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

- Link: https://www.thailand-business-news.com/pr-news/dl-holdings-increases-investment-in-u-s-carmel-real-estate-fund-gifting-additional-hk40-million-in-rwa-to-shareholders
- Published: 2026-06-03T13:03:00+07:00
- Author: PR Newswire

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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.

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