Northern Miner
The Northern Miner has compiled a list of the top-10 diamond companies with headquarters in Canada, arranged by market capitalization, as of early July 2019.
1. Lucara Diamond – Market cap: $623 million
Lucara Diamond (TSX: LUC) is part of the Lundin Group of companies and owns the Karowe diamond mine, in Botswana, which has been in production since 2012, and is one of the world’s foremost producers of large, high quality, Type IIA diamonds in excess of 10.8 carats. These include the historic 1,109 carat Lesedi La Rona (the second-largest gem diamond ever recovered), and the 813 carat Constellation, which was sold for a record US$63.1 million.
Since starting production, the company has sold 180 diamonds for more than $1 million each, and 10 single diamonds for more than $10 million apiece. The company has paid out more than US$249 million in dividends, a sum that exceeds the total capital invested to build the mine.
The company is advancing its Clara digital diamond sales platform, which it acquired last year. Lucara held its inaugural sale on Clara in late 2018, and two sales of rough diamonds totalling $1.4 million were completed in the first quarter of this year.
Clara sells rough diamonds individually, and Lucara envisions that other diamond producers will want to sell diamonds on the digital platform, which uses computing algorithms to match rough diamond production to buyers who want stones with the same characteristics.
The company recorded net income of $11.7 million, or 3¢ per share, in 2018, which was a record year for the recovery of specials — single diamonds in excess of 10.8 carats — with 829 stone totaling 24,793 carats recovered, including 33 diamonds in excess of 100 carats, of which five stones exceeded 300 carats.
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