At the end of November, New York auction house Sotheby's revealed that it was to auction off the founding documents for Apple as part of a books and manuscripts auction on December 13. The documents, which establish the Apple Computer Company and are signed by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, are dated April 1, 1976 and were expected to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000. However, it seems the documents were worth a lot more than Sotheby's initially anticipated.
Eduardo Cisneros, chief executive officer of Cisneros Corporation, purchased the documents for over 10 times the amount they were expected to sell for, bidding $1,350,000 for the papers. Including the buyers premium, which Sotheby's tacks onto the price, the total came to $1,594,500 for the five pages pages.
According to Bloomberg, six people competed for the documents, starting at $70,000. The Cisneros family placed 254 on Forbes' most recent list of billionaires, with Cisneros Group being one of the world's largest privately held media and entertainment companies. The family has a net worth of $4.2 billion.
