During yesterday’s earnings call, Sotheby’s revealed that one of its major successes of 2013, the sale of a 60kt pink diamond for $83m to dealer Isaac Wolff had not gone through. The diamond was guaranteed. So Sotheby’s now owns it for $72m. Katya Kazakina did a little Googling to come up with the rationale behind Wolff purchase:

“It’s not that I am buying this with the money I have in my piggy bank,” he said. “It’s basically a group of investors, financial people that are backing me in this and they are doing this as an investment, and hope to make a big profit.”

Wolf said he saw “a great opportunity” in buying the diamond because “this particular color of the diamond today in the 10 carat sells for $2.5 million a carat.” At almost 60 carats, his diamond could be worth $150 million, he said.

“And I bought it for $83 million,” he said in an interview. “So you have to admit that I bought it well.”

Sotheby’s Pink Diamond Buyer Defaulted on Record Purchase  (Bloomberg)