Michael Dell.
Michael Dell
Founder at DFO Management
Michael Dell launched what became DFO Management in 1998 to invest the abundance of wealth he gleaned from founding IT giant Dell Technologies 14 years before.
The Manhattan-based DFO — known as MSD Capital until 2022 and now under the management of Chairman Gregg Lemkau, President Marc Lisker and Chief Investment Officer Alissa Mall — invests across a wide range of industries, including pharma, entertainment, sports apparel and, of course, technology.
It also invests in commercial real estate. And those investments — the ones we know about, at least — include assets in South Florida, and they are quite sizable. (DFO, which also has a West Palm Beach office, did not respond to a request for an interview.)
In November 2024, the company partnered on a $273 million construction loan for a Witkoff Group condo project in Hallandale Beach. In July 2023, DFO provided $57 million in financing — on top of an original $300 million — for 830 Brickell, a 55-story office tower in Miami’s financial district that includes Microsoft, Citadel and Santander as tenants.
The company’s biggest holding in South Florida is the Boca Raton Resort & Club, which Dell’s firm paid $875 million for in 2019. It has since sunk hundreds of millions more into renovating the 1,047-key resort that includes an 18-hole golf course, several tennis courts and a 32-slip marina. In summer 2024, the company closed on a $1 billion refinancing package for the Boca Raton Resort & Club.
In January of this year, DFO unveiled plans to expand the resort. The company is seeking zoning changes that would allow for an eight-story, 100-foot-tall condo building with 60 units and a 142-spot underground parking garage. The company had wanted two new buildings, according to media reports.
Dell’s activity is in line with other business tycoons upping their investment in South Florida since the start of the pandemic. That Citadel tenancy in 830 Brickell, for instance, is a direct result of Ken Griffin moving his financial firms from Chicago in 2022.
