The R&M “Lettre”

This is not the column I’d prepared for today. That one was written, proofed, readied, and even had a visual prepared to illustrate a point – and then I abandoned it.

Harry Winston Diamond Corp’s sale of its luxury brand to Swatch Group is the most ‎significant step yet taken by this rapidly evolving company. Essentially, the deal marks ‎the end of Harry Winston the mining company, as the brand returns to its luxury roots, ‎and the mining business is renamed Dominion Diamond Corporation.  ‎

“… the game of Snakes and Ladders captures, as no other activity can hope to do, the ‎eternal truth that for every ladder you hope to climb, a snake is waiting just around the ‎corner, and for every snake a ladder will compensate,” Salmon Rushdie, Midnight’s ‎Children.‎

Mike Roman, th e late former chairman of Jewelers of America (JA), once told Martin ‎Rapaport, “Don’t worry about diamonds. The industry will be okay, as long as there are ‎three things: Christmas, sex, and guilt.” The good news is that each year he has proven correct, and his premise holds true for ‎‎2013, if […]

Perhaps 2012 was not as much of a rollercoaster year as it was a year of evolution and change. Rough prices declined, the Oppenheimer’s cashed out, BHP Billiton found a buyer (but Rio Tinto didn’t), production was curtailed, and calls for marketing support went largely ignored by miners. An examination of the DTC price list […]

ALROSA, the lesser known of the two diamond mining giants, is emerging from its own ‎shadows and may exert greater influence on the industry in 2013. While it still has a ways ‎to go, it has become more transparent about disclosing its resource base, building its ‎client list and developing its marketing strategy.

De Beers Diamond Trading Company (DTC) December sight had an estimated value of ‎‎$490 million with sightholders still concerned about their ability to profit from ‎manufacturing. ‎

Often, the manner in which the diamond industry starts a year proves more influential than the weighted importance it gives the end of year holiday season. Granted, they are interconnected, with the level of restocking naturally dependent on retail sales and prices responding to the respective supply–demand dynamic.

For my son, it was a holiday and the schools were closed, so I decided to take the day off from work and spend it with him, just the two of us. Two sports activities, a movie and two junk food joints later, (the pizza place did not have the “right” drink, namely a thick […]

It’s December, and diamond markets are eyeing inventory levels across the pipeline, characteristically hopeful that the holiday season will sufficiently trigger stronger buying in 2013. Stronger being a relative term as trading has been dulled by caution throughout 2012.

The online retail experience keeps reinventing itself almost with the pace and energy of ‎technology itself. Consider that Cyber Monday only became a referenced term in 2005 ‎and already feels a part of the U.S. holiday tradition. Along with Black Friday, it has also ‎become a barometer of consumer sentiment and an important avenue to […]

With another annual Kimberley Process meeting behind us, some colleagues reminded me of the ongoing need to focus on ethics, rather than politics. The desire to shake off politics is understood, as it seems seedy, suffers from mixed interests and, above all, can be ethically-challenged.