A mere three months after its CEO raised the possibility of a new run at taking the firm public, Apex Fintech Solutions announced Tuesday it confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a proposed initial public offering.
Speaking at the Advisor Circle’s Future Proof festival in Calif. in September, Apex CEO Bill Capuzzi hinted the fintech firm might consider an IPO if the markets improved.
“The path for us, if the markets come back around over the course of the next 24 months, maybe we’ll take another run at going public,” Capuzzi said at the time.
It is not the clearing and custody firm’s first attempt at going public.
In February 2021, Apex Clearing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Apex Fintech Solutions Inc., agreed to go public via a merger with Northern Star Investment Corp. II, a special purpose acquisition company or SPAC, led by Jonathan Ledecky, co-owner of the New York Islanders, at a $4.7 billion valuation.
However, in December 2021 Apex pulled out of the merger agreement.
Additional details on the proposed IPO are unavailable and the company could not comment further at the time of publication.
Apex has long provided custody, clearing and technology services to both fintechs and the advisor industry.
In August the company partnered in an integration with AdvisorArch to provide access to a rebalancer that could serve both those sectors of its business.
Apex has built out its own capabilities in recent years to support independent advisors, including fractional trading, direct indexing, digital account opening and digital funding using ACATS.
(Editor's note: This story has been edited to accurately reflect details on the termination of the SPAC agreement.)