{"id":12603,"date":"2012-07-20T13:05:30","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T11:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/07\/update-1-de-beers-profit-halves-as-diamond-buyers-hold-back\/"},"modified":"2012-07-20T13:05:30","modified_gmt":"2012-07-20T11:05:30","slug":"update-1-de-beers-profit-halves-as-diamond-buyers-hold-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-de-beers-profit-halves-as-diamond-buyers-hold-back\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-De Beers profit halves as diamond buyers hold back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Clara Ferreira-Marques<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">LONDON, July 20<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; First-half profit halved at De<br \/>\nBeers, the world&#8217;s largest diamond producer by value, as trade<br \/>\nbuyers were held back by a lack of funds and worries over<br \/>\nconsumer demand.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The company, soon to be majority owned by miner Anglo<br \/>\nAmerican, faces tough times in the mid-stream &#8211; the<br \/>\nsection of the diamond market between the mine and the jewellery<br \/>\nstore.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It has taken the unusual step of allowing buyers of its<br \/>\nrough diamonds such as cutting and polishing centres &#8211; known in<br \/>\nthe business as &#8220;sightholders&#8221; &#8211; to defer the purchase of as<br \/>\nmuch as half their gem allocation until March 2013.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>De Beers sells most of its gem-quality rough diamonds<br \/>\nthrough &#8220;sights&#8221;, sales usually every five weeks when trade<br \/>\nbuyers inspect their allocations of rough diamonds and decide<br \/>\nwhether or not to purchase them. They are normally allowed to<br \/>\ndefer their allocations only until the next sight.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Of more importance is the second six months, which has<br \/>\nstarted very slowly,&#8221; analyst Des Kilalea at RBC Capital Markets<br \/>\nsaid on Friday. &#8220;The sightholders will defer as long as they<br \/>\npossibly can &#8211; why would you buy rough to start polishing unless<br \/>\nyou thought you were going to sell?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Major Indian cutting and polishing centres are facing the<br \/>\nimpact of a weak rupee, while others struggle to raise finance<br \/>\nto fund trade as banks rein in lending.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Money available for lending is getting scarcer and<br \/>\nscarcer&#8230; Prices increased quite a bit last year, therefore it<br \/>\nis difficult for the pipeline to finance the carats they need,&#8221;<br \/>\nDe Beers Chief Executive Philippe Mellier told reporters.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Clara Ferreira-Marques LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) &#8211; First-half profit halved at De Beers, the world&#8217;s largest diamond producer by value, as trade buyers were held back by a lack of funds and worries over consumer demand. The company, soon to be majority owned by miner Anglo American, faces tough times in the mid-stream &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-12603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}