The sale of the Blue Water mortgage servicing rights valuation business to Milliman was a big step in getting Apex Analytics pointed towards the future, its CEO said in an interview.

Apex Analytics is the rebranded name for Voxtur Analytics after the company was acquired by Hale Capital Management amid its financial issues.

The MSR valuation and hedging unit sale took place in July.

"Voxtur was trying to be everything for everyone, and they weren't good at one thing," said Ryan Marshall. "It has been really the vision to become the best at something, and that something is valuation technology."

Marshall, the founder and former CEO of Benutech, stepped into the CEO job at Voxtur in August 2024.

Cleaning up what Apex does and how it performs those tasks was the company's mission over the past six to seven months. So the servicing business was not in alignment with what the company does in valuation technology, Marshall continued.

Besides the remaining Blue Water business, the parent company also includes Apex Appraisal Solutions, Anow and MTE, its website notes.

"We're proud of where we came from, at the same time, we wanted a fresh start," Marshall said. "The value of what Voxtur brought to the market is completely different to what we bring to the market today and what we're committed to today, and the team felt that it was appropriate to have a new lease on life, to start fresh."

Apex' goal today is being best in class with some of its products, Marshall said.

"As part of reinventing what that looks like in the future, there are elements that we are carefully considering, which is heavily investing into new technologies," he continued. "If that's by way of acquisitions specifically in the industries in the space that we're driving towards, then you know, don't be surprised if you start to see some of those announcements here in the near future as well."

In the valuation business right now, the big news is adoption of the UAD 3.6 standard. Currently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in what is known as the "broad production period," where sellers can submit appraisals using either UAD 2.6 or UAD 3.6; this will end on Nov. 1.

The following day, all appraisals must be submitted in UAD. 3.6. The Fannie Mae timeline now includes this notice, that starting on Aug. 6, a warning message will be delivered only when an appraisal using UAD 2.6 is submitted, starting on Nov. 2, all new submissions must be in UAD 3.6.

The Federal Housing Administration has also agreed to adopt UAD 3.6.

Apex is ready for the transition, Marshall said, adding "we have technology that I think is going to revolutionize what the industry looks like and we've been working hard on it now for about six months."

More news will be forthcoming. However, "it's a nice complementary technology that we can now become agnostic, like Switzerland, and help a lot of the form writing companies," he said. "That's really what the intention is, we're not looking at making enemies."