De Beers tests service of reselling polished diamonds from Singapore

Singapore

DE BEERS, the world's leading diamond company, is testing a new service of selling third-party polished diamonds to other businesses through its online auction platform.

The service is being launched from Singapore, where De Beers' Auctions Sales business has been based since 2013 to allow the group to be closer to its customers in India and the Asia-Pacific, said executive vice-president of auction sales Neil Ventura in an interview with The Business Times.

De Beers, the single largest producer of rough diamonds by value in the world with a 30 per cent market share, traditionally sells only rough diamonds that it mines and produces. Some 90 per cent of these are sold through selling events to authorised bulk buyers known as sightholders, while the rest are sold to small and medium-sized…