Front Street jeweller Astwood Dickinson has split from its business partner Colombian Emeralds International and is now busy restocking its stores after the duty free shopping company pulled out of Bermuda.

Astwood Dickinson has now closed its doors for two weeks as the store tries to restock its shelves.

Most of the stock in the store had belonged to Colombian Emeralds.

"We haven't lost the franchise with Colombian Emeralds, we have negotiated an amicable settlement," said Tommy Dickinson, owner of Astwood Dickinson, which was established in 1932. "Colombian Emeralds has exited Bermuda."

Mr. Dickinson hatched a deal to sell part, which was believed at the time to be 40 percent, of the family fine jewellery business to Colombian Emeralds at the end of 1996, and the deal was sealed early in 1997.

Colombian Emeralds, based in Freeport, Grand Bahama, is one of the largest and most influential duty free shopping companies in the Caribbean market and also has stores in Alaska.

But the company has been hit hard by the fall-out from September 11 which has impacted on the Colombian Emerald chains, according to Mr. Dickinson, who originally owned 100 percent of the company after he bought out partner Edmund Powell in 1995.

"They brought a lot to the table for us," said Mr. Dickinson. "September 11 really did a job on them in the West Indies.

"They have come to the conclusion that they will focus on their core business in the West Indies.

"In fact we are a very different company. It made sense to find a deal that was acceptable to both sides."

When asked if he regretted the breaking up of the partnership after more than seven years together, he said: "In some respects yes, in some respects, no."

He said that his stores would remain open and the company was currently busy restocking and would expand their Tiffany collection and some of their watch ranges.

"We will still be a fine jeweller," he added.

"We are trying to re-stock with merchandise."

The store is scheduled to reopen on April 29, but will continue to use some of the Colombian Emerald signs and logos until September, when all traces of the company will disappear.

The deal hatched with Colombian Emeralds in 1996 was seen as controversial as it was a "brand" name moving into a traditional Bermuda store on the Island.

At the time Colombian Emeralds had 35 stores on 28 islands and was the first foreign or outside jeweller to expand into Antigua, St. Lucia, Barbados and the Cayman Islands.

Colombian Emeralds, as the name suggests, specialises in emeralds with about 60 percent of the inventory made up of emeralds.

One of the big draws of being linked to such a large organisation was the amount of stock they had available for their stores.