The company filed for an preliminary public offering (IPO) in India on Aug. 22 and is now looking for to extend 42.25 billion rupees ($497 million), an increase from its preliminary goal of 40 billion rupees ($477 million).
IGI is anticipated to start out shopping for and promoting on Dec. 20, with IPO bids open from Dec. 13 by the use of Dec. 17, in response to a pink herring prospectus filed Dec. 6.
The price ranges from 397 to 417 rupees per share with a lot dimension of 35 shares.
The stock could possibly be listed on the Nationwide Stock Alternate of India and the Bombay Stock Alternate.
Personal equity huge Blackstone acquired IGI in May 2023 from a subsidiary of Chinese language language conglomerate Fosun and former CEO Roland Lorie, paying virtually $570 million for the lab.
Blackstone had been seeking a valuation of $1.5 billion, per a Reuters report, nonetheless was in talks to take the lab as extreme as $3.5 billion.
This proposed IPO values IGI at spherical $2.1 billion.
In an interview with CNBC, IGI CEO Tehmasp Printer shared further particulars regarding the upcoming IPO.
Following the IPO, Blackstone would go from holding a 100% stake inside the lab to having a 76 % stake, he acknowledged.
“We’re very utterly glad to have Blackstone help us,” he acknowledged. “I think about Blackstone is devoted for the next 10 years, which may also presumably be extended.”
The online proceeds from the IPO may be used for regular firm capabilities and to amass the remaining glorious shares of IGI Belgium Group and IGI Netherlands Group from Blackstone.
“Proper now, we’re in consolidation mode. We now have now taken the lead on lab-grown diamonds and we have to make IGI a worldwide entity,” acknowledged Printer.
Inside the prospectus, IGI highlighted its place as a result of the second-largest unbiased grading and accreditation suppliers provider on the planet, after the Gemological Institute of America, at no cost stones and jewelry.
Primarily based by the Lorie family in Antwerp in 1975, IGI now operates 31 laboratories and 18 education facilities in diamond and jewelry amenities world large.
IGI’s share of the final grading report market is spherical 33 %, acknowledged Printer, along with 20 % pure and 13 % lab-grown diamonds.
In India, IGI is a very powerful provider of these suppliers, holding 50 % market share, acknowledged the prospectus.
The rise in status of lab-grown diamonds has been partly behind its success, though its practices regarding the stones have raised some eyebrows inside the commerce.
As first reported by JCKOnline.com, IGI disclosed in its draft prospectus filed in August that loads of its lab-grown diamond grading is completed inside the factories of the companies rising the diamonds.
IGI gemologists, along with employees of the diamond companies, do the grading and the diamond companies present the instruments, a setup that, IGI acknowledged, comes with risks.
“As certification by means of our in-factory and mobile laboratory setups are carried out on the premises of our prospects, we will even have a lot much less oversight over third occasions who’ve entry to our prospects’ premises,” the lab acknowledged in its August prospectus.
“Whereas we conduct prime quality checks and periodic calibration of our gemologists to reassess and regulate their grading strategies, such measures won’t be environment friendly in stopping all instances of grading errors or fraud by gemologists or third occasions.”
Printer was not requested about this all through the CNBC interview nonetheless did concentrate on the growth in shopper demand for lab-grown diamonds and their falling prices.
“Our progress price has been immense the place lab-growns are concerned,” he acknowledged on CNBC. “It’s the new-age diamond. It’s the model new baby on the block and we’re sitting on the best of it.”
The company moreover benefits from “economies of scale” when grading lab-grown diamonds, he acknowledged, which signifies that as the company grades further lab-grown diamonds the price to take motion decreases.
Regarding the sustainability of this revenue progress, Printer acknowledged it is sustainable due partly to the affordability of lab-grown diamonds, which has contributed to the market dimension “rising shortly,” and caught the attention of millennials and Gen Z.
Though the market dimension is also rising, the declining price of lab-grown diamonds has been a set off for concern inside the commerce.
The decline in prices should not injury its margins, he acknowledged, together with that prices have been safe for the ultimate 9 months or so, now at $200 to $250 per carat wholesale.
“Lab-grown producers and polishers have massive [capital expenditures] and [operational expenditures]. Proper now, the worth has stabilized to a level the place I don’t assume they are going to go any lower. Then, it turns into unsustainable,” he acknowledged.