CAPE TOWN, Feb 9 (Reuters) - The largest diamond uncovered
in over a century was officially named on Tuesday ahead of a
secretive road show to find a buyer for the rare stone.
Named "Lesedi La Rona" - which means "Our Light" in the
Setswana language - the 1,100 carat diamond is about the size of
a tennis ball and will soon embark on the road show.
The gem was pulled from the ground in November by Lucara
Diamond Corp LUC.TO at its Karowe mine in Botswana.
"The road show is to showcase the stone to any potential
buyer," Lucara's chief executive William Lamb told Reuters after
the naming ceremony on the sidelines of an African mining
conference in Cape Town.
Lamb said this could include "ultra-high-net-worth
individuals" who might be interested in the stone for its value
as a collector's item.
But don't expect an invite.
"The biggest challenge on the road show is that the weight
to value ratio of the stone makes it potentially the
highest-value item on the planet," Lamb said.
"So because of the security around the stone, there will be
no telling people where we are going to be taking it, we are not
going to be putting any of that information out because we want
to protect our asset."
The diamond was named after the winning entry was picked
from a competition that was open to citizens of Botswana, an
arid and sparsely-populated Southern African nation that relies
heavily on diamond mining.
Exports of diamonds mined in Botswana fell 38 percent to
$2.4 billion last year from $3.9 billion in 2014, the lowest
shipment of gems in six years.