Alrosa is to expand its sale of polished fancy color diamonds direct to wealthy individuals.
The miner is already partnering with a number of private banks in Russia, and selling to their clients, as part of its Alrosa Diamond Exclusive program, which it launched three years ago. It now plans to roll out the arrangement beyond Russia.
“Since our Russian experience demonstrated great interest in Alrosa diamonds by high net worth individuals, we plan to extend the program to the international market,” Alrosa told the Fancy Color Research Foundation (FRCF).
Instead of selling its largest and clearest fancy color stones and colorless gems over 3-cts at professional tenders, it is polishing them in Moscow for direct sale to investors.
Alrosa said clients at the private VTB bank had been the first to benefit from this opportunity.
“A VTB client was the first to profit from purchasing a set of diamonds from us and then reselling them in our tender, benefitting from recent price increases,” it said.
