Our President is a controversial and polarizing figure.
Everyone seems to have a different opinion on the man.
Even something as quantifiable as his net worth is up for debate.
According to a filing with the Federal Election Commission, Trump is worth $8.7 billion...
However, according to Forbes, his net worth is closer to $3.1 billion.
But no matter how you slice it, everyone can agree he’s a very rich man.
Today, I’ll show you the exact method Trump’s used to build his fortune...
But even more importantly, I’ll show you how you can use the “Trump Method” to build your own fortune.
How The Donald REALLY Makes His Money
By now, it’s common knowledge that a portion of Trump’s wealth comes from his real estate holdings. These include residential, commercial, golf & resort facilities.
But real estate isn’t the largest contributor to his net worth — not by a long shot.
As it turns out, the most valuable asset in Trump’s portfolio is, quite literally, the “Trump” name.
According to Trump’s financial disclosure form, roughly $3.3 billion of his net worth comes from “Licensing Deals & Branded Developments.”
Just like Tiger Woods “rents” his name to Nike (his latest contract was worth about $100 million), Trump rents out his name to residential real estate projects, hotels, clothes, TV shows, and even cologne (“Empire,” for the smell of success).
Basically, Trump receives royalty payments for the use of his personal brand.
The Power of Royalties
Royalty income streams are powerful because they’re pure profit:
When you collect royalties, there’s no property or staff to pay for. For example, if you license your name to a real estate project, you’re not responsible for any “upgrades” to machinery or landscaping.
The company that licenses your brand is the one worrying about those details.
You just collect checks.
And to be clear, royalty income isn’t limited to brand licensing deals.
Royalties can be derived from any business where you build something once, and the product gets sold over and over again.
In fact, this is how authors, musicians and even inventors make their money.
For example, every time a Rolling Stone’s song is purchased on Apple iTunes, Mick Jagger receives a portion of that sale.
And each time someone buys a DVD, Philips Electronics — the company who invented the DVD technology — receives a royalty payment.
The Most Lucrative Royalty Income Streams
In fact, patents are one of the most lucrative sources of royalty income.
In particular, drug patents.
Here’s how these royalty income streams work:
Let’s say that a small biotech company develops a new drug.
Because drugs take years and years — and millions of dollars — to develop, once approved, the government grants the company a patent for the drug that lasts for 20 years.
Armed with their government-protected drug, smaller biotech firms will generally partner with larger drug companies to market the drug for them.
Then, the biotech company can just sit back and collect its royalty payments.
Unfortunately, biotech companies that are traded on a stock exchange like the NYSE tend to be too large for you to properly capture their patent-protected income streams.
In other words, by the time they’re publicly traded, they’re priced too high for those royalty streams to be meaningful from a yield perspective.
However, if you could buy a stake in these royalty payments while the company was still private… then you could earn a steady stream of high-yield royalty payments for years.
Private Patent Royalties
But that begs the question:
How do you — as an individual investor — get access to private biotech companies?
Where do you find them? And how would you separate the good from the bad?
Normally, the answers to those questions would be complex. But we’ve recently discovered a single investment that could give you access to dozens of private patent royalty streams...
It involves a little-known company called Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc.
It trades on the NYSE under symbol HTGC.
At the moment, HTGC is trading at about $12.
Simply put, Hercules provides capital to private companies — in particular, fast-growing private biotech companies.
Since it got its start, it’s committed more than $4 billion to over 300 companies.
The fund primarily focuses on early-stage biotechnology companies…
Specifically, HTGC generally invests in later-stage businesses that have revenues of $10 million to $200 million, and earnings (or “EBITDA”) of $2 million to $15 million. HTGC does this to help “de-risk” its portfolio and ensure a consistent stream of royalty payments.
Get Your Piece of These Royalty Income Streams
Now, here’s the best part...
Because of HTGC’s unique corporate structure, the company has to pay out 90% of its royalty income directly to its investors.
In other words, if you invest in HTGC right now, not only will you capture an ownership stake in hundreds of high-potential, early-stage companies...
But you’ll also receive 90% of the royalty payments Hercules receives from the biotech companies it invests in.
Based on the company’s current stock price, that equates to a 10% yield.
Since the company is publicly traded, you can pick up some shares easily through your online broker.
And if you’d like to look into HTGC’s holdings before you pull the trigger, you can see its full portfolio here »
Also, if you have any additional thoughts, questions or investment ideas around royalty income investments, please click here and leave us a comment now »
Happy investing.
Best Regards,
Founder
Crowdability.com
