ALROSA Reaches Fourth Quarter Rough And Polished Sales at $680M
Predict to reach $680 million...ALROSA sold approximately $250 million of rough and polished diamonds during October. The mining giant predicted that total fourth quarter sales of rough and polished diamonds would reach $680 million, according to meeting minutes released after a management meeting today.
Additionally, ALROSA president Fyodor Andreev confirmed the company had met its debt reduction and restructuring goals that were set earlier this year. ALROSA's total debt portfolio was reduced by $550 million and currently amounts to $3.25 billion.
After the successful placement of ruble and euro demonimated bonds, more than 90 percent of ALROSA's debt obligations have been reworked into long-term loans, while, at the beginning of 2010, the majority of debt was short-term loans with high interest payments. As a result of the restructuring plan this year, the diamond mining company reduced its interest payments by almost half.
ALROSA expects that rough diamond prices will continue to increase in the near future, driven by the disparity between demand and supply. "At the same time, ALROSA believes that major diamond producers -- in shaping their price policies -- must be focused on maintaining overall market stability, as the speculative factor poses a potential threat for the diamond business," according to meeting minutes.
Addressing ALROSA's long term plan of becoming a public company, Andreev said that in management's view, such a move would be expedient from an economic point of view, "if it gave ALROSA instruments to increase capitalization and raise capital to expand production."
By: Jeff Miller
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