Photo: Reuters
The world’s second-largest gem-quality diamond has been sold to a London-based company for $53m, the BBC reports.
The private sale comes after its owner, Canada’s Lucara Diamond Corporation, failed to sell it at a Sotheby’s auction last year.
The 1,111-carat stone was recovered by Lucara in Botswana two years ago.
The company said the price was an improvement on the highest bid received at the Sotheby’s auction in June 2016.
The diamond is named “Lesedi La Rona”, which means “our light” in Botswana’s Tswana language.
It is the largest gem-quality diamond discovered in more than a century, and the second-largest ever. The largest was the 3,106-carat Cullinan Diamond, discovered in South Africa in 1905.
Graff Diamonds, the London-based luxury jeweller that purchased the diamond, described the stone as “the world’s most valuable rough diamond”.
“The stone will tell us its story, it will dictate how it wants to be cut,” said Laurence Graff, founder of the company.
Graff acquired another 373-carat diamond that was originally part of “Lesedi La Rona” earlier this year.
