BGC Merges French Businesses to Create a Market Leader
– ETC Pollak and Aurel to combine brokerage operations –
– New entity named Aurel BGC –
LONDON, 2nd October 2008 – BGC Partners, Inc. (Nasdaq: BGCP), one of the world’s leading inter-dealer brokers, announced today that it has merged its operations in France into a new entity to be known as Aurel BGC.
The merger of the entities follows the acquisition by BGC of ETC Pollak and Aurel Leven in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The single operating company simplifies the structure of the business, enabling it to provide clients with access to multiple asset classes including: equities, equity derivatives, credit products, government bonds, money market instruments, interest rate futures and options, structured products, swaps and repos.
Jérôme Frank will be President of the new entity and remain a Senior Managing Director of the overall BGC group, while Marion Lesage will be Managing Director of the front office.
Located at 15-17 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, the combined business has just under 250 staff, positioning it as a market leader among intermediaries in France.
Commenting on the development, BGC Partners’ President Shaun Lynn said “This marks the final step in the integration of our acquisitions with BGC’s business in France. Simplifying the structure in this way will enable us to offer global clients access to multiple asset classes and services in France, and French clients similar opportunities in markets around the world.”
Jérôme Frank said “Given the challenging times being experienced in financial markets, the joining of our businesses in France makes Aurel BGC a market leader that can move quickly and efficiently in providing the best possible research, price discovery, execution and post-trade services to clients through its mix of voice and electronic broking services.”
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About BGC
BGC Partners, Inc. (Nasdaq: BGCP) is a leading, fast growing, and global inter-dealer broker, specializing in the brokering of financial instruments and related derivatives products. BGC Partners provides integrated voice, hybrid, and fully electronic execution and other brokerage services to the world’s largest and most creditworthy banks, broker-dealers, investment banks, trading firms, and investment firms for a broad range of global financial products, including fixed income securities, interest rate swaps, foreign exchange, equity derivatives, credit derivatives, futures, commodities, structured products, and other instruments. Through its eSpeed and BGC Trader brands, BGC Partners uses its proprietary, built, and paid for technology to operate multiple buyer, multiple seller real-time electronic marketplaces for the world’s most liquid capital markets. The Company’s pioneering suite of tools provides end-to-end transaction solutions for the purchase and sale of financial products over its global private network or via the Internet. BGC Partners’ neutral platform, reliable network, straight-through processing and superior products make it the trusted source for electronic trading for the world’s largest financial firms. Through its BGCantor Market Data brand, the Company also offers globally distributed and innovative market data and analysis products for numerous financial instruments and markets.
BGC’s unique partnership structure and extensive employee ownership creates a distinctive competitive advantage among its peers. Named after fixed income trading innovator B. Gerald Cantor, BGC Partners has 16 offices in New York and London, as well as in Beijing (representative office), Chicago, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Mexico City, Nyon, Paris, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto.
To learn more, please visit www.bgcpartners.com
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Media Contacts:
London
Timo Kindred
+44 (0)207-894-7292
tkindred@bgcpartners.com
New York
Florencia Panizza
+1 212 294 7938
fpanizza@bgcpartners.com