ARK Investment Management—a privately-held asset manager founded just six years ago—has been in the spotlight a lot this year thanks to its vocal founder and stellar investment record. The firm’s success hasn’t only been spotted by many investors, but also by one of its early backers and minority shareholders.
It’s unclear whether Resolute’s decision to exercise the option is in any way associated with ARK’s announcement in late October—three days before the filing from Resolute—that it would explore the potential replacement of Resolute Investment Distributors as the firm’s distributor of U.S. retail and institutional products and services. Resolute declined to comment.
While it isn’t stated why ARK was looking to replace its current distributor, the firm noted in the announcement that one of its priorities is to partner with “shared-vision, best-in-class” service providers: “A successful proposal will embrace the accelerating pace of digitization and automation across the financial services industry and take advantage of the current market environment, particularly changing corporate cultures and work-remote policies.”
Wood specializes in disruptive innovations that could change how the world works and can grow exponentially over a longer horizon. She is a frequent guest of financial news media, a famous bull on controversial investments like Tesla (TSLA) and Bitcoin, and has led ARK to tremendous success both in terms of investment performance and asset accumulation.
According to Morningstar, ARK runs at least three of the 10 best-performing ETFs over the past one-, three-, and five-year periods. The company’s flagship product, the $9 billion ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), has returned 99% year-to-date and seen its assets skyrocket from roughly $2 billion at the beginning of 2020.
