Vivek Gadodia

VIVEK Gadodia landed in the hot seat at Petra Diamonds in February 2025 when former CEO Richard Duffy left “by mutual agreement and with immediate effect” — i.e. he got booted.

Gadodia, who took on Petra’s corporate affairs, was joined by joint CEO Juan Kemp, who is responsible for matters operational. Of the two roles, you could argue that Gadodia has the short straw as it fell to him to fix Petra’s chronically bad finances. That involved complex negotiations to extend the maturity of the debt — originally due to mature in the first quarter — and hold a $25m rights issue underwritten by “backstop shareholders” — a critical component because the issue received only 82.7% acceptances.

The reason for the shortfall is that this was the third financial crisis Petra has had to deal with in recent years. The backdrop to it all was the collapse of the diamond market, to which Petra was particularly heavily exposed owing to its huge capital programme. Creditors ended up holding 91% of Petra’s stock after the first restructuring. For investors it’s been downhill: Petra shares have plunged in the past five years.

Operationally, Petra restructured the project pipelines at Cullinan and Finsch mines to ease financial pressure; and sold off the Williamson mine in Tanzania and Koffiefontein in South Africa. Gadodia reckons the latest refinancing will enable Petra to continue with “the capital development we believe will unlock sustainable value”. Let’s hope it’s third time lucky, but that may well depend on demand for lab-grown diamonds and the recovery of demand for diamonds of all stripes in China.