Lugano Diamonds Purchased by Gordon Brothers Division

By Rob Bates | January 20, 2026

Enhanced Retail Funding, a division of Gordon Brothers investment firm, has purchased Lugano Diamonds, which was put up for sale following its Chapter 11 filing in November.

The previous owner of Lugano, Compass Diversified, withdrew support for the high-end jewelry chain last spring after discovering what it called “irregularities” in Lugano’s books. Lugano cofounder and CEO Mordechai “Moti” Ferder resigned soon afterward.

Enhanced Retail Funding had submitted a stalking horse (minimum) bid for Newport Beach, Calif.–based Lugano following the Chapter 11 filing. According to a bankruptcy court declaration from J. Michael Issa, Lugano’s chief restructuring officer, the company also received another bid, but it didn’t significantly improve on Enhanced’s bid to qualify for consideration. A federal judge subsequently approved the Enhanced acquisition.

It’s currently unclear what will happen to Lugano’s eight stores. (The jeweler previously had 10 locations, but its recently opened stores in Greenwich, Conn., and Washington, D.C., are slated to close.) Emails to Gordon Brothers and to Issa were not answered by press time.

However, Josh Gaynor, who has been serving as Lugano’s interim CEO since Ferder resigned last year, told the Orange County Business Journal that he plans to stay with the company.

Last fall, Lugano sued Ferder in state court, saying he had exposed the company to over $100 million in liabilities. The suit was subsequently transferred to federal court.

Among other things, Lugano’s complaint alleged that Ferder “concealed and mispresented the nature of numerous financing transactions he entered into with third-party, high-net-worth individuals.… He forged invoices and sale documents, sent out empty box shipments, falsely recorded the money from the third-party individuals as revenue for Lugano, and concealed the repayment obligations from Lugano’s books.”

Ferder is “currently staying in Tel Aviv, Israel,” according to the court document, “and has moved assets out of the United States or sold his assets in the United States and funneled the money out of the United States and to Israel.”

Jeffrey Reeves, Ferder’s lawyer, told the Orange County Business Journal that Ferder denies all the charges and “is confident that the judicial process will bring the full truth to light and that he will be vindicated.”

(Photo courtesy of Lugano Diamonds)