Forward Industries says HSDT rejected its $1.63-a-share all-stock proposal

Forward Inc.'s push to consolidate smaller Solana treasury companies has met resistance after Solana Company said its board unanimously rejected the company's unsolicited offer, joining earlier rebuffs from SkyAI and Solmate. Forward had proposed issuing new FWDI shares to target shareholders at a 1:1 rate with a 10% to 30% premium, but Solana Company said the bid substantially undervalued the firm and was not in the best interests of stockholders. Forward shares still rose as much as 8.6% on Tuesday while Solana's token was slightly lower; HSDT fell as much as 6%, SKYA rose 2% and SLMT gained more than 11%. The dispute highlights the strains and competitive dynamics inside the growing market for public companies built around holding Solana on balance sheet. Solmate said in a June 12 response that Forward was acting with others, including RockawayX and Viktor Fischer, as an undisclosed group in a hostile takeover attempt. Forward denied coordinating with others and called the allegation baseless. Forward says consolidation makes sense because many smaller digital asset treasury companies may struggle to cover fixed overhead even if they stake their full treasuries. Forward has argued it is among the few such companies with positive modified net asset value, or mNAV, and said it stands at 1.01 on a fully diluted basis. The company is also set to join the Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 indexes at the end of the month, a move it says should add liquidity through passive buying. Forward says it holds more than 7 million SOL, mostly staked or deployed in DeFi applications, making it the largest Solana digital asset treasury, while the next three largest each hold around 2 million tokens.