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Sotheby’s to Auction World’s Second-Largest Rough Diamond
Miner Lucara Receives ‘$40M’ Offer from U.S. Buyer for 1,111-Carat Stone
Mar 14, 2016 3:08 AM
By Rapaport News
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RAPAPORT... Lucara Diamond Corp has appointed Sotheby’s to auction the world’s
second-largest diamond it discovered in Botswana last year.
"We are very excited to have been chosen to work with Lucara on this extraordinary project," Sotheby's said in a statement to Rapaport News March 14.
"Such a sale is unprecedented so we are together exploring the best possible way to present this natural treasure to the market. We look forward to sharing further details in the future."
Lucara intends to sell the 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona in the
first half after a roadshow that will take the stone to undisclosed locations
around the world.
Switzerland-based
private bank Julius Baer has also been hired in relation to the sale of the
gem, the largest diamond ever uncovered in Botswana.
“We are
working with Julius Baer. Sotheby’s is our selected partner for the live
auction,” Lucara’s CEO William Lamb told Canadian news network CBC's The Exchange in a video
interview posted online March 8.
“We are going
to target ultra-high net-worth individuals [and] the diamantaires that we sell
a lot of our other very large high value stones to,” Lamb added in the
interview. “At the end of the day we are going to put it up for auction so it
will be a live auction hopefully before the end of the half-year.”
The appointed
agents “believe there is a significant volume of people that actually may want
the stone as a collector’s item,” Lamb said.
Lamb confirmed
that the company had received offers of up to $40 million for the rough diamond
but did not say whether this was U.S. or Canadian dollars.
“It was just
an email that came through from somewhere in the U.S. We’ve had a lot of emails
like that – ‘Would you sell me the stone for x amount?” the executive
said.
The $40
million figure falls below the price tag “north of $60 million” Lamb said he
expected the stone to fetch in an interview with Bloomberg shortly after the
discovery in November.
The Toronto-listed miner will not cut the diamond up into pieces, instead planning to sell it
whole, he said.
“In terms of
the overall value of the stone, because of its historical significance, nobody
can really say whether it’s more valuable in its polished form or in the rough
form,” Lamb continued.
“I think there
will be collectors out there who would look to actually own the world’s largest
uncut diamond. Whoever the final buyer is may actually polish it, could put it
into a collection, or if they did want to monetize it at a later stage they would
analyze it and then sell it in the polished form.”
Sales of the Lesedi
La Rona and two additional large stones of 813 and 374 carats found by Lucara
would significantly boost the miner’s revenue. The company hopes to discover more
exceptional stones with the help of new discrimination technology implemented
by Lucara which contributed to its recovering the 1,111-carat gem.
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Tags:
Botswana, Exceptional Stones, Karowe mine, Lesedi La Rona, lucara, Lucara Diamond Corp, Rapaport News
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