Fractional investing company Rally Rd has offered investments in sports cards, sports memorabilia, video games, first edition books, wine and automotive. The company has branched out into new asset categories including NFTs.
One new asset class the company launched recently was historical documents, which came with a huge asset that received a buyout offer less than a month after fully funding.
What Happened: Rally offered 80,000 shares at $25 each in a copy of the Declaration of Independence. The offering valued the historical document at $2 million.
Rally recently announced a $2.8-million buyout offer for the Declaration of Independence. The buyout offer would have set a record for any “Walsh-15” version of the Declaration of Independence. As it does with all approved buyout offers, Rally took the offer to the shareholders of the asset who had 48 hours to vote their shares for or against.
Only 35% of investors (on a share-weighted basis) who participated in the vote elected to accept the buyout offer. A buyout would have seen shareholders receive $31.46 per share of the Declaration of Independence they owned after fees, offering a 26% return in less than a month.
“Thank you to all investors who participated in the buyout survey for Declaration of Independence. Results have been reviewed by Rally and our Advisory Board and as a result, this asset will remain on Rally and your shares will not be affected,” the company said.
This asset is one of only 9-10 Fowle Printing editions and one of around 20 total copies of the Declaration of Independence. Only 11 contemporary broadsides have been sold in the past two decades.
Rally co-founder Rob Petrozzo told Benzinga this copy of the Declaration of Independence exchanged hands very few times and this marked the first “public sale” of the asset when Rally offered shares.
“Whenever we consider a new asset category, we want to ensure we can provide the most unique examples of museum worthy items as keystones for that category,” Petrozzo said.
Related Link: Exclusive: Rally Rd Founder On Video Games, Apple Assets And Growth For Fractional Investing
What’s Next: The Declaration of Independence asset will continue to be owned by the shareholders on Rally. The asset will come up for trading in the future. Assets typically are offered for trading around 90 days after their offering, but Rally has pushed for more live trading of assets after previously only offering assets a specific trading window every couple of months.
A copy of the U.S. Constitution was sold for $43.2 million and generated a significant amount of buzz with a DAO raising Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) to fund a bid.
Given the bid for the Constitution, there is a possibility that the Declaration of Independence could generate interest from DAOs and investors.
When the asset opens for trading on Rally, people will be able to bid the highest price they would pay for the asset and will have their bids matched with sellers.
Rally reported that over 5,400 people own shares of the Declaration of Independence asset.
Rally plans on displaying the Declaration of Independence at its Soho Museum in New York.
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