DL Holdings Increases Investment in U.S. Carmel Real Estate Fund, Gifting Additional HK$40 Million in RWA to Shareholders

HONG KONG, June 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- DL Holdings (1709.HK) announced on 2 June that it has committed US$5 million to subscribe for interests in ONE Carmel Estate Residence Lot A LPF, a limited partnership fund focused on U.S. real estate private credit investments. This represents another strategic step in DL Holdings' global asset allocation and digital asset initiatives, and positions DL Holdings to become the first Hong Kong-listed company to distribute real estate credit returns to shareholders in tokenized Real World Asset (RWA) form.

Prior to this transaction, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong formally approved two RWA tokenization projects led by DL Holdings: the tokenization of a commercial real estate interest (DL Tower) and the tokenization of a private equity interest (Animoca Brands). Both were first-of-their-kind approvals. These approvals fully reflect the regulator's high recognition of DL Holdings' pioneering work in the RWA sector. DL Holdings will once again create a Hong Kong first — launching the city's first luxury residential RWA.

The investment structure is straightforward. The Fund will provide a US$5 million loan to Carmel Reserve LLC to finance the construction of a signature ultra-luxury art residence within Phase I of the ONE Carmel development. The loan carries a two-year maturity with an annual coupon of 8%. Completion of the residence is expected to play a significant role in marketing and sales activities for the broader development, and is considered a key milestone in the project's overall execution.

As an investor in the Fund, DL Holdings is entitled to two sources of return: a fixed annual return of 8%; and 20% participation in returns generated above the fixed yield threshold. The investment term is two years, with an option to extend for an additional year.

What is ONE Carmel?

ONE Carmel is located in Carmel Valley, Monterey County, California. Spanning approximately 3.6 square kilometers, the master-planned community comprises 66 individual ultra-luxury art residence lots, each averaging around 20,000 square meters. Situated near California's iconic Highway 1 and the world-renowned Pebble Beach Golf Links, the project sits in the heartland of one of Northern California's most established affluent residential regions. It represents the newest — and the last — large-scale residential development on this land, and has received a Final Subdivision Public Report issued by the California Department of Real Estate (DRE).

The significance of ONE Carmel lies not merely in its luxury positioning, but in its underlying scarcity value. In real estate, genuine scarcity emerges only when three factors converge simultaneously: an irreplaceable location; significant barriers to regulatory approval; and no further supply of developable land. ONE Carmel possesses all three. DL Holdings believes these attributes give the project strong potential for Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization. The Group's limited partnership interest may provide an additional channel for its digital asset strategy and could be distributed to shareholders as a special dividend in RWA form.

Understanding Real World Assets (RWAs)

RWA tokenization refers to representing ownership interests in tangible or financial assets through blockchain-based digital tokens. To illustrate: a commercial building is highly valuable, but unlike a publicly traded share it cannot be divided and transferred in small units. Through tokenization, ownership rights can be represented by digital certificates, with each certificate corresponding to a fractional economic interest in the underlying asset. Ownership, transfers, and distributions are recorded on the blockchain in a transparent and immutable manner. At present, Hong Kong has not yet established a secondary trading market for such RWA tokens. Consequently, these certificates represent economic claims on the underlying assets rather than freely tradable securities, and cannot yet be bought or sold on an exchange. This is a constraint under the current regulatory framework; even so, DL Holdings remains highly confident in the future of digital finance.

On 24 February 2026, the SFC approved two RWA tokenization products sponsored by DL Holdings: a limited partnership fund holding interests in DL Tower, a commercial property in Central, Hong Kong, valued at HK$60 million; and a limited partnership fund investing in Animoca Brands. These were Hong Kong's first approved commercial real estate and private equity RWA projects. Including the approximately HK$40 million equivalent investment in ONE Carmel, the aggregate value of on-chain assets DL Holdings is distributing to shareholders as dividends will reach approximately HK$100 million, and the project establishes Hong Kong's first replicable pathway for luxury residential RWA. DL Holdings' total on-chain asset portfolio now exceeds HK$500 million.

DL Holdings' continued innovation in the RWA sector aligns closely with the Hong Kong SAR Government's proactive embrace of Web3.0, blockchain, and digital finance. In its Policy Statement on Development of Virtual Assets in Hong Kong (31 October 2022), the Government stated that "Web3.0 has the potential to become a future trend in finance and commerce… we are committed to the sustainable development of financial services across the entire virtual asset value chain." Financial Secretary Paul Chan has further called for advancing the use of tokenized assets and upgrading financial infrastructure. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, through its Ensemble project, has focused on sandbox testing for the settlement of tokenized assets, substantively exploring the deployment of distributed ledger technology for real-world assets. The SFC's successive approvals of DL Holdings' commercial real estate and private equity tokenization projects can be seen as concrete regulatory practice under this top-level policy framework. By bringing real-world assets on-chain through compliant structures, DL Holdings' efforts resonate clearly with Hong Kong's official vision of becoming a global digital asset hub — demonstrating market innovation and a welcoming regulatory stance moving in the same direction.

RWA Special Dividends: A New Paradigm for Hong Kong

A traditional dividend distributes corporate profits to shareholders in cash. Once received, shareholders have no further direct claim on the underlying assets. An RWA special dividend is fundamentally different: instead of cash, shareholders receive digital tokens anchored to a real asset. The asset's appreciation, income distribution, and eventual disposal all remain economically linked to the token holder. Put differently — a cash dividend means "the company made money and gives it to you"; an RWA dividend means "the company places the rights to a portion of an asset directly into your hands." The former is a one-off transaction; the latter is a continuing right.

Mr. Andy Chen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DL Holdings, stated: "The Group's investment in and tokenization plan for ONE Carmel carry unique value. It was only through extensive efforts within the SFC framework that DL Holdings successfully advanced the DL Tower RWA plan, pioneering Hong Kong's first compliant and replicable RWA business model. The tokenization of the U.S. luxury residence ONE Carmel is another of DL Holdings' endeavors in the RWA space, and reflects our consistent DNA: to be a pioneer and explorer of the rules." DL Holdings will provide real-time visibility into the luxury residence's construction progress, so that all RWA holders and potential investors can follow the project's development — an ultra-high level of transparency for physical assets on-chain that is likewise a world first.

The key words here are not "luxury residential", but "compliant" and "replicable". DL Holdings' goal is not to complete a single transaction, but to prove out a viable pathway within the SFC's regulatory framework — one along which subsequent assets can continue to enter the market by following the same route.

Building a Digital Asset Ecosystem

ONE Carmel is an important piece of DL Holdings' broader digital asset ecosystem. The Group's digital finance strategy extends beyond real estate RWA to areas including Bitcoin hash power (mining), AI-driven investment platforms, and computing-power infrastructure. Under DL Holdings' plans, many of these assets may likewise enter the RWA track in the future, ultimately forming a synergistic, mutually reinforcing digital finance ecosystem. This is a Hong Kong-listed company's systematic answer, within the current regulatory framework, to the question of how traditional assets can interface with blockchain technology.

For shareholders, the true significance of the ONE Carmel investment may lie not in the size of the US$5 million commitment, but in the principle it validates: genuinely high-value real-world assets can, on a compliant basis, be digitized, fractionalized, and delivered into the hands of ordinary investors — with no intermediaries, no complex legal-structure changes, requiring only a token and a system design that can withstand regulatory scrutiny.

SOURCE DL Holdings