WisdomTree’s Next Chapter – Buyback Wednesdays

This month when reviewing a list of companies that announced stock buybacks, one company that stood out is a small-cap asset manager turned ETF powerhouse that announced a $190 million share repurchase, representing 11% of its market cap.

WisdomTree (WT) has evolved from its modest beginnings in financial publishing to now managing $138 billion in assets. At the center of this transformation is its founder and CEO, Jonathan Steinberg, a visionary who has helped the company navigate market shifts and digital disruption.

His journey strongly reminds me of Murray Stahl, co-founder of Horizon Kinetics, whose contrarian roots in spin-off investing at Bankers Trust eventually blossomed into one of the most unconventional and successful asset managers in the U.S.

Horizon’s bets on energy names like Texas Pacific Land (TPL) helped its funds beat the market by a wide margin in certain years,  earning it a spot in The Wall Street Journal’s “Best Stock Fund Managers of 2022” list with returns of 31.9% for its Small Cap fund and 29.2% for Paradigm.

I’ve followed WisdomTree for nearly two decades, and I still remember writing about the company in December 2006, just a month after they announced they had crossed $1 billion in AUM. At the time, I admired their bold entry into ETFs, but I never imagined they would someday reach the scale and relevance they have today.

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