Diamond News Archives

Tiffany & Co. is telling consumers where its diamonds come from as the jeweler tries to become more transparent in a notoriously opaque industry. Its top executive says the change was imperative.

“This is a topic that has become more and more relevant for new generations,” Chief Executive Officer Alessandro Bogliolo said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. “This is our duty, as a leader in diamonds, to provide customers with this information.”

Tiffany is undergoing a revitalization effort under Bogliolo, seeking out younger shoppers with a refreshed image. It has enlisted celebrities like Zoe Kravitz, Elle Fanning and Maddie Ziegler and is undertaking a massive renovation of its New York flagship store. The comeback hit a snag last quarter, however, as tourist spending waned, even as Tiffany made inroads with the younger crowd.

Bogliolo said that revealing the provenance of Tiffany diamonds isn’t a marketing gimmick, but a real effort to attract more customers who value transparency. He said while Tiffany was for years seen as a more conservative label, management has recently taken major strides to appeal to a broader clientele.

“What we did in the past couple of years has been to really embrace change, with the objective of being culturally relevant for the people — for society today,” Bogliolo said.

Effective Wednesday, shoppers will be able to see the region or country of origin displayed alongside a selection of diamond rings, and they can ask store employees for geographic information for all newly sourced, individually registered diamonds.

Full Journey

Going forward, Tiffany plans to share a diamond’s full journey through the supply chain — from where it was mined to where it was cut and polished — by 2020. The retailer said this would be...

Call me crass, but I wasn’t shocked to learn last week that Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) had agreed to pay a $575 million fine to settle claims by all 50 states related to bogus account openings and forcing unneeded insurance policies on consumers with auto loans. That’s on top of the $1 billion fine the bank paid federal regulators last April for the same conduct.

Paying hefty fines for its outrageous practices is nothing new for WFC. In September 2016, the shelled out $185 million in fines and penalties when regulators discovered it had opened at least 1.5 million sham accounts and applied for 565,000 credit cards without permission of the customers that held them. That same month, the bank paid $24 million to settle claims that it had illegally repossessed the cars of military service members. And in April 2017, WFC disbursed $108 million to settle claims that it had overcharged veterans to refinance loans.

Then last August, the bank was fined $2.1 billion for issuing “liar mortgages” it knew were based on falsified income information in the leadup to the financial crisis of 2007 to 2008.

Oh, and a few weeks ago, we learned that WFC had erroneously denied 870 mortgage modification requests, leading to more than 500 foreclosures. Some of the people affected by the glitch literally became homeless.

Will the bank be punished for its latest mistake? Sure, but it’s likely to be a mere slap on the wrist that will give it no incentive whatsoever to clean up its act. After all, WFC’s net income in 2017 came to $22.18 billion, and the indications are the bank’s income will be even higher for 2018. To WFC, the fines it pays for misconduct are simply a cost of doing...

(IDEX Online) – The Israel Diamond Exchange (IDE) will hold its first tender of Israeli goods during the International Diamond Week in Israel (IDWI). <?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

The tender will take place from January 27-31, and will be held at IDE’s International Tender Center. It will consist of a wide and varied array of polished goods offered by IDE members, with a total value of over $10 million. KOIN International will manage the tender.

Since opening the International Tender Center in February 2017, IDE has become a hub for rough and polished tenders held by major international companies, with dozens of tenders held each year. This will be the first time that IDE itself will be holding a tender.

According to IDE, a tender of this type will open up new markets to varied goods offered by Israeli diamond companies. IDWI, which attracts hundreds of buyers from around the world, is an excellent opportunity for these goods to be offered to a large and diverse group of buyers, the IDE said.

The IDE tender was initiated by Zvi Zamir, Chairman of the International Tender Center and IDE’s Trade and Rough Diamond Committee to answer the needs of local diamantaires....

Canada’s Lucara Diamond (TSX:LUC), the company that hit the jackpot in 2016 after finding the world’s second-largest diamond, said Tuesday its priority this year will be the completion of a feasibility study into potential underground production and life-of-mine expansion for its Karowe project, in Botswana.

“Having stabilized and significantly improved our mining operations at Karowe in 2018, Lucara is now focused on optimizing the base business and pursuing a suite of high potential, organic growth opportunities,” said Chief executive Eira Thomas in the firm’s operating outlook for 2019.

The Vancouver-based company has set aside $14.8 million to complete geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling programs this year, as well as economic and other studies that started in 2018.

Lucara aims to recover between 300,000 and 330,000 carats from Karowe this year, out of 2.5-million to 2.8-million tonnes of ore processed, at an operating cash cost of between $32/t and $37/t processed.

Commercial production Karowe began in 2012. Since then, it has produced an average of 320,000 carats a year from the treatment of 2.5 million tonnes a year of ore from three kimberlite lobes.

The miner announced Tuesday that it plans to pay an annual dividend of C$0.10 per share, based on anticipated production growth and a forecast revenue of between $170 million and $200 million.

Lucara also said it had sold $660,865 worth of its own diamonds on its recently-launched Clara online sales platform, which is driven by blockchain technology. It noted it obtained 8% more for the diamonds traded that way than Lucara’s market price and 15% most than the reserve price placed on the goods.

Clara allows...