TOKYO — Nikko Asset Management (“Nikko AM”) today announces that it is enhancing its disruptive innovation focused investment solutions by acquiring a minority stake in ARK Investment Management LLC (“ARK”). In this partnership Nikko AM will obtain exclusivity to offer ARK products and investment strategies in Japan and the Asia Pacific while its investment team intends to continue working closely with ARK’s disruptive innovation focused analysts.
ARK has served as a sub advisor to Nikko AM’s Global Fintech Equity Fund, launched in Japan in December 2016 with total assets of over JPY 75 billion as of July 2017. The now enhanced partnership is a natural progression from that successful start.
“We are extremely excited to welcome ARK to the Nikko AM family. The established expertise of our in-house investment team combined with ARK’s strategies focused on disruptive technology and innovation enable progressive solutions for our clients. Our Global Fintech Equity Fund is an example of the success we have already achieved together, and we are confident of more to come with this deepening of the connection,” said Nikko Asset Management President & CEO Takumi Shibata.
ARK is a leading US-based investment manager that utilizes an open research ecosystem to develop insights into disruptive innovation. Its analysts are organized by disruptive innovation themes that span sectors, geographies, and market capitalizations. ARK derives alpha by investing in leaders, enablers, and beneficiaries of disruptive technologies, with low overlap to broad-market indices. The firm has launched five ETFs, including four active ETFs, investing in themes such as Deep Learning and Mobility-as-a-Service. In addition, ARK has established an investment advisory service for institutional clients which utilizes ARK’s innovative strategies to diversify portfolios.
“We are honored and delighted that Nikko AM has cemented our partnership with an ownership interest in ARK,” said ARK CEO & Chief Investment Officer Catherine D. Wood. “Nikko AM’s appetite for innovation focused investment solutions is well aligned with ARK’s conviction that innovation is key to growth. An entirely new market of investors will benefit now from Nikko AM’s ability to deliver disruptive innovation, which is transforming both industries and the global economy, through ARK’s investment strategies.”
With Nikko AM’s investment, Catherine D. Wood, ARK’s founder and CEO, continues to own a majority stake in ARK, and Resolute Investment Managers, Inc., ARK’s strategic partner in the US, remains a minority shareholder in ARK.