Conner Curran, CEO of tender house Dexterous DMCC, waxes lyrical about Dubai on episode 150 of the Rapaport Diamond Podcast — but raises concerns about tax changes.
Curran’s company facilitates commodity sales, operating out of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC). About 40% of its business is diamonds, gold and gemstones, he told Rapaport’s Joshua Freedman.
The tax laws, safety and ease of doing business make Dubai a “great place to live [and] a great place to do business,” said Curran, who moved to the emirate from London.
The company used to hold rough tenders but has shifted toward high-end polished diamonds, especially fancy-color goods, hosting private tenders in Hong Kong, Dubai and Miami. Unusually, the events attract consumers.
“The B2B [business to business] is great, but lots of the time you don’t quite hit the revenue numbers you need, the profit margins you need, and it’s very tight percentages,” he explained. “So we [asked] quite a few years ago,…how can we get the end users in, how can we get the people who are willing to pay a little bit more, but it’s still cheaper than the high-street stores?”
The tenders in Hong Kong are especially strong for consumer sales, since that is the main destination for fancy-color diamonds, noted Curran, who was speaking last week.
However, changes to corporate tax in Dubai are currently threatening the local diamond trade, he cautioned. The government had told diamond companies they would be exempt from the 9% levy but reversed this decision last year, he said. “It just makes Antwerp a lot more appealing taxwise,” Curran asserted.
Listen to the full podcast here:
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