King of bling
Billionaire Laurence Graff tells us about his passion for diamonds
WORDS | CLAIRE ADLER PORTRAIT | JILLIANE DELSTEIN
BETWEEN HIS HOMES IN LONDON, New York, Cap Ferrat in the south of France, Geneva (his legal residence), and Gstaad, a 150-foot yacht, a private jet, a winery and vineyard in South Africa, it’s almost impossible to pin down Laurence Graff. With his well-known trait for avoiding the press, the British chairman of Graff Diamonds is something of an international man of mystery.
But to anyone who knows their jewellery, Graff is a household name. The son of Jewish immigrants, the 71-year-old has built one of the most powerful companies in the diamond industry from scratch, earning himself an estimated £1.2 billion according to the 2009 Sunday Times Rich List. He did it by taking control of the whole production process – and by taking some big money risks.
In 1987 the most successful jewellery auction of all time took place at Sotheby’s in Geneva – total sales hit $50 million. To this day, that figure has never been surpassed at any single auction. Among Graff’s acquisitions was Wallis Simpson’s 19-carat emerald engagement ring – a gift from the former King Edward VIII, who abdicated his throne for her.
“It is one of the finest emeralds I have ever seen,” Graff was quoted as saying at the time. “I’ve got the original jeweller’s invoice which was made out to ‘The King.’” He gave the ring to his wife Anne Marie for their 25th wedding anniversary.
Such is Graff’s importance that when one of the largest rough diamonds ever discovered was found in Lesotho’s Maluti mountains in 2006, the country’s president telephoned Graff immediately with the news. Within days, diamond experts from Safdico, Graff’s manufacturing and trading arm, were in Lesotho. Bidders each spent four hours examining the 603-carat rough stone. Two days later they presented their sealed offers. At a record-busting $20,500 per carat, Graff secured the stone for more than $12 million. “I am literally holding a piece of history in my hands,” he said at the time. The Lesotho Promise yielded 26 smaller stones which were later set into a show-stopping necklace; the asking price is rumoured to be $50 million.
Then in December 2008, at the height of the recession, Graff paid £15 million at Christie’s for the 35.52 carat Wittelsbach diamond, the most ever paid for a diamond at auction. It is currently on show in Washington’s Smithsonian museum. Graff calls the purchase “the climax of my career”.
And it’s a career which has followed an extraordinary trajectory. Graff spent his first seven years in a single-room apartment on Commercial Road in London’s East End, born to Jewish parents from Eastern Europe who ran a tobacconist.
In his coffee table book, The Most Fabulous Diamonds in the World, he documents how, aged 15 in 1960, he was sacked after three months at his first apprenticeship, where his duties included going out to buy sandwiches for the workers. But Graff’s unstoppable passion for diamonds, combined with raw ambition and a gift for building client relationships, brought him immense success.
“I was very observant as a young boy and wanted to learn everything,” he says. “I was making jewellery when I was 15 and when I saw my first diamond this set off a passion in me which has taken me all the way to being known as one of the world’s leading diamantaires.”
At 17, making Stars of David in his free time at a bench in his parents’ house to sell to friends, the young Laurence would probably not have imagined that he would open stores in London, Moscow, Geneva, New York, Monaco, Tokyo, Dubai and Shanghai; own cutting and polishing operations in Johannesburg, Antwerp, Mauritius and New York; have a stake in a major South African diamond mine, and receive four Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. In 1974 Graff opened his first major retail store in Knightsbridge where he began welcoming clients from the Middle East enriched by the oil boom.
“The Sultan of Brunei came into the store and so did every member of the Saudi Arabian royal family and other Middle Eastern families,” Graff says in his London boardroom. Already a personal friend of the Sultan of Brunei’s brother, Prince Sufri, Graff often helped his newly wealthy Arab clients find their way in London, connecting them with drivers and doctors. When Saudi princesses returned from their shopping trips, they would change into their new clothes in Graff’s office. One unforgettable day, Saudi Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz walked in unannounced and bought out the entire shop including a 14-carat diamond.
Graff’s business would become the first in the diamond industry to be vertically integrated – able to take a diamond all the way from acquiring it in the rough through to selling it in one of his shops.
The vast majority of Graff’s jewellery production takes place in his headquarters, two adjacent 18th century townhouses in Mayfair. Diamond setters and polishers sit in an airy, spotless room, surrounded by the most advanced laser-welding machines on the market and top quality Leica microscopes.
Although Graff made the news late last year when it emerged he had fathered a child, now eight months old, with a former PA, the business remains very much a family enterprise. Graff has two sons – François, 44, who runs the London branch of his father’s business empire, and Stephane, 43, a successful artist – as well as a daughter, 29-year-old Kristelle, all with his wife Anne Marie, 71.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the business has not proved immune from the vagaries of the recession. In 2008, profits from UK operations were $77 million, down from $117 million in 2007. But Graff claims he is more confident now that diamond production has restarted and prices have increased. Following his boutique in Shanghai he is planning another in Beijing, and later this year he will open a luxury resort and spa in the heart of his South African vineyards. Graff will also be focusing on a leadership camp for 250 orphans and vulnerable youth in Africa, part of the Facet Foundation he set up in 2008 in memory of his mother.
In truth, with clients like the Beckhams, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Taylor and the Sultan of Brunei (Graff is rumoured to send a well-toned bodyguard or two along with top clients attending functions), he has little to fear from the credit crunch.
And he is already cultivating the next generation of customers. “My youngest client is three months old,” he admits, with a twinkle in his eye. The baby acquired a pink heart-shaped Graff diamond, paid for by her parents. An extravagant gift: but maybe an investment in a future passion and career.
Graff’s London store is at 6-7 New Bond Street W1, +44 (0)20 7584 8571, Moscow: 6 Tretiakovsky Proezd, +7 495 933 3385; www.graffdiamonds.com
Photography: © Camera Press
