting in preciousand non-precious metals. The business will fu...Read More
RAPAPORT... Indian jewelry retailer Titan Company cautioned that sales were lower than expected in its first fiscal quarter as high gold prices weighed on consumer spending. Sales from the jewelry division, which includes the Tanishq brand, grew 13% year on year for the three months ending June 30, the company said in an operations update Monday. "The quarter witnessed a tough macroeconomic e...Read More
RAPAPORT... Global rough-diamond shipments dropped last year,reflecting slower trading in India and Belgium, according to new data from theKimberley Process (KP). Total rough imports slipped 3% to $48.49 billion for 2018,with volume down 7% to 424.2 million carats, the figures showed last week.Rough exports fell 1% to $49.52 billion, while volume declined 6% to 428.6million carats. India's rough i...Read More
Consultancy Levin Sources has recently launched a new service that will help smaller enterprises navigate the - sometimes - tricky pathway to ensuring their products are sustainable and ethically sourced. The new service, Responsible Sourcing for Small Jewellers, provides a step-by-step bespoke method to small business owners in the jewelry space, assisting them with everything from assessi...Read More
The diamond cutting, polishing and marketing division of Alrosa traveled to New York in June to hold an auction of polished diamonds. Alrosa, which with more than 43 million carats mined in the Russian Federation in 2018 is the undisputed largest, single source diamond miner in the world, sold 20 polished diamonds with total weight of 140.4 carats. Among these were eight colorless and 12 fancy col...Read More