Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P.

Type	Private
Founded	1945
Headquarters	New York City, New York, United States
Key people	Howard W. Lutnick, Chairman & CEO
Industry	Investment Services
Products	Financial Services Investment Banking Environmental Brokerage
Website	http://www.cantor.com/

Cantor Fitzgerald L.P. is a global financial services firm specializing in bond trading, as well as investment banking, asset management, market data and brokerage services. It was founded in 1945 by Bernard Gerald Cantor and John Fitzgerald as a limited partnership and remains so today. Cantor Fitzgerald is one of seventeen primary dealers who trade U.S. government securities directly with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.^[1] It is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.^[2]

[edit] Subsidiaries, departments, and services

BGC Partners: On October 1, 2004, it spun off its inter-dealer voice brokerage business into a separate partnership, BGC Partners (named after Bernard Gerald Cantor), in order to refocus their business on institutional sales and trading. BGC filed for an IPO on February 8, 2007. BGC no longer plans on listing as a separate stock as it merged with eSpeed.

[edit] eSpeed

The firm created its subsidiary eSpeed, an electronic trading network, and brought it public in 1999. eSpeed is a marketplace technology provider for the financial capital markets of the world, and has offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. Thousands of traders at hundreds of global financial institutions conduct transactions worth over $45 trillion annually in eSpeed's multiple buyer/multiple seller markets. eSpeed was listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "ESPD", but was merged with BGC in 2008 and now goes by the name "BGC Partners" under ticker symbol "BGCP."^[3]

[edit] CantorCO2e Environmental Brokerage

CantorCO2e a subsidiary of Cantor, is the world's longest standing environmental brokerage created to serve companies in a carbon constrained economy. CantorCO2e are brokers of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions allowances and reduction credits under the Kyoto Protocol and EU Emission Trading Scheme legislation. CantorCO2e is also active domestically in the US in markets concerned with NOx, SOx, VOC, PM10, CO, and Global warming issues and brokerage services related to greenhouse gases, renewable energy, and emissions offsets, and other environmental products. http://www.cantorco2e.com/

[edit] Cantor Entertainment Business Group

On June 11, 2007 Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. announced the creation of Cantor Entertainment and the appointment of Andrew L. Wing as its President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Wing, who is based in the firm’s Los Angeles office, will drive Cantor’s growth and expansion in developing information, marketing, advisory and financial services for the entertainment industry. Currently, Cantor’s core business in the sector is the Hollywood Stock Exchange (“HSX”), the leading virtual market and predictive service for the entertainment industry.^[4]

[edit] Cantor Fitzgerald Telecom Services, LLC

Cantor Fitzgerald Telecom Services, LLC is a limited liability company that provides secure telecommunications services (both wireline and wireless) for financial and entertainment marketplaces that supports the global trading infrastructure for Cantor Fitzgerald and its subsidiaries and clients.

[edit] Cantor Market Data

Cantor Market Data provides real-time, end-of-day, and historical fixed income and derivative pricing data. Cantor first pioneered live pricing data for fixed income markets 30 years ago, and now provides data priced from over $265 billion in daily fixed income transactions.

[edit] Cantor Equity Research

Cantor U.S. Equity Research provides institutional equity research across a number of sectors. The research product is fundamental, bottom up analysis that focuses on small and mid-cap companies.

[edit] Cantor Fitzgerald Spectrum & Tower Exchange & Marketplace

Cantor Fitzgerald Spectrum & Tower Exchange & Marketplace is a Web-based service that deals with offering, finding, pricing and executing transfer of wireless spectrum rights, tower assets, and tower/rooftop space.

[edit] Cantor Gaming

Cantor Gaming deals with mobile gaming and was instrumental in lobbying the Nevada state government for the passage of mobile gaming legislation. The firm and several of its executives were granted the first-ever license to manufacturer, distribute, and operate mobile gaming systems by the Nevada Gaming Commission.

[edit] Cantor Index Ltd

Cantor Index Ltd provides financial spread betting services.

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Employee Harassment

In the mid 1990s, Mark Anderson, a former employee, went into arbitration against Cantor Fitzgerald. The suit alleges that Anderson was subjected to workplace bullying.^[5]

[edit] September 11, 2001 attacks

One World Trade Center, the building with the antenna to the left, included the corporate headquarters of Cantor Fitzgerald

Cantor Fitzgerald's corporate headquarters and New York City office,^[6][7] on the 101st-105th floors of One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan (2-6 floors above the impact zone of a hijacked airliner), were destroyed during the September 11, 2001 attacks. Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees (all of the employees in the office at the time of the attacks), or about two-thirds of its workforce, considerably more than any other of the World Trade Center tenants or the New York City Police Department and New York City Fire Department. The company was able to bring its trading markets back online within a week, and CEO and chairman Howard Lutnick, whose brother was among those killed, vowed to keep the company alive.

On September 19, Cantor Fitzgerald made a pledge to distribute 25 percent of the firm's profits for the next five years, and committed to paying for ten years of health care, for the benefit of the families of its 658 former Cantor Fitzgerald, eSpeed, and TradeSpark employees (profits which would otherwise have been distributed to the Cantor Fitzgerald partners).^{[citation needed]} In 2006 the company completed its promise, having paid a total of $180 million (and an additional $17 million from a relief fund run by Lutnick's sister, Edie).^{[citation needed]}

Before the attacks, Cantor handled about one-quarter of the daily transactions in the multi-trillion dollar treasury security market. Cantor has since rebuilt its infrastructure and now has its headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The company's effort to regain its footing is the subject of Tom Barbash's 2003 book On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11: A Story of Loss and Renewal.

On September 2, 2004, Cantor filed a civil lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of a number of organizations to do so.^[8] It was later joined in the suit by the Port Authority of New York.^[9]

Immediately after the first attack, at approximately 8:46:46 AM, six seconds after the first plane hit the tower, a Goldman Sachs server sent out an alert page stating that a Goldman Sachs trading system server had gone offline because it was unable to interface with a Cantor server.^[10][11]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Cantor Fitzgerald web site
  • Cantor, Tradespark, eSpeed Family Information Center
• Official BGC Partners web site
• Official eSpeed web site
• Official Cantor Market Data web site
• Ellen Comes Out on Television; It'd Be a Tougher Trick on Wall Street TheStreet.com, April 30, 1997, By Cory Johnson
• Cantor Families Memorial
• Cantor Relief Fund
• Memorial wiki tribute to Cantor Fitzgerald
• On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11: A Story of Loss and Renewal
• Worst-Hit Firm Faults Fairness of Sept. 11 Aid, The New York Times, September 17, 2002