Billionaire spends £46m on two stunning diamonds

The prior auction record for any diamond had been held by The Graff Pink (24.78 carats), which sold for US$46.2 million at Sotheby’s Geneva in 2010. “So even amongst this extremely rare class of blue diamonds, to get one vivid blue, 12 carats, internally flawless, is really as rare as a ‘blue moon'”. The price fell within the pre-auction estimate of $35-$55 million.

In nearly 250 years of auction history, only three pure vivid pink diamonds of over ten carats have appeared for sale, the auction house said prior to the sale.

Sotheby’s employee displays the rare Blue Moon Diamond during a preview. “It’s a magical stone”, Bennett said.

Lau is a controversial figure in Hong Kong not just for his purchases of expensive jewelries.

Corrects to show that pink diamond was auctioned by Christie’s instead of Sotheby’s.

“I’ve never seen a more lovely stone”, he said.

The court found that Lau and Lo offered a HK$20 million bribe to disgraced public works chief Ao Man-long to secure the site for their La Scala luxury development. Its estimate was $4.7 million-$5.3 million.

He also has two other children from his previous marriage to Bo Wing-kam. Christie’s had listed the projected sale price between $23 and $28 million.

Blue diamonds are formed when boron mixes with carbon when the gem is formed.

The present record to get a blue diamond is owned by the Zoe Diamond, which in November 2014 brought in $32.6m in NY. Cora global, a New York-based gemcutter, purchased the diamond and took more than six months to prepare the stone. A packed auction room broke into applause after the hammer came down at a price of 43.2 million Swiss francs, excluding fees. If In the Pink, owned by an American family for the past 15 years, matches that mark, it could fetch more than $32 million he said.