Bowie bonds, issued in 1997, had an interest rate of 7.9% and a life of 10 years. The Bowie bonds were purchased by Prudential Insurance for $55 million.
Bowie bonds represented one of the first instances of a bond that used intellectual property as the underlying collateral. The value of the bonds began to decline as online music and file sharing grew in popularity, decreasing album sales. This resulted in a downgrade by Moody's in 2004. However, the advent of legal online music retailers renewed interest in these securities in the latter part of the decade.