(Bloomberg) —
Cathie Wood is many things to many people in St. Petersburg, Florida.
it Investment Management Fund is the main tenant in a modern condition initial incubator. It partners with the local school district on a science and technology curriculum. And she has become one familiar face in a city without many a The presence of Wall Streetincluding among fans who seem unfazed by — perhaps unaware of — the struggling performance of its flagship fund.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Wood had just finished keynoting an artificial intelligence summit at the newly opened Ark Innovation Center when a woman approached him asking for a job for her son.
“I just love you, you're the whole reason I'm here,” the woman said.
Wood hugged her and told her to relay her son's information to one of Ark's employees. In St. Petersburg, far from its critics on Wall Street, this sort of thing happens with some frequency.
An exterior view of the Ark Innovation Center in St. Petersburg, Florida. Photo: Octavio Jones/Bloomberg
It's been more than two years since Wood, who according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index has a net worth of about $220 million, joined the fray of New York Money Managers and finance firms that go south for lower taxes and better weather. But unlike Ken Griffin, Jeff Bezos, Stephen Ross and other billionaires who are reshaping Miami and Palm Beach with charitable donationsreal estate acquisitions and development projects, she set up shop in a less glamorous city on the state's West Coast.
In St. It took the naming rights to the startup incubator, known as the Ark Innovation Center, as part of a $2 million investment in the project. And the curriculum she and her team developed is being taught to sixth-graders across Pinellas County, with plans to have it in seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms within two years. Lessons include designing food that glows in the dark and using drones to understand storms.
“We thought we could make a difference here,” Wood said. “The community has welcomed us with open arms.”
Cathie Wood during an interview at the Ark Innovation Center. Photo: Octavio Joes/Bloomberg
Bringing in Wood's Ark was a big deal for St. Petersburg, which is best known in the financial world as the old home of Raymond James Financial (its name adorns the stadium across the water where the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers play) and several others. . back office work.
The city is best known for beaches and sunshine, things Wood admits she needs during the stock market meltdown of 2022. When her main fund was tanking, she said she found solace in walking the pier blocks from her office. its in the center of the city. Filled with tech bets that made it an investment star, ARKK ended the year at $31.24, down 75% since the end of 2020.
Wood started her firm in 2014 with a key capital infusion by Archegos Capital Management founder Bill Hwang. She became a lightning rod for criticism after her fund, backed by bold bets on Bitcoin and Tesla, soared in the pandemic, generating a flurry of media coverage that promoted her stock-picking prowess. But when the laws of gravity intervened, investors and Wall Street executives enjoyed the arrivalwith Dan Loeb, Cliff Asness and Rich Handler debunking her strategy.
ARKK recovered last year, along with the broader market, but there have been missteps. wood cut off Nvidia Corp. in January 2023, just as the chipmaker was embarking on a massive rally that has sent its stock price up nearly 500%. And in February, Morningstar named its funds as the worst “destroyer” of wealth in the last decade. Investors have taken notice, pulling roughly $1 billion so far this year from ARKK, which counts Tesla's decline among its biggest holdings.
But keeping score like that is not top of mind in St. Petersburg. Once Wood decided to move to Florida, she considered Miami, but was put off by the “New York South” vibe and said it was too crowded. She also looked at Tampa, which is Florida's third largest city. Eventually, she ended up across the bay, where she bought a waterfront condo not far from downtown for $2.15 million in 2021. (By comparison, Griffin paid $107 million for a mansion in Miami's Coconut Grove, and Bezos bought two properties in “ Billionaires' Bunker “of Indian Creek for a total of $147 million.)
The next project for Wood's Innovation Foundation, which helped develop the science curriculum that is expanding throughout Pinellas County, is working with the school board to create another Ark Center to deliver education. It is modeled after Enterprise Villagea learning center in the area where high school students pretend to be business owners in a mall as a way to learn economics.
Laura Hine, chairwoman of the Pinellas County School Board, said she appreciated that Wood was open to working with local public schools.
“She could build her own school and that would help a few hundred kids,” Hine said. “By choosing to partner with our public school system, she is impacting 95,000 students.”
Of Ark's approximately 50 employees, 33 are currently working in St. Petersburg, while the rest are remote. Wood is a proponent of office work, especially for young people — “otherwise they'll never be embedded in our culture, their DNA won't evolve” — and said all new hires should be in office. The firm is looking to recruit from the local community, but the main focus is getting the best people “as long as they're willing to move”, she said.
The Tampa area has added jobs in banking and financial services in recent years. And while St. Petersburg lacks the amenities and nightlife of many larger cities, it appears to be on the rise. For one, Mayor Ken Welch said it's a rare place in the U.S. that actually needs more office space. There is a flurry of construction downtown, with plans for new skyscrapers and a $6.5 billion development that includes a new low-cost, high-performance baseball stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays.
“In a community like this that is hungry and has the ingredients, we think it's possible to put our stamp on the country and attract attention and capital,” said Tom Staudt, Ark's chief operating officer. “New York is a great place, but there are too many people and too much money, so making a meaningful impact on a community is more difficult.”
To contact the author of this story:
Claire Ballentine in New York at (email protected)