Industry News

Austin, Texas��Samuels Jewelers has entered into discussions with a Diamond Trading Co. sightholder based in India for the sightholder to purchase a majority ownership of the retailer. Samuels President and Chief Executive Officer Randy McCullough said in a statement. DDJ Capital Management, current majority shareholder of Samuels Jewelers, did not publicly disclose terms of the proposed transaction or provide any further details about the sightholder. Samuels Chairman David Barr said in a sta..

Carlsbad, Calif.��The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) released the first glimpse of its new synthetic-diamond grading reports on Friday. The image is posted to GIA's Web site at GIA.edu.The sample clearly identifies the diamond as laboratory-grown (it makes reference to the diamond's man-made status four times) and doesn't use the standardized clarity or color scales present on natural-diamond reports. As previously reported, the lab will begin accepting lab-grown stones for grading on..

Chicago��On today's The Oprah Winfrey Show, Blood Diamond Director Ed Zwick and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou had a fairly diamond-industry-positive discussion on conflict diamonds with host Oprah Winfrey.The episode, which was taped earlier, offered viewers information on the film and the issue, and gave airtime to how the diamond industry has addressed conflict diamonds. Winfrey didn't editorialize while praising the actors and the film, but she addressed her audience directly i..