Ambitions and strategies were revised, still under the command of founders Zeca Magalhães and Pedro Faria — Eduardo Mufarrej, another co-founder, had already followed a political path. In a sort of relaunch, they gathered three new partners in new holding company SK Tarpon. This time, rather than sharing the same coast, each takes care of their own.

Below the holding company are the sub-asset managers dedicated to different strategies and with autonomy — there is room for everything, from stock funds to private equity and venture capital. “One can be painter and another sculptor. If I like to play the drums, I don’t need to put the orchestra out of tune,” Mr. Faria jokes.

The holding company owns about 30% of each sub-asset-management unit, thus giving each partner some leeway. It is also a way of escaping the trap in which Tarpon fell in the past, with the high concentration of its capital and of its executives’ attention on one same bet.

SK, which stands for silver king, as the fish is also known, also has Marcelo Lima, Vasco Oliveira and Artur Tacla as partners. Mr. Lima is dedicated to investments in agriculture. Mr. Oliveira, who helmed logistics operator AGV, which had Tarpon as partner and was sold late last year to a unit of Mexico’s Femsa, manages an operation focused on acquiring leading companies in niche markets. Mr. Tacla, a consultant, has the mission of taking care of SK’s corporate culture.

The partners reviewed the R$16 billion invested since the firm’s foundation, in 2002, to learn the lessons of what worked and discard failed strategies — the classic and traumatic example is food company BRF, investment that triggered Tarpon’s redesign.

“Some people like to take a business that is doing badly and improve it. We tried this in our life and it didn’t work out,” Mr. Faria admits. For the partners, the virtue of Tarpon is in growth bets — in practice, in companies that grow more than 15% a year.

“Without knowing, we have always been growth investors. It was our best investments,” Mr. Faria says. Fashion retailers Hering and Arezzo were examples of successful investments for Tarpon.

The biggest growth bet of Tarpon now is Ômega Geração, a generator of renewable energy it created from the scratch in 2008. The company went public in 2017 and is now worth R$7 billion. Tarpon holds 40% of its capital, its biggest investment.

A more recent bet is Petlove, the largest online retailer of pet products in Brazil, a market that is growing fast. Tarpon is the largest shareholder with a 35% stake in the company, which this year received Softbank and Catterton as investors. Petlove’s revenue is expected to reach R$800 million next year.

Mr. Magalhães says Ômega exemplifies another feature of Tarpon: investment for the long haul. Even if the investor money is recycled over time, giving a way out for those so wishing, the proprietary capital stays invested for a very long time. In the renewable-energy business, it will be no surprise if Tarpon is still there ten years from now.

“We have a purpose of staying, but don’t want to imprison the investors’ capital with our stay,” Mr. Faria says. It is with such aim that Mr. Oliveira is leading the construction of a platform of logistics technology. The first step of the strategy, in which Tarpon will invest R$300 million through 2021, was the acquisition of Buonny — a business that helps reduce the risks of cargo theft from trucks. Tarpon’s proprietary capital is likely to stay many years in this business, but the plan includes an IPO three years from now to provide an exit to investors.

In traditional stock funds, Tarpon has about R$700 million under management. This doesn’t include the 28% stake it holds in Kepler Weber, now valued at more than R$280 million. The investment in the manufacturer of agricultural siloes and warehouses is under the umbrella of 10B, sub-asset manager headed by Mr. Lima. It is in 10B that the investments in the farm sector are, including agtechs and Agrivalle — company of agricultural bio-inputs acquired this year for about R$130 million, in which Tarpon holds almost 60%.

Tarpon now has about R$5 billion under management, half of what it had in its best times. The partners’ capital anchors the investments, with stakes that range from 20% to 50%, complemented by capital of businesspeople and wealth managers with long-term vision. The rush to get more assets under management is no longer the focus.

Used to responding to criticism, Mr. Faria says the companies offered to investors in recent times — such as Agrivalle and Petlove — had good participation. “The speed we have for raising funds was surprising. There’s always somebody who will say we have ‘difficulty to raise a mega-fund of dozens of billions,’ but we don’t want a pile of money to go out hunting opportunities.” The spirit is different.