LONDON, (September 13, 2006) – BGC Partners, L.P., a leading provider of brokerage services to wholesale fixed income, interest rate, foreign exchange and derivative markets worldwide, announced today that it raised $5 million through its global network of offices on its highly successful Second Annual Global Charity Day held on Monday, 11 September 2006.
The London event, held at BGC’s global headquarters at Canary Wharf, was supported by: Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal; Countess Mountbatten of Burma; Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank England and a long list of celebrities from the worlds of sport, television and film, including rugby World Cup winning captain, Martin Johnson, international cricket icons Shane Warne and Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, and newly crowned three-day event World Champion, Zara Phillips.
In New York, BGC was supported by former New York Giants players Billy Ard, Harry Carson, and Phil Simms, alongside New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, basketball coach Rick Pitino, and supermodel Petra Nemcova.
Prior to the fund-raising day, Lee Amaitis, Chairman and CEO of BGC Partners, pledged that 100% of revenues generated through trading on the day would be donated to a number of charities including Save the Children, Chase, The Shane Warne Foundation, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Honeypot, Chance to Shine, Winston’s Wish and Demelza Hospice Care for Children. Charities who benefited from the day in New York were the YMCA, the March of Dimes, the Safe at Home Foundation, MAN and the Daniel Pitino Foundation.
Mr. Amaitis commented: “I want to thank everyone at BGC for their hard work, our clients who provided fantastic support and, of course, our honoured guests for a magnificent effort in aid of our nominated charities. To raise this amount of money in a single day is a tremendous feat and we all look forward to seeing the benefit that our contributions will make to the charities’ work.”
The total raised by BGC brokers worldwide surpasses last year’s figure of $4 million and generates an extra $1 million towards BGC’s nominated charities.
Full list of guests who attended in the UK:
HRH The Princess Royal, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Zara Phillips, Lord March, Governor of the Bank of England, Bishop of Stepney, Nigel Benn, Rory Bremner, Sir Trevor Brooking, Andrew Castle, Max Clifford, Chris Cowdrey, Andrew Flintoff, Zac Goldsmith, Damon Hill, Martin Johnson, Saira Khan, Mark Knopfler, Samantha Morton, Mark Nicholas, Harry Redknapp, Anneka Rice, Laila Rouass, David Seaman, Robin Smith, and Shane Warne.
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About BGC Partners, L.P.
BGC is a leading inter-dealer brokerage firm spun-off from Cantor Fitzgerald in 2004, the company which suffered the heaviest loss of life during the twin towers tragedy in New York on September 11th 2001. Since BGC’s inception, the company has continued its long legacy of fundraising on behalf of a wide range of charitable causes.
BGC is a leading inter-dealer broker, providing integrated voice and electronic services for wholesale market participants worldwide. BGC is active in the global fixed income, interest rate, foreign exchange and derivative markets, offering both telephone and screen-based price discovery, trade execution, straight-through processing and access to electronic trading services from eSpeed Inc. (Nasdaq: ESPD). The firm, named after fixed income trading innovator B. Gerald Cantor, has offices in London, New York, Copenhagen, Milan, Nyon, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Beijing (representative office). To learn more, please visit www.bgcpartners.com.
Contacts:
Timo Kindred
BGC International
Public Relations
+44 (0) 20 7894 7292