Two HB Antwerp Cofounders Step Down As Managing Directors

By Rob Bates | April 28, 2025

Rafael Papismedov and Shai de Toledo, two of the cofounders of HB Antwerp, have announced they are stepping down as managing directors of the company.

The diamond company’s management team now consists of Oded Mansori, Boaz Lev, and Roy Seber, who has been with HB since the beginning.

Papismedov and de Toledo remain shareholders of the five-year-old company, but they are also looking for new opportunities, the two said in a joint statement.

“When we founded HB, our ambition was clear: to build a new blueprint for the diamond industry—one that returned value creation to producing countries, starting with our partnership in Botswana,” they said. “But as the company’s direction shifted away from that mission, we knew it was time to step back.”

An HB statement said it “remains fully committed to the principles that define us: radical transparency, fairness, and the equitable distribution of wealth.” It thanked the two departing directors for “helping build Europe’s largest diamond ecosystem.”

This is not the first time HB has had turmoil at the top. In September 2023, Mansori said he’d been removed as a company director after a dispute with Papismedov and de Toledo. Mansori was reinstated as a director less than a month later.

Founded in 2020, HB quickly attracted attention from some of the industry’s biggest players. Shortly after its debut, it signed a deal to sell the biggest stones unearthed by Lucara, owner of the Karowe mine in Botswana, using a new model where both parties split the profits. That formula so intrigued Botswana’s then-government that, in 2024, former President Mokgweetsi Masisi said the country would purchase a 24% share of HB.

That deal was never consummated, and in March, Botswana’s Minister of Minerals and Energy Bogolo Kenewendo told JCK that the country is no longer interested in a deal with HB.

Lucara has also had an on-and-off relationship with HB. It canceled its 10-year sales agreement with HB in 2023, then reinstated it six months later. It did not return a request for comment.

Top: Workers at an HB Antwerp factory in Botswana (photo courtesy of HB Antwerp)