Cathie Wood Is Ditching Wall Street And Relocating Ark Headquarters To Florida

Cathie Wood is relocating her investment firm Ark Invest from New York to St. Petersburg, Florida, where the lure of a lower tax burden has invited many financial firms to set up shops.

What Happened: Ark Invest would permanently close its New York office on Oct. 31 and relocate to Florida where it would also open an innovation center aimed at retaining and attracting top talent by supporting entrepreneurs and tech startups in the Tampa Bay region, the firm said on Wednesday.

“ARK is not a traditional Wall Street asset-management firm,” Wood said. “We are looking forward to breaking the mold further by relocating to St. Petersburg, a city investing in technology, science, and innovation.”

Ark said the relocation would also help the company scale. 

“While a substantial number of employees have chosen to relocate and work in the office, ARK's hybrid back-to-work model will harness technology to accommodate working remotely.”

See Also: Cathie Wood Sells $49.4M In Tesla And Buys $87.5M In Ginkgo Bioworks On Dip As Stock Becomes Target Of Short Sellers

Why It Matters: The sunshine state’s decade-old lower taxes have been luring finance industry bigwigs to relocate during the pandemic. Last year, billionaire Paul Singer’s hedge fund Elliott Management Corp relocated its headquarters to West Palm Beach from Midtown Manhattan.

Wood is known for her transparent stock pickings and counts Tesla Inc TSLA, Square Inc SQ among its top holdings.

Price Action: Ark Invest’s flagship exchange-traded fund Ark Innovation ETF ARKK closed 0.83% higher at $109.94 on Wednesday.

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