Realto October 2021 Update

As our planned fall launch remains on track, we’re excited to announce a number of important Realto updates:

First, we’ve hired Jeremy Smith as Chief Operating Officer, bringing tremendous additional experience to the team, including five years as Chief Strategy Officer at SecondMarket, now part of Nasdaq. Most recently, Jeremy was President and COO of RiskGenius, a groundbreaking AI firm which was sold to Bold Penguin in 2020. Jeremy is based in Kansas City and hit the ground running with Realto last Friday.

As for going live, we continue to work closely with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) in an effort to receive broker-dealer approval and hope to announce good news soon. Our plan, subject to signoff from FINRA, is to launch in October.

Upon receipt of approval, we will announce a launch schedule, so all parties are prepared for the big day, and beyond. And, while we can’t announce a hard timeline just yet, we are able to share the following:

1. The first security traded will be Phillips Edison & Co. (“PECO”), a company which completed its initial public offering and whose public shares began trading in the secondary market on July 15, 2021. Once Realto receives FINRA approval and goes live, we will be able to offer trading in all restricted PECO shares until they are officially converted to class A shares on January 15, 2022.

2. It is anticipated that Realto will receive automated trading system (ATS) approval about 30 days after being approved as a broker dealer. This process should be straightforward as we simply will have to file our Form ATS with the SEC upon receipt of broker-dealer approval.
   Becoming an ATS is an important step as it will allow us to unveil trading enhancements such as additional order types and two-sided quotes.

3. Axos Clearing will be the clearing broker and custodian for our platform. Axos has a sterling industry reputation and we’ve developed a great rapport with their team. We look forward to working closely with them. And, importantly, FINRA has approved Axos as clearing broker and custodian for Realto.

Finally, we continue to progress on social media with the launch of our corporate Twitter handle. You can find us via @TradeWithRealto and we’d love to have you follow us and spread the word too. We expect to use this platform significantly going forward, along with our website and LinkedIn, for news and other announcements.