Asset management company Elevated Returns completed the $18-million closing of Aspen Digital, a tokenized real estate offering providing investors exposure to the St. Regis Aspen Resort. The company also announced its bid to acquire 24.9 percent of a Bangkok-based Seamico Securities as part of its expansion plan in Southeast Asia.
Aspen Digital is among the first of its kind to successfully tokenize a trophy real estate asset. The St. Regis Aspen is an internationally-recognized resort consisting of a 179-room luxury hotel with four onsite food-and-beverage outlets and 29,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor conference and banquet venues with views of the Rocky Mountains.
The offering was made available directly through Templum Markets, a SEC-registered operator, for the initial offering and secondary trading of digital assets as securities through its Alternative Trading System. Templum Markets and its parent company, Templum, are focused on the development of new market infrastructure for digital assets. Indiegogo listed the offering on its platform to provide access to its network of investors, as well as leverage its community and 11-year pedigree in the crowdfunding arena.
“While there is an undeniable trend of assets migrating to the blockchain and a need for cryptocurrencies to be backed by collateral of some sort, these are truly the early days for the industry, which is why it is critical for offering sponsors like Elevated Returns to assemble the necessary components to be successful,” Stephane De Baets, president of Elevated Returns, said in a statement. “This emphasis on building an effective ecosystem led us to acquire a South Asian broker-dealer with wide distribution capability, one that is able to operate in Thailand, a nation that has come forward with highly-developed crypto regulation guidelines.”
Founded in 1974, Seamico Securities provides securities brokerage, securities and derivatives trading, investment advisory service, securities underwriting, online securities trading, and securities borrowing and lending. The acquisition will enable Elevated Returns to tap into Asian-based institutional money looking for digital asset exposure through Seamico’s fully-owned subsidiary, Innotech Asset Management.
“The Aspen Digital closing not only represents a new coin on the market that is asset-backed, it also establishes a blueprint for future real estate tokenization,” Jason Kirschenbaum, director at Elevated Returns, said in a statement. “The future of real estate investing is one that provides global exposure, transparency, public access and liquidity, all of which are elements that can be delivered through blockchain technology.”