Q1: How did the business perform in 2025, and what drove its growth over the past year? How has the cost-income ratio trended this year, and what were the key factors influencing it? Looking ahead, what are your main priorities and strategic plans for 2026?

In 2025, DL Holdings delivered a breakthrough performance, expecting HK$180–220 million in net profit for the six months ended 30 September 2025, an increase of over 2,000% YoY.

This surge was driven by three key engines: strong fair value gains from financial assets reflecting disciplined allocation, significant valuation uplift from associate investments demonstrating ecosystem synergy, and substantial expansion in the family office business, where AUM and recurring fee income grew sharply. 

Together, these factors enabled record-high profitability and strengthened the Group’s core earnings base. In addition to these financial drivers, the Group also broadened its global presence through a strategic investment in Youngtimers AG, the parent company of C Capital, marking our entry into the European family wealth management market.

The Group’s cost-income ratio improved meaningfully, supported by a richer income mix, the scaling of high-margin family office revenue, and exceptional investment gains that expanded the overall income base. While we continued investing in talent, technology, and compliance, these expenses were effectively diluted by higher operating leverage and early efficiency benefits from digital finance integration. 

Looking ahead, DL Holdings will accelerate its digital finance strategy, backed by nearly HK$1.7 billion of recent financing, advancing initiatives in Bitcoin mining, RWA tokenisation, including a US$100 million gold programme and the ONE Carmel tokenisation, and the build-out of a next-generation, technology-driven wealth management platform.

While DL Holdings started as a successful family office, our goal has never been confined to serving only ultra high net worth clients. We aim to democratise professional-grade investment services. Our strategic vision is to “Investing Made Easy” and to build “the Asian version of Robinhood.”

To this end, we have embarked on a series of strategic transformations, shifting our focus from traditional family office operations towards investing in NeuralFin, an AI-driven wealth technology platform in which DL Holdings is a strategic investor, alongside investing in Asseto, acquiring mining equipment, and actively expanding into Real-World Asset (RWA) tokenisation.

Traditional financial institutions often monopolise high-quality investment opportunities, creating high barriers and complex structures that exclude ordinary investors. We see RWA tokenisation as a key solution to this problem. Its core advantages lie in significantly reducing transaction costs, enhancing liquidity with 7×24-hour trading, and enabling the fractional ownership of assets, allowing investments to start as low as one dollar. This empowers the average investor to participate in high-quality opportunities that were once exclusive to institutions, and it represents a major focus of our future work.

Q2: With artificial intelligence increasingly shaping the wealth industry, how has the firm leveraged technology and AI to transform processes and enhance value for both clients and the back office? What key technology upgrades were introduced in 2025, and what are your digital priorities for 2026 and beyond?

Artificial intelligence has become central to how we transform both client experience and our internal operating model. 

In 2025, we advanced our technology capabilities through NeuralFin, an AI-led wealth technology company in which DL Holdings is a strategic investor. NeuralFin integrates social engagement, investment tools and AI-powered advisory into a unified digital wealth ecosystem. The platform was designed to democratise access to high-quality investment insights, combining community-driven learning with institutional-grade analytics. 

Key upgrades launched this year include AI content generation, AI portfolio modelling, product–client matching algorithms, and our “AI Wealth Doctor,” which offers real-time diagnostics on risk exposure, asset allocation and financial planning. These tools significantly enhanced efficiency across research, portfolio construction and client servicing.

Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, our digital priorities include supporting the scaling and product development of NeuralFin, our portfolio company that operates a next-generation AI financial community. We plan to deepen gamification, expand AI agents into compliance, retirement planning and education, and introduce new modules including crypto trading, community currency, social-sentiment-based alerts, and an AI lending matchmaker. 

Our long-term vision is to build an open, AI-powered wealth platform where users can learn, collaborate, analyse and execute, all in one place. This will strengthen both our traditional family office franchise and our fast-growing digital finance vertical, positioning DL Holdings at the forefront of Asia’s AI-driven wealth management landscape.

Q3: The private banking industry saw a plethora of leadership and structural changes in 2025. Looking into 2026, what are your key priorities for attracting and retaining talent across the front, middle, and back office? Are there plans for new hires in key markets?

A company’s development cannot be separated from the common progress of its employees and the company. To attract and motivate talent, we have planned a series of share-based incentive programmes. On 6 November 2025, DL announced the official launch of the second phase of its target incentive share pool under the company’s 2025 Restricted Share Incentive Plan. The plan involves repurchasing up to 40 million shares from the market to incentivise the group’s directors, senior management, and employees.

This approach directly aligns the interests of management and the core team with the company’s long-term value, aiming to unleash team potential through long-term incentives, encourage core talent to continuously contribute to the group’s future development and expansion, and continuously unlock the organisation’s long-term value.