Bankruptcy judge approves $2.7 million sale of Charles & Colvard assets
A judge cleared AJS Creations’ $2.7 million purchase of Charles & Colvard assets, putting moissanite buyers on alert for warranty and brand changes.
A bankruptcy judge approved the private sale of Charles & Colvard’s assets to AJS Creations LLC for $2.7 million.
For shoppers, the immediate question is not just who owns the assets, but who will control the name, the inventory and the obligations that come with them. The approved transaction covers specified business assets and assumed liabilities, and it follows a court-supervised auction in which AJS Creations replaced an earlier plan to sell to Jewelry Design Partners LLC for $1.5 million.
Founded in 1995 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Charles & Colvard was the first company to introduce lab-grown moissanite to the world. It later entered lab-grown diamonds with its Caydia brand in September 2020. Moissanite’s former exclusive patent era ended in 2015, and the stone now faces competition from sellers such as JTV and a much wider field of jewelers.
The bankruptcy filing, entered March 2 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, listed 26 full-time employees and one part-time employee on the petition date. The company sold online, through distributors and retail customers, and through its first Signature Showroom, which opened in October 2022. A March bankruptcy report also placed that showroom in Morrisville, North Carolina, and noted the company had been delisted from Nasdaq while dealing with an arbitration dispute with Wolfspeed Inc.
According to National Jeweler, revenue fell to about $16 million in 2025, from $22 million in 2024 and $30 million in 2023, and the company lost money for three straight years. The same coverage cited falling lab-grown diamond and moissanite prices, higher precious-metal costs and competition from Brilliant Earth and Blue Nile. Court records show the company first lined up Jewelry Design Partners on April 15, with the bankruptcy court approving JDP as stalking horse on April 29 and setting the final sale hearing for June 22 at 11:00 a.m. ET before AJS emerged as the winning bidder. Board chair Michael Levin said the company’s intellectual property had value and that it was open to buyers, while a separate filing tied JDP to a March 24 debtor-in-possession financing loan and identified up to $1 million in financing from Van Lang Jewelry LLC, owned by jewelry designer Duc Pham.
JTV designer Charles Winston said the channel sold around $250 million in moissanite jewelry over the past decade.
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