Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management has earned more than $300mn in fees on its flagship exchange traded fund since its inception nine years ago, while wiping out almost $10bn of investors’ cash in the same period.
Investors have continued to plough money into the Ark Disruptive Innovation ETF, known by its ticker ARKK, over the past two years even though it has been badly burnt by the downturn in technology stocks.
Ark has earned more than 70 per cent of its $310mn fees since the fund’s valuation plummeted by nearly three quarters from its high in February 2021, according to FactSet data. This year it has brought in an average of roughly $230,000 in fees a day as ARKK’s value recovered slightly, rising by a quarter.