Cantor Fitzgerald

History

Cantor Fitzgerald was formed in 1945 by Bernard Gerald Cantor and John Fitzgerald, as an investment bank and brokerage business. It later became known for its computer-based bond brokerage, the quality of its institutional distribution business model, and as the market's premier dealer of government securities.

In 1965, Cantor Fitzgerald began "large block" sales/trading of equities for institutional customers. It became the world's first electronic marketplace for U.S. Government Securities in 1972, and it was the first to offer worldwide screen brokerage services in U.S. Government Securities in 1983.

In 1991 Howard Lutnick was named President & CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and Chairman in Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., in 1996.

On September 11, 2001, the firm lost 658 of its 960 New York employees in the World Trade Center attacks. Since 9/11, the firm worked to rebuild and establish a new global headquarters in Manhattan. Two years after 9/11, it launched its fixed income sales and trading group.

In 2006 the U.S. Federal Reserve added Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. to its Primary Dealer list. In 2009, the firm launched Cantor Prime Services, a provider of multi-asset, Prime Brokerage platform exploiting its clearing, financing and execution capabilities.

Cantor Fitzgerald began building its real estate business with the launch of CCRE in 2010.

On December 5, 2014, two Cantor Fitzgerald analysts were said to be in the top 25 analysts on TipRanks.

September 11 attacks

Cantor Fitzgerald's corporate headquarters and New York City office, 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. At 8:46:46 A.M., six seconds after Cantor's tower was struck by the plane, a Goldman Sachs server issued an alert saying that its trading system had gone offline because it wasn't able to connect with a Cantor server. Cantor Fitzgerald lost sixty-eight percent of its workforce, considerably more than any of the other World Trade Center tenants or the New York City Police Department, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department, the New York City Fire Department, and the United States Department of Defense. CEO and chairman Howard Lutnick, whose brother was among those killed, vowed to keep the company alive, and the company was able to bring its trading markets back online within a week. 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). 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).

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, thanks in part to the efforts of its London office, 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 for allegedly providing money to the hijackers and Al Qaeda, one of a number of organizations to do so. It was later joined in the suit by the Port Authority of New York. Most of the claims against Saudi Arabia were dismissed on January 18, 2005.

In December 2013, Cantor Fitzgerald settled its lawsuit against American Airlines for $135 million. Cantor Fitzgerald was suing for loss of property and interruption of business, alleging the airline was negligent by allowing hijackers to board Flight 11.

Philanthropy

Edie Lutnick is the author of An Unbroken Bond: The Untold Story of How the 658 Cantor Fitzgerald Families Faced the Tragedy of 9/11 and Beyond. All the proceeds from the sale of the book benefit the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund and the charities it assists.

The Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund provided $10 million to families affected by Hurricane Sandy. Howard Lutnick and the Relief Fund "adopted" 19 elementary schools in impacted areas, distributing $1,000 prepaid debit cards to each family from the schools. In total $10 million in funds were given to families affected by the storm.

Two days after the 2013 Moore tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, killing 24 people and injuring hundreds, Howard Lutnick pledged to donate $2 million to families affected by the tornado. The donation was given out in the form of $1,000 debit cards given out to area families.

Each year, on September 11, Cantor Fitzgerald and its affiliate BGC Partners donate 100% of their revenue to charitable causes on their annual Charity Day which was originally established to raise money to assist the families of Cantor employees who died in the World Trade Center attacks. Since its inception, Charity Day has raised $113 million for charities globally.

Subsidiaries and affiliates

The firm has many subsidiaries and affiliates. These include:

Management and directors

Critical review

Venetia Thompson, at that time an employee of Cantor Fitzgerald, published in February 2008 an article in The Spectator about the behaviour of her colleagues and herself with an emphasis on the drinking culture. She was subsequently fired for "gross misconduct". She replied in 2010 by publishing a book about her experiences under the same title. (ISBN 9781847397706)