Patent ID: 7848986

Claim:
A method for creating an equity exchange fund over a computer network, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, by a server coupled to the computer network, an application to participate in the fund from at least one investor via a client application, the at least one investor having a position in at least one commercial entity, at least one of the at least one commercial entity being a private entity, the application being received at a fund manager application program residing on the server; evaluating, by the server, the at least one commercial entity based on at least one predetermined financial growth performance criteria including evaluating a quality level of the at least one commercial entity using a financial database, the financial database having financial performance information about multiple commercial entities; if the at least one commercial entity is acceptable, performing, by the server, a valuation of the position in the at least one commercial entity; determining, by the server, a number of shares of the fund to be exchanged for the position in the at least one entity based on the valuation of the position; issuing, by the server, the determined number of shares of the fund in exchange for the position in the at least one commercial entity without requiring the at least one investor to sell the position, wherein the position in the at least one commercial entity is sold and reinvested by the fund; liquidating, by the server, the fund at a scheduled date of liquidation, the scheduled date of liquation being a future date relative to a date when the position of the at least one entity is deposited in the exchange fund; and issuing, by the server, to the at least one investor a payment based on the number of shares and value of the fund on the scheduled date of liquidation wherein the determining the number of shares step further comprises the steps of: determining, by the server, a future value of the position in the at least one entity at a the scheduled date of liquidation of the fund, the scheduled date of liquation being a future date relative to a date of deposit of the position of the at least one entity in the exchange fund; dividing, by the server, the future value of the position in the at least one entity by a total current fund value at the date of deposit of when the position of the at least one entity is deposited plus the future value of the position of the at least one entity to determine a first ratio; and multiplying, by the server, a number of shares of the fund by the first ratio, wherein the future value of the at least one entity at a scheduled date of liquidation of the fund is determining by the following formula: future value=PV(1 +R ) N where PV is the present value of the position in the at least one entity at the date of when deposited, R is the interest rate and N is the number of years to liquidation of the exchange fund.