About BGC Group

BGC Group, Inc. operates as a global financial brokerage and technology company servicing the global financial markets. Through brands, including BGC, Fenics, GFI, Sunrise Brokers, Poten & Partners, and RP Martin among others, the company’s businesses specialize in the brokerage of a broad range of products, including fixed income such as government bonds, corporate bonds, and other debt instruments, as well as related interest rate derivatives and credit derivatives. Additionally, the company provides brokerage products across FX, Equities, Energy and Commodities, Shipping and Futures and Options. The company’s businesses also provide a wide variety of services, including trade execution, connectivity solutions, brokerage services, clearing, trade compression and other post-trade services, information, and other back-office services to a broad assortment of financial and non-financial institutions. The company’s integrated platform is designed to provide flexibility to customers with regard to price discovery, execution and processing of transactions, and enables them to use the company’s Voice, Hybrid, or, in many markets, Fully Electronic brokerage services in connection with transactions executed either OTC or through an exchange. Through the company’s Fenics group of electronic brands, the company offers a number of market infrastructure and connectivity services, including the company’s Fully Electronic marketplaces, and the Fully Electronic brokerage of certain products that also may trade via the company’s Voice and Hybrid execution platforms. The full suite of Fenics offerings includes the company’s Fully Electronic and Hybrid brokerage, market data and related information services, trade compression and other post-trade services, analytics related to financial instruments and markets, and other financial technology solutions. Fenics brands also operate under the names Fenics, FMX, FMX Futures Exchange, Fenics Markets Xchange, Fenics Futures Exchange, Fenics UST, Fenics FX, Fenics Repo, Fenics Direct, Fenics MID, Fenics Market Data, Fenics GO, Fenics PortfolioMatch, kACE2, and Lucera. BGC, BGC Partners, BGC Trader, GFI, GFI Ginga, CreditMatch, Fenics, Fenics.com, FMX, Sunrise Brokers, Poten & Partners, RP Martin, kACE2, Capitalab, Swaptioniser, CBID, and Lucera are trademarks/service marks, and/or registered trademarks/service marks of the company and/or its affiliates. The company’s customers include many of the world’s largest banks, broker-dealers, investment banks, trading firms, hedge funds, governments, corporations, and investment firms. The company has dozens of offices globally in major markets, including New York and London, as well as in Bahrain, Beijing, Bogotá, Brisbane, Cape Town, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dubai, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, Houston, Johannesburg, Madrid, Manila, Melbourne, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, Monaco, Nyon, Paris, Perth, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Toronto, and Zurich. As of December 31, 2022, the company had 1,985 brokers, salespeople, managers, technology professionals and other front-office personnel across the company’s businesses. The company operates electronic marketplaces in multiple financial markets through numerous products and services, including Fenics, BGC Trader, and several multi-asset Hybrid offerings for Voice and Fully Electronic execution, including BGC’s Volume Match and GFI’s CreditMatch. The company also operates a number of newer standalone, Fully Electronic platforms, such as Fenics UST, Fenics FX, Fenics GO, and PortfolioMatch, among others. These electronic marketplaces offer electronic trading of numerous OTC and listed financial products, including government bonds, interest rate derivatives, spot foreign exchange, foreign exchange derivatives, corporate bonds, and credit derivatives. The company offers a comprehensive application providing volume, access, connectivity, speed of execution and ease of use. The company’s trading platform establishes a direct link between the company’s brokers and customers and occupies valuable real estate on traders’ desktops, which is difficult to replicate. Products and Services Financial Brokerage and Technology Financial Brokerage The company has invested in, and developed, new state-of-the-art trading platforms, including Fenics UST, Fenics FX, Fenics GO, and PortfolioMatch, across Rates, FX, Equities, and Credit, respectively. The company has also invested in, and deployed, trading technology solutions across the company’s entire business, including the company’s Voice and Hybrid brokerage desks, with an aim to increase the company’s average broker productivity and to accelerate trends of electronic conversion. Underpinning the company’s efforts to automate and electronify the company’s overall brokerage business are macro trends across the capital markets, where the adoption of electronic trading has accelerated in recent years. Beginning in 2021, the company began to categorize its Fenics business as Fenics Markets and Fenics Growth Platforms as follows: Fenics Markets includes the Fully Electronic portion of BGC’s brokerage business, data, software and post-trade revenues that are unrelated to Fenics Growth Platforms, as well as Fenics Integrated revenues. Fenics Integrated, introduced during the second quarter of 2020, seamlessly integrates hybrid liquidity with customer electronic orders either by GUI and/or API. Desks are categorized as ‘Fenics Integrated’ if they utilize sufficient levels of technology such that significant amounts of their transactions can be or are executed without broker intervention and have expected pre-tax margins of at least 25%. Fenics Growth Platforms includes Fenics UST, Fenics GO, Lucera, Fenics FX, PortfolioMatch and other newer standalone platforms. Revenues generated from data, software and post-trade attributable to Fenics Growth Platforms are included within their related businesses. The company has leveraged its Hybrid platform to provide real-time product and price discovery information through applications, such as BGC Trader. The company also provides straight-through processing to the company’s customers for an increasing number of products. The company’s end-to-end solution includes real-time and auction-based transaction processing, credit and risk management tools and back-end processing and billing systems. Customers can access the company’s trading application through its privately managed global high speed data network, over the Internet, or through third-party communication networks. On November 3, 2021, the company announced FMX, which will include Fenics' U.S. Treasury business with a state-of-the-art U.S. Rates futures platform. FMX is expected to complete all regulatory filings and submissions by the end of the first quarter. The company remain on track for a soft launch of the company’s futures platform, and the company expects to announce its FMX strategic investors prior to the launch. Certain categories of trades settle for clearing purposes with CF&Co, one of the company’s affiliates. CF&Co is a member of FINRA and the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (‘FICC’), a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (‘DTCC’). In addition, certain affiliated entities are subject to regulation by the CFTC, including CF&Co and BGCF. In certain products, the company, CF&Co, BGC Financial and other affiliates act in a matched principal or principal capacity in markets by posting and/or acting upon quotes for the company’s account. Such activity is intended, among other things, to assist the company, CF&Co and other affiliates in managing proprietary positions (including, but not limited to, those established as a result of combination of trades and errors), facilitating transactions, framing markets, adding liquidity, increasing commissions and attracting order flow. Technology Offerings The company’s market data, software, and post-trade offerings provide a range of trade lifecycle services which include market data and analytics services, infrastructure and connectivity solutions, and post-trade services, such as trade compression, matching and other post-trade optimization services. These businesses have highly recurring and compounding revenue bases, which are reported within the company’s overall Fenics business. The company has invested in the growth of its Data, Software and Post-trade businesses, which continue to scale and represent record levels of overall revenue contribution to the company’s overall business. Fenics Market Data is a supplier of real-time, tradable, indicative, end-of-day and historical market data. The company’s market data product suite includes fixed income, interest rate derivatives, credit derivatives, foreign exchange, foreign exchange options, money markets, energy, metals, and equity derivatives and structured market data products and services. The data is sourced from the Voice, Hybrid and Fully Electronic brokerage operations, across BGC, GFI, RP Martin and Fenics, among others. The data is made available to financial professionals, research analysts, compliance and surveillance departments, and other market participants via direct data feeds and BGC-hosted FTP environments, as well as via information vendors, such as Bloomberg, Refinitiv, ICE Data Services, QUICK Corp., and other select specialist vendors. Through the company’s Software Solutions business, the company provides customized screen-based market solutions to both related and unrelated parties. The company’s clients are able to develop a marketplace, trade with their customers and access the company’s network and the company’s intellectual property. The company can add advanced functionality to enable the company’s customers to distribute branded products to their customers through online offerings and auctions, including private and reverse auctions, via the company’s trading platform and global network. As part of the company’s Software Solutions business, the company’s Lucera brand delivers high-performance technology solutions designed to be secure and scalable and to power demanding financial applications across several offerings: LumeFX (distributed FX platform with managed infrastructure and software stack), LumeMarkets (multi-asset class aggregation platform), Connect (global SDN for rapid provisioning of connectivity to counter-parties), and Compute (on-demand, co-located compute services in key financial data centers). Through kACE2, the company’s analytics brand, the company offers a derivative price discovery, pricing analysis, risk management and trading software used by over 280 client sites in 35 countries. The company’s clients include mid-tier banks, financial institutions and corporate clients. The company’s Gateway module links the company’s client base with their counterparties, trading venues and regulators, enabling clients to automate order flow, straight through processing, data distribution and regulatory reporting. The company’s Post-Trade Services include post-trade risk mitigation services provided using the company’s Capitalab brand. Capitalab, a division of BGC Brokers L.P. (‘BGC Brokers’), provides compression, matching and optimization services that are designed to bring greater capital and operational efficiency to the global derivatives market. Capitalab assists clients in managing the growing cost of holding derivatives, while helping them to meet their regulatory mandates. Through the Swaptioniser service for portfolio compression of Interest Rate Swaptions, Interest Rate Swaps, Caps and Floors, and through the Capitalab FX, with CLS service offering portfolio compression of FX Forwards, FX Swaps and FX Options, as well as Initial Margin Optimization services complete with fully automated trade processing and connection with LCH SwapAgent, Capitalab looks to simplify the complexities of managing large quantities of derivatives to promote sustainable growth and lower systemic risk and to improve resiliency in the industry. Shipping Brokerage In November 2018, the company acquired Poten & Partners, a leading ship brokerage, consulting and business intelligence firm specializing in LNG, tanker and LPG markets. Founded over 80 years ago and with 170 employees worldwide, Poten & Partners provides its clients with valuable insight into the international oil, gas and shipping markets. Energy Brokerage In March 2019, the company acquired Ginga Petroleum, which complemented the company’s existing energy brokerage businesses within BGC, GFI, and Poten & Partners. Ginga Petroleum provides a comprehensive range of broking services for physical and derivative energy products, including naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas, fuel oil, biofuels, middle distillates, petrochemicals and gasoline. Customers and Clients The company primarily serves the wholesale financial markets, with clients, including many of the world’s largest banks, brokerage houses, investment firms, hedge funds, and investment banks. Customers using the company’s products and services also include professional trading firms, futures commission merchants, and other professional market participants and financial institutions. The company’s market data products and services are available through many platforms and are available to a wide variety of capital market participants, including banks, investment banks, brokerage firms, asset managers, hedge funds, investment analysts, compliance and surveillance professionals and financial advisors. The company also licenses its intellectual property portfolio and offerings in Software Solutions to various financial markets participants. Sales and Marketing The company’s brokers and salespeople are the primary marketing and sales resources to the company’s customers. Thus, the company’s sales and marketing program is aimed at enhancing the ability of its brokers to cross-sell effectively in addition to informing the company’s customers about the company’s product and service offerings. The company also employs product teams and business development professionals. The company leverages its customer relationships through a variety of direct marketing and sales initiatives and build and enhance the company’s brand image through marketing and communications campaigns targeted at a diverse audience, including traders, potential partners and the investor and media communities. The company may also market to its existing and prospective customers through a variety of co-marketing/co-branding initiatives with the company’s partners. The company’s brokerage product team is composed of product managers who are each responsible for a specific part of the company’s brokerage business. The product managers seek to ensure that the company’s brokers, across all regions, have access to technical expertise, support and multiple execution methods in order to grow and market their business. This approach of combining marketing with the company’s product and service strategy has enabled the company to turn innovative ideas into both deliverable Fully Electronic and Hybrid solutions. The company’s team of business development professionals is responsible for growing its global footprint through raising awareness of the company’s products and services. The business development team markets the company’s products and services to new and existing customers. As part of this process, they analyze existing levels of business with these entities in order to identify potential areas of growth and also to cross-sell the company’s multiple offerings. The company’s market data, software solutions, and post-trade products and services are promoted to the company’s existing and prospective customers through a combination of sales, marketing and co-marketing campaigns. Technology Pre-Trade Technology: The company’s financial brokers use a suite of pricing and analytical tools that have been developed both in-house and in cooperation with specialist software suppliers. Inter-Dealer and Wholesale Trading Technology: The company utilizes a sophisticated proprietary electronic trading platform to provide execution and market data services to the company’s customers. The services are available through the company’s proprietary API, FIX and a multi-asset proprietary trading platform, operating under brands, including BGC Trader, CreditMatch, Fenics, FMX GFI ForexMatch, BGCForex, BGCCredit, BGCRates, FenicsFX, FenicsUST, FenicsDirect, Fenics GO, MidFX, GBX, and Fenics Invitations. This platform presently supports a wide and constantly expanding range of products and services, including FX options, corporate bonds, credit derivatives, OTC interest rate derivatives in multiple currencies, US REPO, TIPS, MBS, government bonds, spot FX, NDFs, and other products. Every product on the platform is supported in either view-only, Hybrid/managed or Fully Electronic mode, and can be transitioned from one mode to the next in response to market demands. The flexible BGC technology stack is designed to support feature-rich workflows required by the Hybrid mode, as well as delivering high throughput and low transaction latency required by the Fully Electronic mode. Trades executed by the company’s customers in any mode are, when applicable, eligible for immediate electronic confirmation through direct straight-through processing (‘STP’) links, as well as STP hubs. The BGC trading platform services are operated out of several globally distributed data centers and delivered to customers over BGC’s global private network, third-party connectivity providers, as well as the Internet. BGC’s proprietary graphical user interfaces and the API/FIX connectivity are deployed at hundreds of major banks and institutions and service thousands of users. Post-Trade Straight Through Processing Technology: The company’s platform automates previously paper and telephone-based transaction processing, confirmation and other functions, substantially improving and reducing the cost of many of the company’s customers’ back offices and enabling STP. In addition to the company’s own system, confirmation and trade processing is also available through third-party hubs, including MarkitWIRE, ICElink, Reuters RTNS, and STP in FIX for various banks. The company has electronic connections to most mainstream clearinghouses, including DTCC, CLS Group, Euroclear, Clearstream, Monte Titoli, LCH.Clearnet, Eurex Clearing, CME Clearing and the Options Clearing Corporation (‘OCC’). Systems Architecture: The company’s systems consist of layered components, which provide matching, credit management, market data distribution, position reporting, customer display and customer integration. The private network operates from six concurrent core data centers (three of which are in the U.K., one each in Trumbull, Connecticut, Weehawken, New Jersey and Secaucus, New Jersey) and many hub cities throughout the world acting as distribution points for all private network customers. The redundant structure of the company’s system provides multiple backup paths and re-routing of data transmission in the event of failure. In addition to the company’s own network system, the company receives and distributes secure trading information from customers using the services of multiple, major Internet service providers throughout the world. These connections enable the company to offer the company’s products and services via the Internet to its global customers. Competition Inter-Dealer or Wholesale Financial Brokers The company primarily competes with four publicly traded, diversified inter-dealer and/or wholesale financial brokers. These are TP ICAP, Tradition, Dealerweb, an inter-dealer and wholesale financial brokerage business within Tradeweb Markets, Inc. (‘Tradeweb’), and XP Inc.'s fixed income and FX inter-dealer broking business. Other competitors include a number of smaller, private firms that tend to specialize in specific product areas or geographies, such as Marex Spectron Group Limited in energy and commodities, and Gottex Brokers Holding SA, which is an affiliate of Tradition, in OTC interest rate derivatives. Market Data, Financial Software and Post-Trade Solution Vendors The company competes with other market infrastructure and connectivity providers, such as Pico, ION Group and Broadway Technology in this space. The company’s post-trade services that offer derivative compression, matching and optimization services operate in an industry, which has benefitted from increased regulatory requirements. Competition in this space includes OSSTRA, a joint venture between CME Group Inc. and IHS Markit Ltd, Parameta Solutions, TP ICAP’s data and analytics business, Quantile Group Limited (‘Quantile’) and Capitolis. Exchanges and Other Trading Platforms The company also competes with CME via its acquisition of NEX. In addition to exchanges, other electronic trading platforms which primarily operate in the dealer-to-client markets, including those run by MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (‘MarketAxess’) and Tradeweb now compete with the company in the inter-dealer markets. Seasonality The company’s revenues tend to be strongest in the first quarter and lowest in the second half of the year (year ended December 2022). For the year ended December 31, 2022, the company earned approximately 28.2% of its revenues in the first quarter. Regulation The company and its subsidiaries are subject to the various anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act, the Exchange Act, the Commodity Exchange Act, certain state securities laws, and the rules and regulations thereunder. In addition, the company operates a number of platforms that are governed pursuant to SEC Regulation ATS. In the case of the company’s U.S. broker-dealer subsidiaries, the principal self-regulatory organization is FINRA. Accordingly, the company’s U.S. broker-dealer subsidiaries are subject to both scheduled and unscheduled examinations by the SEC and FINRA. In the company’s futures-related activities, the company’s subsidiaries are also subject to the rules of the CFTC, futures exchanges of which they are members and the NFA, a futures self-regulatory organization. The company has subsidiaries regulated by the FCA (some include BGC Brokers L.P., GFI Securities Limited, and GFI Brokers Limited). History BGC Group, Inc. was founded in 1945.