BGC Partners is an American global financial services and real estate markets company based in New York City. It offers financial technology solutions, market data, and analytics related to numerous financial instruments and markets via its BGC Trader and BGC Market Data, boasting of a client base which includes many of the world’s largest banks, broker-dealers, investment banks, trading firms, hedge funds, governments, corporations, property owners, real estate developers, and investment firms.
RP Martin, also a market-leading wholesale brokerage firm specialized in fixed income cash flow, bonds, currency and financial derivatives in the international money and capital markets has recently been acquired by BGC.
BGC Partners Inc. (NASDAQ: BGCP) announced today that it has acquired the UK assets and subsidiaries of RP Martin Group, which further strengthens BGC’s prospect towards global domination as it seeks to grow its institutional position around the world using mergers and acquisitions. RP Martin boasts of approximately 170 brokers and offices in the UK, the Netherlands and Sweden. The assets and subsidiaries acquired, and those BGC expects to acquire in 2015, generated unaudited revenues over $50 million in the last financial year. BGC expects the transaction to spawn growth immediately and to boost its European rates and foreign exchange platforms. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
BGC has also been engaged in a hostile takeover attempt of the brokerage business of GFI Group, engaging in a bidding war with the CME Group Inc. They also announced that it has extended the expiration date of its tender offer till January 6, 2015 to acquire all of the outstanding shares of GFI Group Inc. which it does not currently own for $5.25 per share in cash. It also announced that it has entered into agreements to acquire Apartment Realty Advisors (“ARA”) and its members representing substantially all of ARA’s revenues. ARA is the nation’s largest privately held, full-service investment brokerage network, focusing exclusively on the multi-housing industry.
