Leo Schachter Diamonds is a New York and Israel-based diamond manufacturer and brand company founded in 1952 by Leo Schachter, a Holocaust survivor who built one of the postwar generation of New York diamond firms in the cluster around 47th Street. The firm has remained family-controlled across three generations and is today directed by the Schachter family with offices in New York, Ramat Gan, Mumbai, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Botswana. It operates as both a sightholder of De Beers and a manufacturer of branded cut diamonds for major retail customers including, historically, Sterling Jewelers (Kay, Jared, Zales) and various international chains.

The Leo Diamond and branded cuts

The firm's most public product is the Leo Diamond, a 66-facet modified round brilliant launched in 1997 and the first diamond independently verified as visually brighter than a standard round brilliant by AGSL. The Leo Diamond was the first branded diamond cut to be sold at scale through U.S. chain retail, distributed primarily through Sterling Jewelers as a premium-priced category. Leo Schachter has continued to develop branded cuts around it, including the Leo Artisan and the Leo Ideal Cut, and the firm has played a leading role in normalising branded cut diamonds in the U.S. mid-market.

Sightholder operations and provenance

Leo Schachter has been a De Beers sightholder for decades and operates rough-sorting and manufacturing facilities in Botswana under the Diamond Trading Company Botswana programme, which channels a portion of Botswana's rough through local cutting and polishing as part of the country's beneficiation policy. The firm also operates manufacturing in Israel and India, with the most labour-intensive smaller goods cut in the Indian facility and the larger and branded goods cut in Israel and Botswana. The vertically integrated supply chain - rough sourcing, sorting, cutting and brand distribution - is the firm's principal commercial proposition to retail partners and underwrites its provenance and chain-of-custody disclosures.

Position in the market

Among the New York diamond houses, Leo Schachter is mid- to large-tier, smaller than the global majors (Rosy Blue, Diacore, Stargems) but with a stronger U.S.-branded retail presence than most competitors of similar size. The firm has not been involved in the celebrity historic-diamond market in the way of Lazare Kaplan or William Goldberg, but its day-to-day commercial volume across calibrated brilliants and branded cuts is substantial, and its Leo Diamond brand remains the most successful U.S. diamond brand at chain-retail price points. The firm has invested in industry initiatives on natural-diamond provenance and traceability, and has continued to occupy a credible mid-tier position as the industry has shifted toward laboratory-grown and natural-distinguishing supply chains in the 2020s.

Family and continuity

Leo Schachter himself died in 2002. The firm is now run by his son and grandsons, with Elliott Schachter as Chief Executive at the time of writing, and continues to operate as a family business in a market that has seen many of its peers acquired or consolidated. Its continued sightholder status, vertical integration, and U.S. retail relationships make it a reference firm for the present generation of branded American diamond retail.