“I’m conscious that we need to help them ride out the storm,” said Cleaver. “There are things we can do in the rest of 2019 to drive demand and to help customers add a bit more flexibility in their businesses.”
There doesn’t seem any looming good news. Dutch bank ABN Amro, one of the leaders in the industry’s financing, recently wrote to clients saying it would no longer finance rough purchases if it wasn’t clear a profit could be made on the stones. At the same time, some diamond boxes sold by Russian rival Alrosa PJSC this month are trading at steep discounts to the price Alrosa sold them for, according to the people.
“It’s a perfect storm: you have too much supply, not enough demand,” said Richard Hatch, a metals and mining analyst at Berenberg. “I can’t see it improving anytime soon.”
--With assistance from Hayley Warren.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.