Antwerp Diamond Bank

Antwerp Diamond Bank

Antwerp Diamond Bank logo
Industry	Banking
Founded	1934
Headquarters	Antwerp, Belgium
Website	www.antwerpdiamondbank.com

The Antwerp Diamond Bank (ADB) (Banque Diamantaire Anversoise and Antwerpse Diamantbank) is a small, 75-year-old bank that specializes exclusively in serving the diamond and the diamond jewelry sector. It is the second largest diamond bank in the world, after ABN AMRO's International Diamond and Jewelry Group. In addition to its headquarters in Antwerp, it has offices covering all the major traditional as well as emerging diamond centers such as Antwerp, Dubai, Geneva, Hong Kong, Mumbai and New York. Today the ADB group employs approximately 160 people worldwide, of whom about 110 work at the head office in Antwerp. ADB is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of KBC Bank, however, European Competition Commission directed KBC to divest the bank as part of the terms of the Belgian government's bail-out of KBC.

KBC agreed in December 2013 to sell ADB to the Chinese Yinren Group. However, the sale requires regulatory approval and is stalled. The sale has failed and KBC stated in September 2014 that it would wind down ADB as no other entity has expressed an interest in buying ADB. ADB would make no new loans and would close out existing loans as they were paid off.

Société Belge de Banque established the Comptoir Diamantaire Anversois in 1934, in partnership with Banque Transatlantique, Société Internationale Forestière et Minière du Congo (Forminière ), and the De Beers Group. The company was the first financial institution to focus solely and entirely on the needs of the diamond industry; it opened its registered office in the very heart of Antwerp's diamond district.

In 1937, Belgium passed bank reform legislation that allowed the Comptoir Diamantaire Anversois to become a bank. At this point the Comptoir changed its name to the one that it still carries. It also took the opportunity to double its equity base to BEF60 million (approximately 1.5 million euros) by bringing in Kredietbank and Compagnie Financière et Industrielle (Confindus)-Banque de Bruxelles as shareholders.