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Apex Clearing Corp., a financial technologies firm that focuses on securities custody and clearing, has agreed to go public through a merger with the blank-check company Northern Star Investment Corp. II. The transaction, which could be announced as early as Monday, will be valued at $4.7b. The special purpose acquisition company was started by Jonathan Ledecky, co-owner of the National Hockey League’s New York Islanders.
Dallas-based Apex has more than 200 clients, the people said. They include Stash, Firstrade Securities Inc. and Social Finance Inc., according to its website. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s digital consumer bank Marcus uses Apex, its website showed. More than 1 million crypto accounts were opened through Apex so far this year, the people said. The firm generated more than $230 million in revenue and pretax earnings of about $85 million in 2020.
