An innovator in the ETF space is behind the purchase of a $55 million waterfront estate in Port Royal.
Property records show John Southard, a founder of Innovator Capital Management, and his wife, Julie, recently purchased the estate, with six bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, located at 4296 Cutlass Lane.
Innovator Capital made national headlines in early December, when the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. announced its plans to acquire the much smaller company, a pioneer in defined outcome ETFs (Exchange-Traded Funds).
The cash and equity deal is valued at about $2 billion.
The Southards have owned a smaller home in Naples for years. Their new one is much grander.
Originally listed at $60 million, the estate spans more than 15,000 square feet. Built in 2017, it sits on 1.59 acres.
The sale was recorded Jan. 15. While it didn’t set a new record, it’s the most expensive home sale of the new year in Naples — and Collier County.
It doesn’t come close to the mind-boggling sale of $225 million last year, but that sale involved three adjacent beachfront properties that made up a legacy family compound on 15 acres off Gordon Drive in Port Royal.
More about the estate that fetched $55 million
The listing for the real estate offering described it as “one of the most spectacular assemblages of property in all of Port Royal,” sitting along about 363 feet of “tranquil Cutlass Cove waterfront,” with a “rare and highly sought after southwest exposure.”
Cutlass Cove was the first phase of Port Royal, the well-to-do neighborhood named for the famous Jamaican pirate haven, offering an exclusive, members-only private beach club for its residents. The neighborhood has attracted Fortune 500 CEOs, business moguls and other notables of wealth and influence.
Residents of Cutlass Cove also have the exclusive ability to join the Cutlass Cove Beach Club — with 100 feet of beach access nearby.
The listing describes the residence as having a contemporary island tropical feel, created by Kukk Architecture & Design. The home was built by The Williams Group, based in Naples, with “fastidious attention to details.”
Indoors, features include a den/study, built-in cabinets, a fireplace and walk-in closets, along with a game room and gym. Outdoors, there’s a pool, dock and boat lift, and gardens.
The property was on the market for less than 60 days after being listed on Oct. 20, 2025. It went pending in mid-December.
Richard Prebish and Thomas Campbell of William Raveis Real Estate in Naples, who had the listing, represented the sellers. According to Zillow, Lisa Roth of Sun Realty in North Naples brought the buyers.
Southwest Florida real estate expert Denny Grimes, president of his namesake top-selling team at Keller Williams Realty in Fort Myers, said when it comes to the region’s uber-luxury market, it’s a buyers’ market — with some magnificent homes sitting on the market for more than 1,000 days.
The fact that the estate on Cutlas Lane didn’t sit long before getting snatched up didn’t surprise Grimes, however.
“It was an amazing, amazing location,” he said, with a big lot, making it an impressive property for buyers who could afford it.
Currently, there are more than 60 homes for sale in Collier and Lee counties priced at more than $15 million, Grimes said.
Based on the pace of sales, he said, that equates to about 22 months of inventory, making it “probably the most oversupplied segment of the market in Southwest Florida,” he said.
The Southards aren’t new to Naples
Property records show the Southards have owned a home in Naples since at least 2013, within the Moorings community, through a trust in Julie’s name. They purchased it for $2.325 million.
According to an online bio, the Southards both grew up in Maryland, but they have lived in Wheaton, Illinois, since they married in 1997.
The couple bought their new estate from the Cutlass Properties Trust, with a Marco Island address. The trust paid $10.29 million for the property in 2013, before the trust’s owners demolished the home in 2014 to make way for a grander one. The trust has been linked to the Roche family in voter, property and state business records, including Collin Roche, a co-CEO of GTCR, a prominent Chicago-based private equity firm, where he’s built his wealth.
John Southard formed Innovator Capital Management with co-founder Bruce Bond, who serves as the company’s CEO, in 2017. Based in Wheaton, the company offers actively managed options-based investment funds with a capped upside and a defined downside “buffer,” or loss.
Previously, Bond and Southard founded PowerShares Capital Management in 2002, which they sold to Invesco in 2006, after building their enterprise into the fourth-largest ETF provider globally based on assets.
On Dec. 1, Goldman Sachs announced it had struck an agreement to buy Innovator “subject to the achievement of certain performance targets.”
According to its website, Innovator managed $28 billion in assets in 159 defined outcome (or buffer) ETFs as of Sept. 30, 2025. The company launched the world’s first buffer ETF in August 2018, and has the largest lineup of them.
Following Innovator’s acquisition, John Southard would work for Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Innovator’s more than 60 employees would join Goldman Sachs, including his long-time partner Bond.
In a statement when the deal was announced, Bond said: “This transaction is a pivotal milestone for our business. Goldman Sachs has a long history of discerning emerging trends and important directional shifts within the asset management industry. We are excited to deliver world-class investment solutions to clients within the ETF framework and expand our business in this high-growth, sector-leading category.”
He described Goldman Sachs as the ideal partner.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approval, and other customary closing conditions.
Regulatory filings show Southard owns at least 25% of Innovator, while Bond has a majority stake, valued at more than $1 billion (based on the announced sale to Goldman Sachs). The deal would put Bond into billionaire status.
This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Who’s bought a $55 million estate in Naples? More to know.
Reporting by Laura Layden, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Naples Daily News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
