The 1,109-carat Type IIa diamond is owned by Vancouver’s Lucara Diamond Corp. (TSX:LUC).
The diamond was put up for auction at Sotheby’s, where it was expected to fetch about US$70 million.
But bidders failed to meet a minimum bid price. The highest bid was US$61 million.
Lucara CEO William Lamb points out that a 12% buyer’s premium meant that the actual price that buyer would have paid would have been $68.3 million.
“So somebody was actually willing to put $68.3 million on the table for the diamond,” Lamb said.
Even at that price – which would have been a world record – it wasn’t enough for Lucara to let the stone go. Lamb isn’t worried about finding a buyer, and his company isn't in a hurry to sell.
“Lucara is not desperate to sell it,” Lamb said. “We have an exceptionally strong balance sheet, we have no debt, so we can actually take it slow.”
The Lesedi La Rona is the second largest diamond ever found. It was unearthed on November 16, 2015 at Lucara’s Karowe mine in Botswana.
The find was announced November 18, 205, sending Lucara’s stock price up by 30%. Trading was halted briefly Wednesday for Lucara's stock during the auction. When trading resumed, Lucara's share price dropped 14.5%, closing at $3.35 per share, erasing half the value it gained on November 18, 2015, when the company first announced the historic find.
