Alrosa board approves Kristall acquisition

The supervisory board of Russian diamond miner Alrosa has approved the acquisition of diamond polisher Kristall from the Russian Federation.

Kristall, which processes more than 200 000 ct/y from feedstock supplied by Alrosa, is valued at 1.89-billion ruble.

"Despite the fact that Alrosa is currently a key supplier of rough diamonds to Kristall, it accounts for as little as 0.5% of Alrosa’s total sales of rough diamonds. The deal value is less than 1% of Alrosa net assets and, according to our estimates, the purchase price will not exceed Kristall's net assets at the date of the transaction," says Alrosa deputy CEO Alexey Philippovskiy.

The sale and purchase agreement is expected to be signed by the end of September, with the deal to be closed in the first half of October.