NEW YORK — After conducting a worldwide business review, M. Fabrikant & Sons, the $1 billion Diamond Trading Co. site holder, has formed a joint venture jewelry manufacturing firm called Fabrikant-Tara International LLC, with Tara Jewels, one of the largest Indian jewelry producers.
The new firm, which includes the operations of M. Fabrikant & Sons subsidiary Fabrikant-Leer International Ltd., will produce a range of unbranded diamond and colored stone jewelry.
“We had a long and rewarding relationship with Rajeev Sheth, chairman and managing director of Tara, and see this as the next step in continuing to be able to offer our valued customers the best products at the most advantageous cost,” Matthew Fabrikant Fortgang, president and chief executive officer of M. Fabrikant, said in a statement.
The deal comes amid industry speculation about Fabrikant’s financial woes. The firm said it has “executed an agreement with its domestic lenders as to the basis for their ongoing relationship with the company.” The statement also said M. Fabrikant & Sons is in discussions with its foreign lenders “to obtain a similar understanding.” Suzy Fabrikant Fortgang, an executive at the firm, who launched an eponymous collection of fine jewelry this spring, declined to go into details.
Matthew Fabrikant Fortgang has been named chairman of M. Fabrikant & Sons, succeeding his father, Charles Fortgang, who has been named chairman emeritus and will continue to advise the company.
M. Fabrikant & Sons is a family-owned-and-operated business founded here in 1895. Beginning in the Fifties, the company started expanding internationally into Antwerp, Belgium; Tel Aviv, and Mumbai, India, setting up manufacturing and trading offices, with other companies following suit.
The company has a number of subsidiaries, including Suzy Fabrikant; Robert Lee Morris, a designer jewelry line with a tribal aesthetic using silver, gold and oxidized metals, and Simmons Jewelry Co., in which the firm partnered with Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons and his wife, Kimora Lee, who designs the much-hyped Hello Kitty by Kimora Lee Simmons collection that made its wholesale debut in June.