ALROSA to focus on diamond mining, sells off non-core assets

Russia's Alrosa, the world's leading diamond miner in volume, continues to sell off assets in 2019, with the purpose to improve its financial performance and to focus on the company's core diamond mining business.

In 2018, Alrosa sold its gas assets, the Geotransgaz and Urengoy gas companies, and more than 250 properties that included real estate, in-progress construction projects, as well as stock in housing and land plots. In 2018, Alrosa sold about $2.66 billion of assets. At the end of 2018, the firm’s supervisory board approved a new version of its non-core assets disposal program, approving another 500 assets listed for disposal.

Alrosa reported it sold about $18.6 million of non-core assets in the first quarter of the year, noting that the most significant transaction sale was its 100 percent stake in JSC Golubaya Volna Resort.

"A total of 21 non-core assets were successfully disposed of in Q1 2019, including subsidiary equity stakes, residential and other real estate properties. The overall target for 2019 is to sell 90 non-core assets with a total book value of six billion Rubel ($400 million)," said Konstantin Mashinsky, Deputy CEO of Alrosa.