Retail Sales Rebound at Berkshire Hathaway
RAPAPORT. Berkshire Hathaway, which owns Borsheims, Helzberg Diamonds and Ben Bridge Jeweler, saw retail sales jump in the first quarter as the market bounced back from last year’s downturn.
Revenue in the retail segment rose 21% year on year to $4.35 billion, according to Warren Buffett’s conglomerate, which does not break down figures for its jewelry brands. Pretax earnings for the retail division more than doubled to $348 million from $133 a year earlier, the company said Saturday.
“Operating results of nearly all of our retailing businesses were severely impacted by the pandemic beginning in March of 2020 and continuing through the second quarter of 2020,” the group explained in its quarterly report. “Over the second half of 2020 and continuing through the first quarter of 2021, revenues and pretax earnings of these businesses increased, and in certain instances to levels exceeding those in pre-pandemic periods, despite ong
India’s Titan Sees Sales Recover
RAPAPORT. Titan Company’s sales and profit jumped sharply in the first three months of 2021, benefiting from lower gold prices and a favorable comparison with last year’s shutdown.
Group revenue including subsidiaries rose 59% year on year to INR 75.51 billion ($1.02 billion) in the fourth fiscal quarter ending March 31, the Indian jewelry retailer reported Thursday. Net profit leaped 66% to INR 5.68 billion ($76.4 million).
Sales were weak during the same quarter a year earlier because of the Covid-19 lockdown that went into effect during March, Titan pointed out. Sales rebounded this year in the jewelry, watches and wearables category, as well as in eyewear. The period in question finished before the latest partial lockdowns that cities such as Mumbai and Delhi have imposed amid a second coronavirus wave.
RAPAPORT. De Beers is considering underground mining at its Jwaneng open-pit deposit in Botswana as a “likely approach” to extending the life of the world’s most valuable diamond mine beyond the mid-2030s.
“The underground mining project is still in the study phase and is yet to be approved,” a De Beers spokesperson said Tuesday in an email to
Rapaport News. “If approved, it would have the potential to significantly extend Jwaneng’s life of mine beyond Cut-9.”
Debswana, a 50:50 joint venture between De Beers and the Botswana government, unveiled the Cut-9 expansion in March 2019 to extend the life of Jwaneng until 2035. Back then, the company said the project would cost Debswana about $2 billion and was likely to produce an estimated 53 million carats of rough diamonds.
RAPAPORT. China’s polished-diamond imports rose almost fivefold in the first quarter as the mainland retail market extended its recovery, according to data from the country’s main bourse.
Net shipments into China via the Shanghai Diamond Exchange (SDE) grew 393% year on year to $722 million during the three months ending March 31, the institution reported Tuesday. Import volume jumped 394% to 699,500 carats.
The numbers are “a good indication of [the] continued improvement in the diamond market of mainland China,” said industry analyst Julius Zheng.
China’s diamond trade and retail market ground to a halt in early 2020 when Covid-19 hit. It recovered strongly amid more positive consumer sentiment from the middle of the year onward, with restrictions on overseas travel further boosting domestic demand, Zheng explained.
RAPAPORT. Pandora has signed a new EUR 950 million ($1.15 billion) credit facility whose pricing is linked to the progress it will make on twin sustainability objectives.
The credit line refinances Pandora’s current undrawn facility, which is scheduled to mature in May 2022 but whose size was not disclosed in the company’s statement Thursday. However, the Danish jeweler said that a EUR 400 million ($481.9 million) state-guaranteed Covid-19 loan had been repaid “ahead of time.”
The new facility’s pricing mechanism links borrowing costs to Pandora’s progress in achieving its environmental goals. These include becoming a carbon-neutral group in its own operations and using only recycled silver and gold in its products by 2025.