Apex Fintech Solutions is considering reviving plans to go public and if it does, the fintech plans to use a traditional IPO to list its shares, according to CEO William Capuzzi. Capuzzi was one of thousands of executives who attended the Money20/20 conference earlier this week.
Apex, a custody and clearing firm whose clients include SoFi, Webull, and Betterment, first sought to go public in February 2021. At that time, it agreed to merge with a special purpose acquisition company, Northern Star Investment Corp, in a deal that valued Apex at $4.7 billion.
Apex, which is majority owned by Peak6 Investments, wanted to merge with a SPAC, because they thought it was a faster route to the public equities market, Capuzzi told Fortune. Apex filed its S4 in March 2021 and had hoped to be public by the following June, he said. Instead, it sat in regulatory review for months. Apex ended up pulling the SPAC deal in December 2021.
Apex is now weighing whether to take another shot at an IPO and is in talks with investment banks, he said. “There's no chance I'm doing a SPAC again,” said Capuzzi who spoke to Fortune on the sidelines of Money20/20.
Apex was one of several companies—for example eToro, Circle and Bullish—that agreed to merge with a SPAC in 2021. Each of these companies has a connection to crypto. eToro, a social investment platform, allows crypto trading, while Circle is an issuer of the USDC stablecoin, and Bullish is a crypto exchange. Apex had a platform that supported its clients offering crypto, Capuzzi said. “The SEC had difficulties understanding how to think about crypto. So, the process slowed to a crawl,” he said.
The SEC never signed off on the SPAC mergers. eToro, Circle, Bullish, and Apex each ended up pulling their deals.
Capuzzi said the SEC has a better understanding today of crypto than it did in 2021. Apex, however, has apparently taken measures to stop further confusion. Last year, Apex sold the crypto business that apparently held up its SPAC merger to Bakkt Holdings. Apex sold the unit because it wasn’t getting the answers it needed from regulators. “There was too much risk,” he said.
There is one bright spot. Because of the SPAC merger, Apex has completed a lot of the groundwork it needs to go public. “We could get it done in six months. Maybe a little bit more,” Capuzzi said.
The IPO market set a record in 2021 when over 1,000 IPOs listed on U.S. exchanges. Of the 1000, 613 were SPACs while 397 were traditional IPOs. This year, only 24 SPACs have raised about $3 billion, according to Dealogic.
Blank check companies, or SPACs, typically have a deadline to find a merger partner or risk having to give back those funds. Only 162 SPACs that listed in 2021 have found and closed a merger transaction, according to SPAC Research. Many blank checks have either called off their merger plans or extended their deadlines.
Companies typically use IPOs to raise money but new issues have slowed considerably since 2021. Roughly 1200 companies are expected to run out of money in 2024, Fortune has reported. Capuzzi thinks many companies will look to go public next spring or summer. The U.S. presidential election, in November 2024, is typically considered a bad time to go public. And for now, Capuzzi says Apex is profitable and won’t rush a deal.
Until Monday,
Luisa Beltran
Twitter: @LuisaRBeltran
Email: luisa.beltran@fortune.com
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