Chronicle Editor
ROUGH diamond sales at De Beers, the world’s largest source of diamonds by value, fell by more than a third in February because of the outbreak of the Covid-19 coronavirus.
De Beers, which sells diamonds to a handpicked group of about 80 buyers 10 times a year in Gaborone, Botswana, at events called sights, reported its second sale of the year achieved $351m. This was compared to the $551m achieved in the first sale of the year and $496m in the same period a year earlier.
“Following an improvement in demand for rough diamonds during the first sales cycle of 2020, we recognised the impact of Covid-19 on customers focused on supplying the Chinese market and put in place additional, targeted flexibility to enable customers to defer allocations of the relevant rough diamonds,” said De Beers CEO, Bruce Cleaver.
So far this year, De Beers has reported sales of $906m, the slowest start since it first released data on its sales at the start of 2016. “Today’s sales miss should not come as a surprise to the market given the disruption caused by the Covid-19 outbreak,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note.
Morgan Stanley lowered its full-year diamond sales forecast, which it had pegged at $4,313bn, saying it saw a two percent decline on this number after yesterday’s sales data. – Business Day
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