After pink, it’s blue as HK tycoon buys daughter US$48m diamond
Print Edition
A BILLIONAIRE from China’s Hong Kong spent a record US$48.4 million buying a 12.03-carat diamond dubbed “Blue Moon” for his daughter in an auction in Geneva, his spokeswoman confirmed yesterday.
Property tycoon Joseph Lau, who last year was found guilty of bribery in neighboring Macau, bought the rock at a Sotheby’s auction on Wednesday and immediately renamed it “The Blue Moon of Josephine” after his 7-year-old daughter.
The sale comes the day after he spent US$28.5 million buying a rare 16.08-carat pink diamond — the largest of its kind to ever go under the hammer — from rival auction house Christie’s, which he rebaptized “Sweet Josephine.”
A Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Lau confirmed the two purchases.
“The first was the pink one ‘Sweet Josephine’ and the second one was the ‘Blue Moon of Josephine’,” she said.
David Bennett, head of Sotheby’s international jewelry division, said the “Blue Moon” sale broke several records, making the gemstone “the most expensive diamond, regardless of color, and the most expensive jewel ever sold at auction.”
The jewel, set in a ring, was sold for 48.6 million Swiss francs (US$48.4 million), including fees, with a starting bid of 43.2 million Swiss francs.
It also fetched the highest-ever price per carat, he said, with the buyer shelling out 4.02 million Swiss francs per carat.
The previous world record for a jewel sold at auction was held by the 24.78-carat “Graff Pink” diamond, which was sold by Sotheby’s for US$46.2 million in November 2010.
‘Star of Josephine’
This is not the first time Lau has bought rare jewels for his daughter. In 2009, he reportedly spent US$9.5 million on another blue diamond, which he renamed the “Star of Josephine.”
Josephine is his daughter with girlfriend and former aid Chan Hoi-wan, according to local media. The 64-year-old also has two children with long-time partner Yvonne Lui.
In March last year, he was found guilty of bribing a former minister in the gambling enclave of Macau in an attempt to purchase a prime development site.
Lau, a property developer with a fortune estimated by Forbes at US$9.9 billion, was not in Macau for the sentencing.
He was locked in a telephone bidding war for eight minutes for “Blue Moon” before the hammer went down, with the precious jewel staying within its pre-sale estimate of US$35-55 million.
The polished blue gem was cut from a 29.6-carat diamond discovered in January last year in South Africa’s Cullinan mine, which also yielded the 530-carat Star of Africa blue diamond that is part of the British crown jewels, and the Smithsonian Institution’s “Blue Heart” discovered in 1908.
Sotheby’s says experts took five months for an “intense study” of the original Blue Moon diamond, and a master cutter took another three months to craft, cut and polish the stone.
The auction house said in a video that the Cullinan mine was the “only reliable source in the world for blue diamonds,” and only a tiny percentage of those found in it contain even a trace of blue.
It was the largest cushion-shaped blue stone in the fancy vivid category to ever appear at auction.
Blue diamonds are formed when boron is mixed with carbon when the gem is created.
Experts say the market for colored diamonds has grown increasingly robust and both the blue and pink diamonds garnered a lot of attention in the run up to this week’s jewel sales in Geneva.
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