Middle East  – UK-based Alliance Investments, a direct-to-developer real estate investment company, today announced its plans to tokenize £500m of real estate projects across the UK over the next several years. The first project of its real estate tokenization plan is River Plaza, a 180-unit luxury residential development that is located on the banks of River Irwell and directly opposite of Castlefield in Manchester. In collaboration with tZERO, Tezos Foundation and Megalodon, Alliance Investments’ River Plaza project is the UK’s first real estate-backed security token offering (STO) and one of only a handful of real estate STO’s worldwide. 

Alliance Investments intends to tokenize at least £20m of the value of River Plaza. The River Plaza STO will be digitized using tZERO’s tokenization technology and Megalodon’s advisory services and issued on the Tezos Blockchain. River Plaza’s security tokens will provide investors with liquidity through tZERO’s secondary trading technology, which powers the alternative trading system operated by PRO Securities, LLC, a subsidiary of tZERO. The STO is expected to launch in Q1 of 2020. 

Alliance Investments CIO Rani Zahr said, “Raising funds through an STO is more efficient, cost-effective, autonomous and democratic than traditional financing. We believe that we are at the forefront of a technological change that can disrupt the current funding paradigm and we are delighted to partner with two global players that are leading blockchain innovation, tZERO and The Tezos Foundation, for our first STO.”

A real estate-based STO is the process of issuing digitally-enhanced equity securities in a holding company that owns the real estate asset. More generally, security tokens can be structured to represent a variety of ownership and economic interests in an underlying asset, such as equity in a company that owns the asset, an interest in debt secured by the real estate, a stream of income based on cash flows from the asset or an interest in the capital growth of an off-plan project, to name a few. 

tZERO CEO Saum Noursalehi said, “We firmly believe that digital securities represented by security tokens are the future of how the world will trade value. Tokenizing real estate will democratize access to this traditionally exclusive asset class, and we are thrilled to partner with Alliance Investments to advance our goal of tokenizing and trading all assets.”

Tezos Foundation Board Member Hubertus Thonhauser stated, “We are impressed by Alliance Investments’ entrepreneurial vision to redefine real estate ownership and tZERO’s mission to make liquid assets available to a broad audience. It is our mandate to power real world use cases of blockchain adoption with the most advanced open source technology, and we are excited to work with Alliance and tZERO to make this a reality.”

Megalodon Managing Partner Esteban van Goor said, “We are glad to see a company like Alliance Investments taking a lead in tokenizing its assets and are pleased to advise them on their first STO.”

The £500m of real estate projects will be tokenized over the next several years in all parts of the UK with projects ranging from residential and student accommodation to commercial and hospitality properties. 

The River Plaza building is scheduled to complete in Q3 of 2022. For more information about River Plaza, visit www.riverplazamanchester.com.

About Alliance Investments

With 30 years of experience in the property development sector, Alliance Investments are renowned for their ability to deliver some of the most outstanding and exciting developments across the country. Alliance Investments have an extensive award-winning property portfolio, covering everything from residential and office developments, to industrial and hotel sectors. With a team of industry experts, investors have come to know Alliance Investments as specialists when it comes to delivering luxury concepts and high-quality finishes.  For more information, please visit: https://alliance-investments.com/.

About tZERO

tZERO Group, Inc. (“tZERO“) is a majority owned subsidiary of Overstock.com, focusing on the development and commercialization of financial technology (FinTech) enhanced with cryptographically-secured, decentralized ledgers – more commonly known as blockchain technologies. Since its inception, tZERO has pioneered the effort to bring greater efficiency and transparency to capital markets. For more information on tZERO, please visit: https://www.tzero.com/.

tZERO is not a registered broker-dealer, funding portal, underwriter, investment bank, investment adviser or investment manager, and is not providing brokerage, investment banking or underwriting services, recommendations or investment advice to any person, and does not provide any brokerage services. tZERO takes no part in the negotiation or execution of secondary market transactions for the purchase or sale of securities and at no time has possession of investor funds or securities in connection with such transactions.

About PRO Securities, LLC

PRO Securities, LLC is a broker-dealer registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and a member of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Securities Investor Protection Corporation. More information about PRO Securities may be found at www.finra.org.

About Tezos

Tezos is a blockchain that evolves by upgrading itself. Stakeholders vote on amendments to the protocol to reach social consensus on proposals, creating a secure and organic upgrading system. The protocol's on-chain governance system, Proof-of-Stake (PoS), and ability to facilitate formal verification, make Tezos an ideal long-term solution for digital transactions, including smart contracts and security tokens. 

The Tezos Foundation supports the development and long-term success of the protocol and ecosystem. For more information on Tezos, please visit: https://tezos.com/. For more information on the Tezos Foundation, please visit: https://tezos.foundation/.

About Megalodon

Megalodon is a financial consultancy firm which is specialized in legal and fintech advisory focusing on digital securities. For more information, please visit: https://www.megalodon.ae/.

© Press Release 2019

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