NorthStar Securities, Colony NorthStar’s broker-dealer, has merged with S2K Financial Holdings to create a market leading broker-dealer retail distribution business.
S2K is the holding company of S2K Financial, a registered broker-dealer wholesale distributor of investment vehicles and funds, and S2K Servicing, a provider of administrative services to institutional investment managers.
Colony NorthStar will have a majority ownership interest in S2K, which would be rebranded as Colony S2K Holdings. Colony S2K would distribute both the current and future investment product slate of Colony NorthStar and S2K.
Subject to the negotiation and execution of definitive transaction documents, and the satisfaction of customary conditions included in such definitive transaction documents (including the completion of required regulatory filings), the transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2018.
Colony S2K will be led by Steven Kantor, CEO. Kantor has more than 30 years of investment banking and capital markets experience, including as global head of investment banking and co-founder of CCRE at Cantor Fitzgerald, global head of securities and Alternative Investments at Credit Suisse, and head of the real estate investment banking and financing divisions at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette.