Sean Gilbertson

THE second half of 2025 was supposed to see improvements at the coloured gemstone miner, but the continuing lacklustre performance of the Gemfields share price tells another story. The shares started last year at 180 South African cents a share but have traded to as low as 127c in a steadily declining trend from July. This latest decline is despite positive developments such as the resumption of emerald mining at the firm’s Zambian operations following a five-month suspension and completion of the ‘PP2’ recovery plant which will treble throughput capacity at the Montepuez Ruby Mine in Mozambique.

But Gemfields took some severe body blows during the year as it struggled to shore up its embattled balance sheet which had been hit by worse-than-expected losses. It raised $30m through a rights issue at a deeply discounted share price and then sold off its “crown jewels” – luxury brand Fabergé – for $50m. Gemfields bought Fabergé in 2007 with then-chair, the late great Brian Gilbertson predicting Fabergé would jump sixfold in value to around $1bn in about three years.

A problem that continues to plague Montepuez is illegal mining, with the latest incident taking place in October when 40 illegal miners killed two Mozambican police officers in an attack at the mine gate. Sean Gilbertson is hoping proposed mining law changes will make a difference. At the interim stage he was looking forward to management’s strategy of debt reduction and operational restructuring “securing profitability” for Gemfields, but made no specific predictions.