BGC Partners, Inc. Class A Stock

Greetings, and welcome to the BGC Group Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce Jason Chryssicas, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. This morning, we issued BGC's financial results, which can be found at ir.bgcg.com. Any historical results provided on today's call compare only the current period with the prior year period unless otherwise specified. All references on today's call to record or all-time high results are the BGC stand-alone financial results, excluding Newmark, prior to the spin-off in November 2018. We will be referring to our results on a non-GAAP basis, which include the terms, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings.

Please refer to today's investor materials on our website for additional details on our financial results, relevant economic and industry statistics and for the complete and updated definitions of any non-GAAP terms, reconciliations of these items to the corresponding GAAP results and how, when and why management uses them. The outlook discussed today assumes no material acquisitions or dispositions. Our expectations are subject to change based on various macroeconomic, social, political and/or other factors.

Information on this call contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements about our economic outlook and business. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause our actual results to differ from expectations. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements and a complete discussion of the risks and other factors that may impact these forward-looking statements, see our SEC filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors and disclosures within these documents.

With that, I am now happy to turn the call over to Sean Windeatt, Co-Chief Executive Officer of BGC Group.

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 conference call. With me today are my fellow Co-Chief Executive Officers, John Abularrage; and JP Aubin; along with our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Hauf.

We produced revenues of $846 million, a second quarter record, up 8% versus last year. This growth was broad-based across every asset class, reflecting the durability, diversification and the strength of our global platform.

Our revenues for the first half of 2026 were up more than 24% to $1.8 billion, the highest ever through the first 2 quarters of the year. Since 2022 and the return of interest rates, we have grown our revenues double digits every year since, and our half year revenues in 2026 were greater than our full year revenues of just 3 years ago. FMX once again saw market share gains across its cash, U.S. treasury and futures businesses. FMX UST market share grew to 42%, a new all-time high, and FMX SOFR and U.S. Treasury futures also reached new market share highs for the month of June.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to John to discuss our exciting new partnership with Fanatics and the quarterly results of the business in more detail.

Thank you, Sean. Earlier this week, we announced our partnership with Fanatics, a global sports platform, to build a prediction market ecosystem that serves both retail and institutional participants, combining BGC's extensive client network and Fanatics' database of over 100 million customers. Together, BGC and Fanatics will also deliver unique market data in this innovative and rapidly growing asset class. This partnership brings together BGC's established market data and analytics capabilities to enable the development of new data products.

Prediction markets are a gauge of sentiment, which predict outcomes as opposed to our traditional data, which reflects past events. Merging these two together will allow us to offer new and exciting data sets to our clients. As part of this agreement, BGC will receive upfront consideration and a performance-based earnout as well as a license to the exchange's data. This is entirely separate from FMX's CFTC-registered DCM, which BGC continues to own and control. Similar to the sale of kACE and Capitalab, this transaction once again underscores the tremendous value of the assets that BGC owns, assets that we believe are worth significantly more than what is currently reflected in the market.

Now turning to our second quarter results. We delivered record second quarter revenues of $845.5 million, a 7.8% increase versus last year. Our total brokerage revenues grew by 7.2% to $771.4 million, driven by growth across all asset classes. ECS revenues grew by 5.3% to $275.5 million, driven by strong growth across our shipping, environmental and commodities businesses, partially offset by lower oil and refined product volumes due to disruptions caused by the Strait of Hormuz closure.

Additionally, we announced the launch of BGC Compute Infrastructure Markets during the second quarter, a logical extension of our existing power business. This is a new business focused on developing the secondary market for compute and memory capacity.

Rates revenues increased by 10.6% to $221.9 million, reflecting higher volumes across all major Rates products during the quarter. Foreign exchange revenues were up 9.4% to $118.7 million, primarily due to strong volume growth in emerging markets and G10 products and precious metals.

Credit revenues increased by 5.4% to $79.3 million, driven by PortfolioMatch along with higher European and emerging market credit volumes. Equities grew by 2.8% to $76 million, reflecting strong U.S. equity volumes, partially offset by lower European equity derivative activity. Data, network and post-trade revenues grew by 18.6% to $36.7 million, excluding kACE, which we sold in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Now turning to Fenics. Fenics revenues increased by 14.3% to a second quarter record of $186.2 million. Fenics Markets generated revenues of $152.8 million, an increase of 16.5% excluding kACE. This growth was driven by higher electronic trading volumes across rates, credit, foreign exchange and increased Fenics Market Data revenues. Fenics Growth Platforms revenues grew to $33.4 million, a 22.9% increase, primarily driven by FMX, PortfolioMatch and Lucera. FMX UST generated record second quarter ADV of $79.4 billion, 17% higher compared to last year.

FMX UST continued to grow its market share to 42% in the second quarter, up from 41% last quarter and 35% a year ago. FMX Futures Exchange delivered another quarter of significant growth with second quarter ADV of approximately 54,000 contracts, more than 16-fold higher than a year ago. SOFR ADV rebounded strongly in June following reduced Iran-driven volatility, achieving a monthly record of more than 59,000 contracts. U.S. Treasury futures continued to scale in the second quarter, averaging more than 15,000 contracts per day and total open interest ended at more than 140,000 contracts, up from approximately 22,000 contracts a year ago. As you know, we currently list only the 2- and 5-year U.S. Treasury future contracts, but we'll be listing the remaining tenors across the full curve on August 3, 2026, supporting further growth in trading volumes and open interest on the exchange.

FMX FX average daily volumes increased by 16% to $18 billion, driven by continued growth across spot FX and NDF volumes, resulting in continued market share gains. PortfolioMatch ADV grew 82% to a new quarterly record of $431 million, significantly outpacing the broader credit market. Lucera, Fenics' network business, providing real-time trading infrastructure to the capital markets grew its revenues by 15%.

And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Jason.

Thank you, John, and hello, everyone. BGC generated revenues of $845.5 million during the second quarter. EMEA and Americas grew revenues by 11.2% and 6.1%, respectively, while Asia Pacific revenues decreased by 2.9%.

Turning to expenses. Compensation and employee benefits for adjusted earnings increased by 7.7%. The increase was related to higher commissionable revenues during the period. Non-compensation expenses for adjusted earnings increased by 5.2%, primarily due to increased selling and promotion, along with commissions and floor brokerage expenses related to higher client activity.

Moving on to our record second quarter adjusted earnings. Our pretax adjusted earnings grew by 11.1% to $192.9 million, representing a pretax incremental margin of 31.3%. Post-tax adjusted earnings increased by 11.2% to $171 million, resulting in a post-tax adjusted earnings per share of $0.35, 12.9% higher versus last year. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 7.2% to $228.7 million.

Turning to share count. BGC's fully diluted weighted average share count for adjusted earnings was 495.4 million shares during the period, approximately flat compared to last quarter and a 1% decrease compared to last year. As of June 30, our liquidity was $861.4 million compared with $979.1 million as of year-end 2025. We recently received upgraded credit ratings from both Kroll and JCRA to BBB+ and A-, respectively, due to the continued strong performance of our business.

With that, I'd like to turn the call back to Sean to go over our third quarter outlook.

Thank you, Jason. I'm pleased to provide the following guidance for the third quarter of 2026. We expect to generate revenues of between $775 million and $835 million compared to $736.8 million in the third quarter of 2025, which at the midpoint of our guidance, would represent just over 9% revenue growth for the third quarter and 19% revenue growth for the first 9 months of the year.

We anticipate pretax adjusted earnings to be in the range of $172 million to $190 million versus $155.1 million last year, which at the midpoint of guidance would represent 17% earnings growth for the third quarter and 24% earnings growth for the first 9 months of the year. We expect our adjusted earnings tax rate to be between 11% and 14% for the full year 2026.

Before we open the call for questions, I'm excited to announce that we will be hosting our first ever FMX Investor Day on October 13, with further details to follow. I'm also excited to share that our keynote speaker will be Geoffrey Hinton, the Godfather of AI, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize and the 2018 Turing Award for his work with artificial and deep neural networks.

And with that, operator, we'd now like to open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

I want to start off with a question on the BGC Compute Infrastructure Markets. You launched that in June. I know this is being positioned by yourselves and others in the industry as kind of a compute memory capacity being an emerging commodity market. So I was hoping you could maybe just like walk us through the growth opportunity there and the monetization model? Is this primarily a brokerage of OTC blocks between some of the participants in the AI ecosystem? Is there a market data or benchmarking opportunity? And then ultimately, I guess, how are you thinking about the maturity curve here? When should we expect revenues, I guess, from this business to maybe be reflected in the financials? And then I have a follow-up.

Patrick, it's John. That was a bunch of questions. So I'll do my best, but remind me if I skip one. I mean I -- the obvious point is CapEx is going to be close to $1 trillion globally. We obviously look at it and think there hasn't been an effective market that's formed to hedge risk. And so the focus so far has been on cleared futures. But I think for BGC, the real opportunity is going to be on the OTC market. So cash settled derivatives to hedge exposure and OTC delivered trades when counterparties want actual physical delivery.

So we're #1 in ECS. I think it's a natural extension of our power markets. And where we're going with it is to drive standardization across what is a highly fragmented market needs a broker in it. And so when we see revenues, I would assume we'll start to trade relatively soon, but it's early and too nascent a market for us to give financial guidance at the moment.

But I think we have a group of some of our best ECS brokers who are doing this. I think we have connectivity to the hyper-scalers, the NEOs and the traditional client base. So I think we're uniquely positioned to enter the market and help standardize things. And on the back of that, I think we'll -- we're very excited about the potential opportunity. So I hope that answers the question.

No, definitely. And then just a follow-up on the 3Q guidance and margins. I think pretty impressive revenue guide on the margin side. This quarter, I think it was up 100 basis points year-over-year pretax adjusted margin. I think that's going to accelerate this quarter based on the midpoint of the guidance of maybe 150 basis point step-up year-over-year. So could you maybe just talk about the longer term realistic multiyear margin destination, how you're thinking about that today? And what's really driving that incremental margin step-up year-over-year?

Yes. Certainly, Patrick, it's Sean here. I think you've actually -- you framed it quite correctly. We -- what you're seeing is the gearing that we've always spoken about. And that's why in the prepared notes, we didn't just point out the quarter, but pointed out the 9 months, assuming the midpoint. What you're seeing is, you're seeing that in that guidance for Q3, you're seeing the flow-through of just under 40 percentage points. And that's a mixture of, of course, the incremental business, the incremental growth and the cost savings that we have identified and executed on during the year.

I think, as you quite rightly say, look, we're incredibly excited going forward because what we have is we have a model where the gearing is in place. You're seeing -- even on the sort of 22-ish percent margin, you're seeing that on incremental, it's well in excess of 30%. And of course, leading into 2027 and beyond, we still have our electronic platforms and our FMX business, which will, of course, once up to full speed, dwarf the margins of our existing business. And so I think our runway remains incredibly positive.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Elias Abboud with Bank of America.

I wanted to ask if you were seeing any impacts downstream from the SLR reforms, which took place, or took effect with certain banks earlier this year? I appreciate that your Rates revenue is broadly strong here, up 19% in aggregate in the first half. But are you seeing any outsized contribution coming from the bank channel that's worth calling out?

Eli, JP here. Yes, it's early stage, but we did notice strong activity from the banks linked to the SLR. So yes, it's positive, definitely. Our strong market share with the top banks provide us the ability to notice on various underlyings, the positive aspect of the SLR.

Got it. And I have a couple here for you on FMX as well. Can you talk about how the progress is coming in hooking up the buy-side clients? And if -- I mean, to the extent that you've seen obstacles there, can you give us any details into what pushback you guys are getting from that client channel?

Sure, Eli, it's John. I would say that the onboarding of the buy side is accelerating. I would say that we're happy with the progress. I would say that the pipeline of buy-side participants and new participants that are coming on the exchange is happening at least as fast as we had hoped and the new participants certainly will drive the number of contracts going forward. So I don't think we've had a problem at all. I think it was, as we told you before, kind of going into the progression in year 3 of FMX, the buy side is taking notice and starting to trade more actively. So we're pretty happy with where we are.

Got it. And just bigger picture on FMX for a second. I know year 3 was kind of always framed as all about market share. That's when the big market share push was going to be. So I guess as we come across that 3-year anniversary very shortly here, what should our expectations be? Where do you expect to end year 3 in terms of market share? Can you just like give us a baseline expectation?

Higher would be the answer. So we've avoided, as you know, giving direct targets because it's a new exchange, and we're constantly in building mode. So we're not going to change that now in terms of giving an exact number, but I am pretty confident that the number going into year 3 and the end of year 3 would be higher than where you see our averages now.

Got it. And then just last one for me here. Can you walk us through some of the assumptions that you were baking into that 3Q '26 revenue guide? It looks like listed energy futures volumes are up quarter-to-date versus 2Q. Energy is your largest segment. So I would have anticipated that your revenue would also be headed higher sequentially. So is there maybe some conservatism baked into that guide? Or is maybe some softer areas in other asset classes? Any detail there would be helpful.

Sure. So look, I mean, as you know, Eli, we always -- we guide what we see, right? And they've been fairly consistent that we would have expected sort of the circa 10% for this year. Obviously, we've exceeded that. Q3 is always an interesting one to guide for because you have the summer months of July and August and the biggest month of the year -- the biggest month of this quarter is for September. And that's why we give a range. You're right to say that the biggest asset class we have is ECS, around about 36%, but we have others. There's nothing that we're seeing to cause any concern whatsoever. But look, I think with the sustained geopolitical tensions that exist, I think that's why we've given the range. But certainly no challenges. I think a mid-guide at sort of just under 10% and higher end of 13.5% seems pretty good to us.

Our next question is from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

Maybe just a broad one on the Fanatics partnership. Could you maybe just elaborate on how that came together, maybe just some of the nuances of the partnership in terms of the revenue share, what you're getting out of that? And then why do you think Fanatics was the right partner for you? I know that they're, I think, more of a sports-oriented platform. I would think your customers are maybe more focused on economic indicators and maybe interest rate prediction markets and things like that. So how do you kind of marry that? And yes, any kind of color you can just give on how that came together?

Sure. I think the genesis of it was that we had a DCO and the DCO was kind of active by a few trades a year. So we knew we had that asset. And when these things started trading in the market, we looked at how we would best capitalize that. So I think we've shown from our prior acquisitions and disposals that our focus is on maximizing shareholder value. So the conversation happened internally about what to do with the DCO.

Then our General Counsel introduced me to a gentleman who is an expert in the field, and we talked about what to do with it. And we thought the real value was in applying for a DCM and putting the two of them together. So we did that, started that process. And then I fortuitously got introduced to a great partner named Matt King, who runs the Fanatics Sports and Exchange business. And from the beginning of that, I think we thought this was a perfect merit.

So to your last question, yes, currently, Fanatics is a sports-related business, but their reach in terms of consumers and retail is over 100 million customers in their database. That is something that since I've come into this industry has been relative criticism where we have no reach into retail. So we've solved that problem by partnering with Fanatics. I think that all you need to do in terms of realizing that this is the right partner to get our shareholders long-term, great shareholder value is attend Fanatics Fest, which is mind-boggling in terms of its reach and the people that are there. And I think we're incredibly excited about this partnership.

And of course, Fanatics does more at the moment than sports in terms of their current listing, but we will be helping bring the institutional market that BGC is known for to that retail market and combining those 2 things on contracts, that you quite rightly point out, our client base will be more interested in will take prediction markets where it needs to go. And on the back of that, you will see predictive data. So as we said in the opening remarks, the vast majority of the data that we currently sell is backward-looking. And now you get predictive data and you'll get all new client interest in new data sets. And so for us, partnering with Michael Rubin, Matt King, Glenn Schiffman and the team over at Fanatics is an absolute grand slam for us. And we're incredibly happy about it, and we will do our very best to deliver shareholder value, as we always do.

Okay. And then I apologize if I missed it, we've been juggling a few calls this morning. So it might be in the deck. But anything you've disclosed or willing to disclose on the economics of that partnership?

Not yet. I mean I think we -- what we said was that there is upfront consideration, which, again, we're always focused on delivering shareholder value. Then there is an earn-out associated with the exchange volume. And finally, there is a true partnership on the data side. So that where -- we are -- there's a gentleman called Aaron Roussell on our side. He's running the project for us, and we will endeavor to, again, deliver the right shareholder value through that.

All right. Great. And I look forward to your October FMX Analyst Day. It is a day after my wedding anniversary, but I'm going to try to make it work. So I'll see you guys soon.

We can extend an extra invitation to your wife.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the floor back over to Mr. Windeatt for any closing remarks.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Greetings, and welcome to the BGC Group First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call.[Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Jason Chryssicas, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Hello, everyone. This morning, we issued BGC's first quarter 2026 financial results, which can be found at ir.bgcg.com. Any historical results provided on today's call compare only the first quarter of 2026 with the prior year period unless otherwise specified. All references on today's call to historic record and strongest results are to BGC stand-alone financial results, excluding Newmark prior to the spin-off in November 2018.

We will be referring to our results on a non-GAAP basis, which include the terms adjusted earnings and adjusted EBITDA. Please refer to today's investor materials on our website for additional details on our financial results and for complete and updated definitions of any non-GAAP terms, reconciliations of these items to the corresponding GAAP results and how, when and why management uses them as well as relevant industry and economic statistics. The outlook discussed today assumes no material acquisitions or dispositions. Our expectations are subject to change based on various macroeconomic, social, political and/or other factors.

Information on this call contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements about our economic outlook and business. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause our actual results to differ from expectations. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

For information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements and a complete discussion of the risks and other factors that may impact these forward-looking statements, see our SEC filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors and disclosures within these SEC documents. With that, I'm now happy to turn the call over to John Abularrage, Chief Executive Officer of BGC Group.

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2026 conference call. With me today are my fellow Co-Chief Executive Officers, Sean Windeatt and JP Aubin, along with our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Hauf.

BGC delivered another record quarter. Revenues increased 44% to $955 million, with growth across every asset class and geography. Excluding OTC, revenues grew 23% to $817 million, which was also a record. Pretax earnings hit an all-time high, up more than 44%. Our ECS revenues more than doubled to $330 million, reinforcing our position as the world's largest energy broker.

FMX posted its best ever quarter, setting ADV records for U.S. Treasuries, FX and Futures. FMX UST ADV grew 51% in the first quarter to a record $90 billion, representing 41% market share. We built on last year's $25 million cost reduction program, which is now expected to result in $35 million of annualized cost savings. We will continue to identify and execute cost savings throughout 2026 to drive further margin expansion.

A final point on the macro backdrop. The Iran conflict, which began on February 28, drove elevated volatility across energy, rates and FX through the final month of the quarter. Through February 27, before the conflict began, revenues were tracking up 41%. Finishing the full quarter up 44% reinforces that our record results this quarter were driven primarily by our underlying business with the conflict serving only as an incremental contributor. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Sean to go over the quarterly results of the business in more detail.

Thank you, John. We delivered record revenues of $955.5 million, a 43.8% increase versus last year. Our total brokerage revenues grew by 46.7% to $895.8 million, driven by growth across all asset classes. ECS revenues grew by 120.1% to $330 million, driven by the acquisition of OTC and strong organic growth across our broader energy complex and shipping businesses.

Rates revenues increased 27.5% to $256.2 million, reflecting strong growth across listed futures and options, interest rate swaps and government bonds, supported by continued FMX UST market share gains.

Foreign exchange revenues were up 19.1% to $131 million, primarily due to strong volume growth in emerging markets and G10 products. Credit revenues increased by 8.2% to $94.1 million, driven by higher emerging market credit, portfolio match and structured credit volumes. Equities grew by 34.3% to $84.5 million, reflecting strong market share gains across all major geographies and global equity volatility.

Data network and post-trade revenues grew by 23.2% to $34.5 million, excluding kACE, which we sold in the fourth quarter of 2025. This growth was driven by Lucera and Fenics Market Data. Including kACE, data network and post-trade revenues grew by 6.1%.

Now turning to Fenics. Fenics revenues increased by 19.8% to a first quarter record of $206.9 million. Fenics Markets generated revenues of $176.7 million, an increase of 20.3%. This growth was driven by higher electronic trading volumes across rates, credit, foreign exchange and increased Fenics Market Data revenues. On December 31, 2025, we completed the sale of our kACE Financial business for up to $119 million. Excluding kACE, Fenics Markets grew by 24.1%.

Fenics Growth Platforms revenues grew to $30.2 million, a 17.4% increase, primarily driven by FMX Portfolio Match and Lucera. FMX UST generated record quarterly ADV of $89.7 billion, 51% higher compared to last year. FMX UST grew its first quarter market share to 41%, up from 39% last quarter and 33% a year ago. In March, ADV reached $107 billion, the single highest month in the platform's history.

FMX Futures Exchange delivered another quarter of significant growth. SOFR ADV climbed to more than 39,000 contracts in the first quarter of 2026, up from 2,200 contracts a year ago, while quarter end open interest reached approximately 143,000 contracts compared to 8,000 in the prior year period. FMX's U.S. Treasury futures developed momentum in April with volume building throughout the month to a new high of approximately 30,000 contracts on April 29, 2026. FMX FX average daily volumes increased by 42% to a record $20.5 billion, driven by strong growth across spot FX and NDF volumes, resulting in continued market share gains.

Portfolio Match ADV grew by 42% in the first quarter, setting a new all-time high. Growth was driven by higher client activity across U.S. and EMEA corporate credit, reflecting new and deepening customer relationships and broad-based adoption of recently launched trading functionalities. Average trade size grew to record levels, supported by an increase in the platform's global maximum trade size. Portfolio Match continues to capture market share in this critically important part of the credit market.

Lucera, Fenics network business providing critical real-time trading infrastructure to the capital markets grew revenues by 22.8% in the first quarter. Growth was led by continued momentum in its FX offering and increasing client adoption across fixed income solutions, including U.S. Treasuries and the Futures. Looking ahead, a pipeline of new products across both FX and Fixed Income is set to come online, which is expected to provide meaningful sources of new incremental growth. And with that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Jason.

Thank you, Sean. Hello, everyone. BGC generated record revenues of $955.5 million during the quarter, reflecting growth across all of our geographies. EMEA revenues increased by 56.7% Americas revenues increased by 29.9% and Asia Pacific revenues increased by 31.1%. Turning to expenses. Compensation and employee benefits under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 57.3% and 51.5%, respectively. The increase in compensation and employee benefits under GAAP was related to the acquisition of OTC, higher commissionable revenues, charges incurred as part of the cost reduction program and the weaker U.S. dollar. The increase in compensation and employee benefits for adjusted earnings was driven by OTC, higher commissionable revenues and the weaker U.S. dollar.

Non-compensation expenses under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 33.4% and 27.4%, respectively, primarily driven by the acquisition of OTC. Excluding OTC, non-compensation expenses under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 19.3% and 12.7%, respectively. During the quarter, we realized an additional $10 million of savings and now expect our cost reduction plan to result in $35 million of annualized savings. We remain committed to continuing our cost reduction initiatives throughout 2026 with the goal of achieving further margin expansion. Moving on to our record adjusted earnings.

Our pretax adjusted earnings grew by 44.9% to $232.1 million, representing a pretax margin of 24.3%. Post-tax adjusted earnings increased by 40.6% to $201.1 million, resulting in a post-tax adjusted earnings per share of $0.41, 41.4% higher versus last year. Our adjusted EBITDA increased by 26.7% to $253.2 million.

Turning to share count. BGC's fully diluted weighted average share count for adjusted earnings was 495.2 million shares during the period, a 1% increase compared to the last quarter and a 1.3% decrease compared to last year. As of March 31, our liquidity was $878.4 million compared with $979.1 million as of year-end 2025. The change in our liquidity reflects payments for year-end bonuses, tax payments and timing differences between commissions earned in the seasonally busier first quarter and commissions collected from the seasonally slower fourth quarter.

As cash uses are generally the greatest in the first quarter, we typically repurchased fewer shares during this period, and we expect share repurchases to increase throughout the remainder of the year. With that, I'd like to turn the call back to John to go over our second quarter outlook.

Thank you, Jason. I'm pleased to provide the following guidance for the second quarter of 2026. We expect to generate revenues of between $785 million and $845 million compared to $784 million in the second quarter of 2025, which at the midpoint of our guidance would represent a 4% revenue growth increase for the second quarter and 22% revenue growth for the first half of the year or 13% organically.

We anticipate pretax adjusted earnings to be in the range of $178 million to $196 million versus $173.6 million last year, which at the midpoint of guidance would represent 8% earnings growth for the second quarter and 26% earnings growth for the first half of the year. We expect our adjusted earnings tax rate to be between 11% and 14% for the full year 2026. With that, operator, we would like to open the call for questions.

Our first question comes from the line of Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

Congrats on the record quarter. So I wanted to ask about energy commodity and shipping revenues. They were very strong this quarter. In the release, you noted that total revenues though were already tracking up 41% year-over-year before the Iran conflict broke out. finished at 44% increase in the quarter year-over-year. So how much of that growth do you view as structural versus cyclical? And then I'm just curious, how do you think investors should think about the ECS revenue run rate from here as you lap the OTC Global Holdings acquisition in April of last year and as we think about maybe some of the geopolitical driven volatility normalizing from here?

Patrick, -- so I think in terms of structural, as John said in his prepared remarks, we pointed out that the business was up 41% pre the start of the conflict and ended up 44%. If you just -- if you do the math on that, you'll see our opinion is that around about, call it, $20 million of incremental revenue, one could ascribe to the conflict, but the balance of that -- but most of the growth in Q1 was part of our normal business. So that's incredibly positive.

I think with ECS in particular, I don't think anything has changed between Q1 and Q2 and therefore, the rest of the year. We've now owned OTC for 1 year. And the integration of that business is virtually complete. And therefore, I think we will continue -- what you'll now see is you'll see growth across the ECS spectrum for our multi-brands, and we won't be breaking it out between OTC and our core business.

Okay. That's helpful. And then as a follow-up, you expanded the cost reduction program this quarter. In the press release, I think you said that you were going to continue to identify and execute cost savings throughout 2026 to drive further margin expansion. So could you walk us through what's driving that incremental $10 million? How much additional runway you see beyond the $35 million now? And how should we just think about the pace of margin expansion flowing through the P&L over the remainder of the year?

Yes, I like that. We increased our cost reduction program in the Q1 by 40%, and you asked for what we're going to do next after that. I like that. So I think as you know, having covered us for a while, as a result of the OTC acquisition, we identified that we should be able to save $25 million in cost reduction. Once we started on that journey, of course, we wanted to exceed that. And we found an additional $10 million now at $35 million. The bulk of that is within the compensation lines. There are some infrastructure lines as well.

And for example, we closed one of the nonprofit-making businesses that OTC had in its logistics business, which resulted in decreases in compensation and a small amount of noncomp as well. I think once you do these exercises, we will continue to do that across the business. Will we expect to get more than the $35 million-- of course, that's why we said it in our prepared remarks. But I think having just done that incremental 40%, we'll perhaps update you on what we think and an updated thing in the next quarter.

Our next question comes from the line of Eli Abboud with Bank of America.

You pointed out a moment ago to Patrick, the revenues are tracking 41% higher year-on-year before the Iran war even began. So my question is, if the Iran war was not a major tailwind for you guys in 1Q '26, how do I bridge the 31% organic revenue growth in 1Q '26 with the 4% revenue growth implied by the guide for 2Q '26?

Thanks, Eli. So why don't I take that one? It was interesting actually, John, JP and I when doing guidance, I'd probably say it was one of the more challenging times to give you guidance. And that's really for 2 reasons. Firstly, -- as we pointed out in Q1 this year, around $20 million of incremental revenue was there in Q1 in our estimate as part of the -- as a result of the Iran conflict. And last year, you, of course, remember that April is an interesting month in the U.S. because April 25 was -- I think it was called Liberation Day.

And therefore, it was the introduction of the tariffs, which had significant increases in volumes and trading in the month of April.

So if you put the $20 million of Q1 this year and circa $20 million of Q1 -- Q2 last year, that will help you bridge. And I think also, look, we didn't mention it in our numbers, in our prepared remarks, I apologize. But we did sell the kACE business, and we did also close down the logistics business. Now that's $10 million of quarterly revenue. So -- but if you add those 3 things together, that's $50 million difference.

And that's why also we gave you the 6 monthly in John's prepared remarks, he gave you the 6-month numbers, which said that organically, we're growing at 12.7%, assuming mid guidance organically. April was -- in giving our guidance, April, of course, therefore, was challenged by comparison to last year. But what we've seen, and of course, today is May 7, what we've seen is we've started to see trading levels return back to what I would call normality and try to reflect that in our guidance.

Got it -- and then in the deck, you gave us some new data that shows your listed revenues are actually outpacing exchange volumes. I think conventional wisdom is that electronification is a one-way trend and that your business, which is primarily Voice, should be actually slower growth than that of the exchanges. These numbers, obviously, they suggest that maybe that isn't true. So I was hoping you could help us understand why. Why does it make sense for the high-touch flow that BGC does to be higher growth than the Fully Electronic low-touch flow that comprises the majority of listed volume?

Okay. So I think 2 things. As my co-CEO JP pointed out in last quarter, what we were trying to explain is we are an exchange. We act like an exchange except for -- we do it not just for electronic marketplace, but for Voice, for hybrid and for electronic. And the interesting point was when there's volatility in the marketplace, we couldn't understand why the exchanges, of course, the exchange share prices would do well and ours not so much. And we're pointing out that we act like an exchange.

So the difference is the clients can come to us and execute their business in 1 of 3 ways. So it shouldn't be surprising, therefore, that when electronic volumes, for example, CME and ICE are up, of course, the trading that's going to be happening in both Voice, voice/ hybrid and Electronic with the intermediaries like BGC, that's going to be positive as well. So that's why there is a correlation between the 2. And again, you've seen that very much in April, where the -- where the exchange volumes were lower, we still grew.

And why are we outperforming them? I think we're outperforming them for 2 reasons. Number one is because of -- from a strategy of our -- what's led to our market share gains in multiple asset classes, number one, obviously, our acquisitions; and secondly, just overall increased volume. So I think that's why we continue to outperform the market.

Got it. And I'll squeeze one more in here before I hand it back to Patrick. Could you help us understand the decline in FMX futures open interest quarter-to-date versus 1Q? What can be done to course correct there?

It's John. So drop in OI on the futures is just simply a reflection of a risk-off mentality in terms of what's going on in the market. And so OI, as you know, is just standing orders. And so that is something that we would expect to happen as the conflict starts and something that we are seeing now start to recover in the same way that you're seeing those volumes start to recover.

So I guess the way that we think of it is it kind of in general in nascent exchange is that -- of course, we're always looking at -- you never want to see volumes go down for any reason, but this is exactly what we saw in the UST cash platform when that was a nascent exchange. And obviously, now it's not. And so you saw our cash platform perform beautifully when the conflict started. And I think that this is what we would have expected.

And clearly, if there was ever an opportunity where the climb back to the market share that we had before, and we're virtually there now, and you'll see that the next time we speak, we believe we'll be there and above, proves what the participants in the market and the partners have been telling us, which is you need a second player in this market. And we are that second player. And that's why we believe that we're seeing our market share and volumes climb back to where they were, and it will be higher than that. We're quite confident of the next time we speak. So the risk parameters in the market are changing, but our place in the market has only been reinforced by the recovery in our volumes and our OI that you're starting to see.

Our next question is a follow-up from the line of Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

Just a quick one. I don't have the live transcript in front of me, but in your prepared remarks, you said something about new products that you were looking forward to launching. I think you might have said FX. Could you just elaborate on what those are? And then any way to quantify maybe from a revenue or top line perspective, what sort of impact that could have and the timing of those launches?

Yes. As you and I have discussed, Lucera is a gem within the BGC portfolio. I think in terms of quantifying that, you'll continue to see it grow around the rates that it has grown historically despite the larger revenue size. So it grows at 20% plus. In terms of new products, the single thing that is most important in the Lucera world and growing importance in our world is connectivity.

And so Lucera is constantly rolling out other products within asset classes. So the way to think about it is, yes, Lucera is dominant in FX and to a slightly lesser extent, but growing in rates, but there are other parts of a rates complex where Lucera is growing in and getting more buy-in from existing and from new customers. And as Lucera's connectivity within big clients continues to grow, it continues to expand in other asset classes and the TrustFactor and white-glove service that come along with Lucera is really genuinely taking hold, and we're pleased to see that they're doing a great job.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Abularrage for final comments.

Thanks very much, everyone. As always, we appreciate your time and look forward to speaking to you next quarter.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Greetings, and welcome to the BGC Group Fourth Quarter Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Jason Chryssicas, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Hello, everyone. This morning, we issued BGC's fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial results, which can be found at ir.bgcg.com. Any historical results provided on today's call compare only the fourth quarter of 2025 with the prior year period, unless otherwise stated.

All references to record and/or strongest results are compared to BGC's stand-alone financial results excluding Newmark prior to the spin-off in November 2018. We will refer to our results on a non-GAAP basis, which include the terms adjusted earnings and adjusted EBITDA. Please refer to today's investor materials on our website for additional details on our financial results and for complete and updated definitions of any non-GAAP terms, reconciliations of these items to the corresponding GAAP results and how, when and why management uses them, as well as relevant industry and economic statistics.

The outlook discussed today assumes no material acquisitions or dispositions. Our expectations are subject to change based on various macroeconomic, social, political and/or other factors. Information on this call contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements about our economic outlook and business. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause our actual results to differ from expectations. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements and a complete discussion of risks and other factors that may impact these forward-looking statements, see our SEC filings, including, but not limited to the risk factors and disclosures within these SEC documents.

With that, I'm now happy to turn the call over to Sean Windeatt, Co-Chief Executive Officer of BGC Group.

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2025 Conference Call.

With me today are my fellow co-Chief Executive Officers, John Abularrage and JP Aubin, along with our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Hauf.

BGC delivered record-breaking revenues for both fourth quarter and full year 2025, with increases of 32% and 30%, respectively. This strong growth extended across all asset classes and geographies, driven by double-digit organic growth and our acquisition of OTC. We achieved the strongest annual results in our history, with revenues approaching $3 billion and EPS growing by 24% under GAAP and 19% for adjusted earnings. We significantly expanded our market share completed our second largest acquisition and became the world's largest energy broker.

We completed the first phase of our cost reduction program that will realize $25 million of annualized savings in 2026 with further cost savings targeted throughout the year. FMX produced another record year with our FMX UST business ending 2025 with a 40% market share. Our FMX Futures Exchange continued its rapid growth with SOFR Futures average daily volumes and open interest increasing 82% and 97%, respectively, from the previous quarter. This strong momentum has continued into 2026 with volumes, open interest and market share, all setting new daily highs.

Three years ago, on our fourth quarter 2022 earnings call, we declared BGC a growth company once again. Since then, we produced 13% revenue growth in 2023, 12% in '24, 30% in 2025 and have now guided 34% growth for the first quarter of 2026 at the midpoint of guidance. Our revenues have increased from $1.8 billion in 2022 to nearly $3 billion this year. Over the same period, our adjusted EPS has risen by 71% to $1.18 per share. We have become the largest ECS broker globally, diversified our customer base and introduced competition to the U.S. interest rate futures market.

We believe our company is stronger than ever and perfectly positioned for continued success as we move into 2026, with the year already off to a record-breaking start.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to John to go over the quarterly results of the business in more detail.

Thank you, Sean. We delivered record fourth quarter revenues of $756.4 million, a 32.2% increase versus last year. Excluding our acquisition of OTC, revenues were $641.9 million, up 12.2%, which also would have been a fourth quarter record. Our total brokerage revenues grew by 34.6% to $694.6 million driven by growth across all asset classes. Our ECS revenues grew by 92% to $257.5 million, driven by OTC and strong organic growth across the broader energy complex and our shipping business. Excluding OTC, ECS revenues grew by 10% versus last year.

Rates revenues increased 16.4% to $197.4 million, reflecting strong double-digit growth in G10 interest rate products, emerging market and repo products. Foreign exchange revenues were up 9.8% to $102.8 million, primarily due to strong growth in emerging market currencies and G10 FX forward volumes. Credit revenues increased by 3% to $64.3 million, driven by higher emerging market and European credit volumes. Equities grew by 29% to $72.7 million, reflecting global equity volatility and strong market share gains.

Data, Network and Post-Trade revenues grew by 14.2% to $36.7 million, excluding Capitalab, which we sold in the fourth quarter of 2024. This growth was driven by Lucera and Fenics Market data. Including Capitalab, Data, Network and Post-Trade revenues grew by 12.5%.

Now turning to Fenics. In the fourth quarter, Fenics revenues increased by 15.4% to a fourth quarter record of $163.9 million. Fenics Markets generated revenues of $136.7 million, an increase of 15.1%. This growth was primarily driven by higher electronic volumes across rates products and increased Fenics Market Data revenues. On December 31, 2025, we sold our kACE business for up to $119 million or 28x post-tax profits. Fenics Growth Platforms revenues grew $27.2 million, an 18.9% increase, excluding Capitalab, driven by strong revenue growth in FMX and Lucera. Including Capitalab, which we sold in the fourth quarter last year, Fenics Growth Platforms revenues increased by 16.5%.

FMX UST generated record fourth quarter average daily volume of $58.7 billion, more than 12% higher compared to last year and outpacing all electronic U.S. Treasury platforms. This strong growth drove market share to a record 39% for the fourth quarter, up from 37% last quarter and 30% a year ago. FX market share has increased sequentially in 12 of the last 13 quarters, more than doubling over the same period.

FMX Futures Exchange saw record volumes in open interest in the fourth quarter with ADV and open interest increasing 82% and 97%, respectively, versus the third quarter. This momentum has carried into 2026, where ADV was approximately 40,000 contracts in January, exceeding 1% market share for the first time and open interest ended with approximately 200,000 contracts, an all-time record. We remain ahead of where we were with our FMX UST platform, which today has approximately 40% market share.

In our experience, achieving the first 1% market share is the hardest. We are increasingly excited about the progress we are seeing with our FMX Futures Exchange. FMX FX ADV increased by 40% to a fourth quarter record $15.5 billion driven by strong growth across spot FX and nondeliverable forward volumes. The benefits of having 10 world-class partners in FMX is demonstrated by ADV more than doubling since the completion of the FMX transaction.

PortfolioMatch ADV grew by 68%, driven by stronger U.S. and European credit activity, greater adoption of algorithmic trading and larger average trade size. Our PortfolioMatch business has seen tremendous growth since its launch and today, we estimate it represents nearly 20% of the Credit Suite market in the United States.

Lucera, Fenics Network business, providing critical real-time trading infrastructure to the capital markets, grew its revenues by 24.1%. This strong growth was driven by increased demand for Lucera's FX and rate solutions, continued international expansion and onboarding of new clients. Lucera's client pipeline continues to expand, and we plan to launch additional fixed income products in 2026.

And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Jason.

Thank you, John, and hello, everyone. BGC generated record fourth quarter revenues of $756.4 million, reflecting growth across all of our geographies. EMEA revenue increased by 39.2%. Americas revenues increased by 25.7%, and Asia Pacific revenues increased by 24.2%.

Turning to expenses. Compensation and employee benefits under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 71.8% and 40.1%, respectively. The increase in compensation and employee benefits under GAAP was related to charges due to the cost reduction program, the acquisition of OTC, higher commissionable revenues, loan forgiveness and the weaker U.S. dollar. The increase in compensation and employee benefit for adjusted earnings was driven by OTC, higher commissionable revenues and the weaker U.S. dollar.

Charges related to the cost reduction program and loan forgiveness are excluded from adjusted earnings. Noncompensation expenses under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 25.5% and 27.1%, respectively, primarily driven by the acquisition of OTC. Excluding OTC, non-compensation expenses under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 13.5% and 14.7%, respectively.

We completed the first phase of our cost reduction program during the fourth quarter, which will realize $25 million of annualized cost savings in 2026. Further cost efficiencies are expected to be realized throughout the year.

Moving on to our record fourth quarter adjusted earnings. Our pretax adjusted earnings grew by 24.5% to $161.3 million, representing a pretax margin of 21.3%. Excluding the impact of OTC, our pretax margin would have been 23.2%. And excluding both OTC and the weaker U.S. dollar, our pretax adjusted earnings margin would have been approximately 23.7%. Post-tax adjusted earnings increased by 21.1% to $149.6 million, resulting in a post-tax adjusted earnings per share of $0.31.

Our adjusted EBITDA decreased by 0.8% to $190.6 million due to charges related to the execution of the cost reduction program.

GAAP income from operations before income taxes decreased 8% to $25 million. This included $54.8 million of charges from the cost reduction program, the cash impact of which was $28.1 million.

Turning to share count. BGC's fully diluted weighted average share count for adjusted earnings was 490.4 million shares during the period, a 0.8% decrease compared to the third quarter of 2025 and a 1% decrease compared to a year ago. As of December 31, our liquidity was $979.1 million compared with $897.8 million as of year-end 2024.

With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Sean to go over our first quarter outlook.

Thank you, Jason. I'm pleased to provide the following guidance for the first quarter of 2026. We expect to generate revenues of between $860 million and $920 million, as compared to $664.2 million in the first quarter of 2025, which at the midpoint of our guidance would represent approximately 34% revenue growth. Excluding OTC, we expect our first quarter revenues to grow around 15% at the midpoint.

We anticipate pretax adjusted earnings to be in the range of $202 million to $222 million versus $160.2 million last year, which at the midpoint of guidance would represent over 32% earnings growth. We expect our adjusted earnings tax rate to be between 11% and 14% for the full year 2026.

With that, operator, we'd like to open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

Wanted to ask about the first quarter guide came in much better than we were expecting, and it appears like the organic revenue growth is stepping up there. So I was hoping if you could dissect that a little more for us, how much of the step-up in growth is driven by just a strong trading environment year-to-date versus maybe some more sustainable fundamental growth drivers across the business?

Thanks, Patrick. It's Sean here. Look, I think, as I said in the prepared remarks, we've grown our core revenue, if you like, our same-store revenue 13%, 12%, 15% each year, and in the implied guidance, it's 15% again. You'll remember that we said with the introduction of interest rates, the market itself is -- it was regrowing again. And you've seen that for the past 3 years, and now you're seeing it in our guidance this time. It's driven not just in ECS, but where we've gained market share and I think we also have the benefit of becoming the #1 player within that business.

And then we've also got -- had strong growth and strong market share gains due to the various hirings that we've done over the past year or so in both rates and in foreign exchange. And you've also seen -- across the board, you've seen that in FX and equities as well.

Okay. Great. And then a follow-up. You sold kACE. Just wondering how you're thinking about the portfolio of businesses today within Fenics? What drove the decision to sell that business? Was it just opportunistic? Or should we maybe expect future divestitures?

Look, I think we've sold two businesses that were sitting within Fenics now in the last year that had revenues of around about $27 million and we sold those for just under $165 million. And our view has always been the same, which is, if -- it's all about shareholder value. And if someone is prepared to pay something that's an appropriate value for our shareholders, then that's great. Both of those businesses were lower growth businesses for us. I think they'll do fantastically well in the hands of their new owners.

And what it allows us to do is to focus on those higher growth things that you mentioned within the Fenics portfolio. I mean you saw, I think in John's prepared remarks, he said that Lucera grew 24% again this quarter. Our PortfolioMatch business growing again at strong double digits. So the answer is we always remain open for -- if it's not getting the value within our company, but it's all about shareholder value.

Our next question comes from the line of Elias Abboud with Bank of America.

I wanted to follow up on Patrick's energy segment question and still trying to unpack, I guess, what's structural from what cyclical growth here. And to that end, could you maybe talk about the extent to which you're seeing new logo growth in the energy space? Are there firms who maybe 2 years ago didn't think it was necessary to hedge their energy exposure but now with all of this volatility are revisiting that decision and maybe becoming clients at BGC's ECS segment for the first time?

Elias, it's John. So yes, the answer is that in the ECS business, there's a proliferation of new players in that asset class, both when you talk about hedging, what is real risk in the market and new players who are entering on the traditional buy side. So we're definitely seeing the benefit of that. Of course, there is some cyclical growth, but I think if you look at our market share and where I would say we're outperforming the market, those are based mainly on areas where we chose to invest and to enter into those markets over the last couple of years.

So we are seeing across the board good performance in our ECS business. At the moment, you're seeing really great performance from the biggest asset classes that we've invested in, so oil, refined products, power, natural gas and, of course, our shipping business. So yes, the market environment is good, but I would say we continue to expand our client base and continue to gain market share.

Got it. And has your ECS market share yet exceeded, I guess, the combined market share of BGC and OTC Global as stand-alone entities? I know in the past couple of calls, you had said there would be situations where maybe 1 plus 1 equals 3 as you go to integrate those businesses. Are there any proof points, any evidence yet of that, that you can share with us?

So I'm not -- I don't think we're breaking it out, but what I will say is, without question, the answer to that is yes. So the benefits of acquiring OTC have become evident in the products that I just mentioned. So our #1 positioning in oil, in gas, in refined products has been augmented certainly in a greater way than just 1 plus 1. And so we are seeing the benefits of that. And we are also seeing strong benefits where we have combined parts of the traditional BGC business with the existing OTC business to create, Elias, you and I have discussed, historically very, very strong global brands under the BGC umbrella.

Got it. And I think, to some extent, the pushback that we hear from investors is, does your over-the-counter, your block like bread and butter, does that grow structurally slower than listed energy volumes? So I think maybe it would be helpful, like if we kind of take as a given that listed energy volumes grow, let's just say, 15% per year over the next 5 years, does BGC's volumes grow more, the same, less? How should we think about the delta?

JP here. So the block business is a growing part, right? And we have a very -- as you know, 2025, the markets were very volatile. The beginning of '26 is no different. So one, volatility remains the best friend of BGC business. Second, we are the largest listed broker in the world. And the block part, the OTC part of that business, is growing and BGC's benefiting like largely. I would like to mention something. We're a client of multiple exchange. As an example, we are one of the CME's biggest clients. So we noticed exchanges share price are always up in very volatile days. We shouldn't be different.

They benefit from that extra business, and we are the client of the exchanges. So we feed them in a way, every day. So we consider we definitely benefit from volatility and the extra blocking business.

Got it. And maybe for my last one here. I know we actually we haven't hit on FMX futures yet. So now that market share is picking up and you guys have some momentum, what's the timetable for recognizing some revenue related to FMX futures? I think there were some fee holidays maybe in the past couple of quarters. Is there any timeline for those rolling off? And then just a follow-up. Any update on Treasury futures? I think open interest there is still de minimis and maybe that's been on the back burner. When is that going to move to the front burner for you guys?

Yes. So the changes in the fee structure happened 2 years after the deal was signed. So that's kind of the beginning of this summer when you'll see for the early adopters, change the fee structures, I think we've said before for the futures businesses and in general comment, we will continue to consider where that stands to make sure that it is more than competitive in the marketplace. So that was the first part of your question.

And the second part of your question was on Treasury futures and Treasury futures will come on the back of success of SOFR. Meaning that we are at 1% and we don't take the 1% lightly, but we're still on that journey, and we believe very strongly that focusing on SOFR at the moment is the right thing to do both for building that marketplace, but also in conjunction with daily conversations with our partners is how we make those decisions. So the launch of Treasury futures will follow shortly behind where we get to the end of our journey in onboarding and getting SOFR to where we need it to be.

Our next question comes from the line of Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

I wanted to hit on something you said in your prepared remarks about launching additional fixed income products in 2026 within Lucera. Could you maybe just help us or give us a better sense for what those could be and how additive it could be to overall growth within Fenics?

Yes, sure. So Lucera has got a dominant position in the FX market, as you would imagine, because that's where it started. They then rolled into rates and you're seeing the benefits of Lucera's fantastic position in that market, and the service they provide for clients, both in connectivity and the robustness of what they do on the electronic side. And now they're moving into credit markets to bring that connectivity into an increasingly electronic world in credit.

So hard to define in terms of the number because it's nascent. It's just sort of starting. But one would guess that if they are successful in credit as they've been in the first two asset classes that over a period of time, hopefully, that will represent a third of their revenue.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Sean Windeatt for closing remarks.

Thank you very much. And just to say thanks for joining us today on our fourth quarter and full year '25 conference call. Look forward to speaking to you soon, and have a great day.

Thank you. And this concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. The conference will begin in a couple of moments. One moment, please.

Greetings, and welcome to the BGC Group, Inc. Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Jason Chryssicas, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Thank you, and hello, everyone. This morning, we issued BGC's third quarter 2025 financial results, which can be found at ir.bgcg.com. Any historical results provided on today's call compare only the third quarter of 2025 with the prior year periods unless otherwise specified. All references on today's call to historic and record results are to BGC's stand-alone financial results, excluding Newmark prior to the spin-off in November 2018. We will be referring to our results on a non-GAAP basis, which include the terms adjusted earnings and adjusted EBITDA.

Please refer to today's investor materials on our website for additional details on our financial results and for complete and updated definitions of any non-GAAP terms, reconciliations of these items to GAAP results and how, when and why management uses them as well as relevant industry and economic statistics. The outlook discussed today assumes no material acquisitions or dispositions. Our expectations are subject to change based on various macroeconomic, social, political and/or other factors. Information on this call contains forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements about our economic outlook and business.

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from expectations. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements and a complete discussion of the risks and other factors that may impact these forward-looking statements, see our SEC filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors and disclosures within the SEC documents.

With that, I'm now happy to turn the call over to John Abularrage, Co-Chief Executive Officer of BGC Group.

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, and welcome to our third quarter 2025 conference call. With me today are my fellow Co-Chief Executive Officers, Sean Windeatt; and JP Aubin, along with our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Hauf. We delivered another outstanding quarter with record third quarter revenues of $737 million, up 31% from $561 million a year ago and revenues of $628 million, up 12%, excluding OTC, was also a record. This was driven by growth across every asset class and geography. Our ability to deliver strong growth in a mixed macro environment demonstrates the strength and scale of our global platform.

FMX continues to outperform, setting new records in SOFR Futures and U.S. Treasury. SOFR Futures saw both ADV and open interest increase more than threefold versus the previous quarter. This momentum continued into October, where we set multiple new daily volume and open interest records. Our U.S. Treasury market share grew to an all-time high of 37%, significantly outpacing the market. Our $25 million cost reduction program will be completed by year-end. This program will enhance our profitability and margins as we continue to focus on delivering long-term shareholder value.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Sean to go over the quarterly results of the business in more detail.

Thank you, John. We delivered record third quarter revenues and adjusted earnings. Our ECS revenues grew by 114% to $241.6 million, driven by OTC and strong organic growth across the broader energy complex. Excluding OTC, ECS revenues grew by 21.8% versus last year. Rates revenues increased 12.1% to $195.3 million, reflecting higher volumes across all major interest rate products, including strong double-digit growth in interest rate swaps, emerging market rates and repo products.

Foreign exchange revenues were up 15.9% to $106.7 million, primarily due to strong growth in emerging market currencies and FX option volumes. Credit revenues increased by 1.6% to $69.1 million, driven by higher credit derivative and structured credit volumes. Equities revenues grew by 13.2% to $60.4 million, reflecting strong European and U.S. equity volumes and continued market share gains in these geographies. Data Network and Post-Trade revenues grew by 11.9% to $34.3 million, excluding Capitalab, which we sold in the fourth quarter of 2024. This growth was driven by Fenics Market Data and Lucera. Including Capitalab, Data Network and Post-Trade revenues grew by 5.2%.

Now turning to Fenics. In the third quarter, Fenics revenues increased by 12.7% to a third quarter record of $160 million. Fenics Markets reported revenues of $134.1 million, an increase of 12.5%. This growth was primarily driven by higher electronic trading volumes across rates and foreign exchange products and increased Fenics Market Data revenues. Fenics Growth Platforms generated revenues of $25.9 million, a 24.2% increase excluding Capitalab, driven by strong double-digit revenue growth in FMX and PortfolioMatch.

Including Capitalab, Fenics Growth Platforms grew by 13.5%. FMX UST generated record third quarter average daily volume of $59.4 billion, more than 12% higher compared to last year, outpacing all electronic U.S. treasury platforms. This strong growth drove market share to a record 37% for the third quarter, up from 35% last quarter and 29% a year ago. FMX Futures Exchange continued to scale its SOFR Futures ADV and open interest to record levels during the third quarter. SOFR ADV and open interest each increased sequentially by more than threefold.

FMX, along with its partners, continues to prioritize growing SOFR ADV and open interest, and we expect to see similar adoption in our U.S. Treasury futures offering in 2026. FMX FX ADV increased by 44% to a third quarter record $13.1 billion, driven by continued support from FMX's equity partners as well as the addition of new products and participants. PortfolioMatch ADV more than doubled, reflecting strong growth in the U.S. and EMEA credit markets. PortfolioMatch continues to gain market share in this fast-growing segment of the credit market and has rapidly expanded its non-U.S. volumes and client base.

Momentum is being driven by the greater adoption of algorithmic trading and larger average trade size, which reached record levels in the third quarter, with U.S. investment-grade average trade size up nearly 50% year-over-year. Lucera, Fenics network business, providing critical real-time trading infrastructure to the capital markets once again registered double-digit revenue growth. Lucera is rapidly growing its client pipeline for its newer rates products and continues its global expansion into EMEA and Asia.

And with that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Jason.

Thank you, Sean, and hello, everyone. BGC generated record third quarter revenues of $736.8 million, reflecting growth across all of our geographies. EMEA revenues increased by 37.4%, Americas revenues increased by 28.1% and Asia Pacific revenues increased by 17.4%.

Turning to expenses, compensation and employee benefits under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 47.5% and 42.1%, respectively, due to higher commissionable revenues and the acquisition of OTC. Non-compensation expenses under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 20.9% and 19.2%, respectively, primarily driven by the acquisition of OTC. Excluding OTC, non-compensation expenses under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 10.3% and 7.1%, respectively. BGC's $25 million cost reduction program launched in the third quarter and will be completed by year-end 2025. We look forward to providing more detail on the program on our fourth quarter earnings call.

Moving on to our record third quarter adjusted earnings. Our pretax adjusted earnings grew by 22.4% to $155.1 million. Post-tax adjusted earnings increased by 11.5% to $141.1 million, resulting in post-tax adjusted earnings per share of $0.29, and our adjusted EBITDA increased by 10.7% to $167.6 million.

Turning to share count. BGC's fully diluted weighted average share count for adjusted earnings was 494.2 million shares during the period, a 1.2% decrease compared to the second quarter of 2025 and a 0.1% decrease compared to a year ago. We remain committed to repurchasing our shares. And on November 5, 2025, BGC's Board and Audit Committee reapproved our share repurchase authorization for up to $400 million. We anticipate reducing our full year share count further in the fourth quarter of 2025 in addition to repaying our $300 million senior notes due December 15. As of September 30, our liquidity was $924.7 million compared to $897.8 million as of year-end 2024.

With that, I'd like to turn the call back to John to go over our fourth quarter outlook.

Thanks, Jason. I'm pleased to provide the following guidance for the fourth quarter of 2025. We expect to generate revenues of between $720 million and $770 million as compared to $572.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, which at the midpoint of our guidance would represent approximately 30% revenue growth. Excluding OTC, we expect fourth quarter revenues to grow around 11% at the midpoint. We anticipate pretax adjusted earnings to be in the range of $152.5 million to $167.5 million versus $129.5 million last year, which at the midpoint of guidance would represent approximately 24% earnings growth. And we expect our adjusted earnings tax rate to between 10% and 12% for the full year 2025.

With that, operator, I'd like to turn to open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.

So I want to start off kind of broad. In the third quarter, we saw on exchange volumes in some of the asset classes you're active in slow down significantly. Your results, though, were quite strong. So could you help us better understand what allowed BGC to kind of outperform some of those industry proxies?

Patrick, thanks for that. So I think, look, twofold. Number one is, as you know, we've targeted growth within the ECS sector. And even excluding the acquisition, you saw growth of 21%, excluding OTC. But it was broader than that. You also saw good growth in both rates and foreign exchange and equities. And that's been very much because of the hiring that we've been doing over the last 18 months, where we've added 150 -- around 150 new brokers, obviously generating great revenues on a revenue per head basis. So that's enabled us to take market share, targeted growth in certain geographies and asset classes and, of course, the growth of ECS.

Great. And then just as a follow-up, you highlighted the strong growth you've seen in FMX. Could you help us kind of get a better sense for what's going on behind the scenes there? What are your expectations for FCM onboardings in the coming quarters? And then, Sean, could you maybe elaborate on the comment you made in your prepared remarks about UST Futures growing in 2026? What needs to happen between now and then to really get that going?

Yes. Patrick. So look, we're just ending year 1 of FMX, right? We're starting year 2. So 3 points about year 1. One, everything we say we will do in year 1, we have done. We launched, we have record open interest in ADV and onboarded 11 FCMs. We are in line with where we were with cash U.S. treasuries at the same time after launch. Two, SOFR Futures ADV and open interest both increased by more than threefold from the second quarter. Three, we are encouraged by the steady growth of open interest, which signals that FMX clients are really happy to keep their position open at FMX and cleared at LCH.

Thanks, JP. And sorry, Patrick, just to add on, it's Sean. What's going on behind the scenes now, as we've discussed with you before is, taking that integration and deepening it, right? So we told you that the 11 FCMs were on board. We will certainly get to that 12 number that we talked about. But this is just becoming BAU and integrated into aggregators and the smart order routers and making sure that SOFR becomes BAU. And then in 2026, there is not -- there's nothing necessarily that needs to be done to address your question other than getting ourselves to the position that we said we would get to in SOFR and then shifting that attention with our partners over to U.S. Treasuries.

Okay. Great. That's it from me. Congrats on the strong quarter.

Thank you.

The question comes from Elias Abboud with Bank of America.

Can you walk us through the strong share growth in your FMX cash markets? What would you attribute that to? How much of this is coming from those strategic peers? And then specifically on the treasury platform, I know you have a couple of different protocols there, a public cloud and then a private club, which one of those would be driving the share gains?

Why don't I start by -- in terms of the overall market share growth in Treasury, I think that is -- there was a sort of monopoly, if you like, with CME and really, that's why we got back into the marketplace on cash treasuries. So what you've seen, Elias, you've seen that the hard work of that go on for a number of years. Now it's just further adoption, yes, by our FMX partners, but also because it's the most viable second choice for what have a better phase and one would almost say equal first choice now. So that's why you've seen the growth, I think, up to 37%. And what was the second part of the question?

I know you have a couple of different protocols in the Treasury platform. I think there's a public club and then a private club. Were either of those an outsized contributor to the share gains?

No. As Sean said, we're seeing it mainly across the board. And as we get more participants on both the peak club and your regular club, you're seeing both partners and other participants come into it. So there's not an outlier. There's nothing major that is different than kind of the underlying onboarding of our new participants and our partners leaning in.

Got it. And for my follow-up, how much leverage does your Energy segment have to higher adoption of cloud and artificial intelligence going forward? Are data centers a meaningful client channel for you today? Is there anything you can share to help us quantify the extent to which higher electricity demand from these users moves the needle on your energy revenues?

On the revenue side, probably not. On the story, the answer is, we are very fortunate to have once been combined with Newmark. So you will have seen publicly that Newmark has done a lot on the data center side and the hyperscaler side, and that affects us because part of Amarex is energy procurement. And so we've got a great business on the energy procurement side, and Newmark has been kind enough to introduce us to some of the people that they are in contact with, and that spills over to us on the energy side. And so the short answer, and I apologize for the long-winded one, is that, yes, we are involved. We continue to be more involved. And the way that it affects us is by procuring energy for those data centers.

Got it. And maybe just the last one for you here. Electronic credit revenues are flattish year-to-date, I think they're up 1%. Can you talk about what you're seeing in that business, any headwinds? And then maybe stepping back, is this a business that you think can grow at similar pace as Tradeweb or MarketAxess longer term? Or are there structural differences that would likely cause a delta in growth?

To take the last part first, the answer is yes, we can grow at those rates. And when it comes to electronic credit, I think it's growing a bit faster than that and certainly faster than the average that you will see. But as we said to you last time, we are launching new electronic protocols all the time, and we are gaining market share, as you see in the sweep, which we pull out for our portfolio match, and you will see other products of ours start to gain market share. And as the electronic offering becomes a greater percentage of our own credit business proportionately, you will see the overall credit start to move at a faster rate. And actually, JP, why don't you talk about our new offering?

Look, we do recognize the shift towards more electronic and institutional credit market. So we launched a new fully electronic global credit platform for our buy-side institutional clients to continue to move our business more electronic. And I can say this platform is already live globally.

There are no further questions in queue at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Abularrage for closing comments.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.