Yahoo Finance New 13-carat pink diamond sells for $8.8m
Diamond lovers and diamond miners have a new sparkly gem to ogle over.
London-listed diamond mining firm Gem Diamonds (GEMD.L) announced on Thursday that it sold a 13.3-carat pink diamond for nearly $8.8m (£6.6m).
The diamond auction was held in Antwerp, Belgium. The company did not disclose the identity of the buyer.
Coloured diamonds have become more popular among consumers in recent years, especially among younger buyers who are looking to express their individuality through their gem choices.
Shares in Gem Diamonds briefly surged by 6% after it released details about the sale.
The mining firm said it found the gem in February in its mine in Lesotho, a small land-locked African country that is surrounded by South Africa.
Still, this is far from the most expensive pink diamond ever sold at auction.
The famed jeweller Harry Winston paid 50.4m Swiss francs (£37.7m, $50.1m) to buy a 19-carat pink diamond at a Geneva auction in 2018.
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Gem Diamonds is a relatively small player in the global diamond mining industry.
It mined about 127,000 carats of diamonds last year, which is less than 1% of the global total.
Russia’s Alrosa (ALRS.ME) produces close to 40 million carats of diamonds each year, or about 27% of the global total.
De Beers, which is owned by mining giant Anglo American (AAL.L), produced just over 35 million carats last year.
Alrosa and De Beers are the two largest diamond producers in the world by carat production.
