Apple Founding Papers Sold for $1.6 Mil.
The original documents which spawned the birth of one of the most successful companies in the world were sold through an auction for 10 times more than its estimated value.
The original documents were sold during an auction at Sotheby's in New York and the bidding price was more than expected. The estimated amount for the said documents was around US$100,000 to US$150,000. There were six interested parties that joined the bidding war, and the final bidding price for the documents reached a staggering amount of US$1.59 million. Eduardo Cisneros was the one who emerged as the triumphant bidder for the original papers. Cisneros is the Chief Executive of Cisneros Corporation, a Miami-based company that has a wide business venture ranging from real estate, TV, and telecommunications business.
The founding papers of Apple Inc. were signed by its three co-founders namely Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1, 1976. The documents also included an amendment 11 days after it was signed due to withdrawal of Ronald Wayne. Wade Saadi, the seller of the documents said that he originally bought the papers from Ronald Wayne for "several thousand dollars". The documents showed that Ronald Wayne was paid US$800 for handing back his 10% share in Apple when he returned to Atari-the company where Wayne met Steven Jobs. He was also paid an additional US$1,500.
Ronald Wayne was the one who designed the original Apple logo and also cooperated with Jobs to persuade Steve Wozniak to leave Hewlett Packard. Despite his determination to form a new venture, Wayne was later on plagued with thoughts that the venture will fail thus his decision to withdraw from the business. It has been estimated that if Wayne had stayed, he would be worth around US$35 billion today. In an interview conducted by The Daily Telegraph with Robert Wayne, he disclosed his thoughts about withdrawing from the company stating that "Would I like to be rich? Everybody would like to be rich but I couldn't keep up the pace. I would have been wealthy, but I would have been the richest man in the cemetery."