BGC Group, Inc. 10-K

ITEM 1. BUSINESS Throughout this document, the terms the “Company,” “BGC,” “we,” “our,” and “us,” refer to: (i) following the closing of the Corporate Conversion, effective at 12:02 am Eastern Time on July 1, 2023, BGC Group, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries, including BGC Partners, Inc.; and (ii) prior to the closing of the Corporate Conversion, BGC Partners, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries. Our Business We are a leading global brokerage and financial technology company servicing the global financial, energy and commodities markets. BGC, through its affiliates, specializes in the trade execution of a broad range of products, including fixed income securities such as government bonds, corporate bonds, and other debt instruments, as well as related interest rate derivatives and credit derivatives. Additionally, we provide brokerage services across FX, Equities, Energy and Commodities, Shipping, and Futures and Options. Our business also provides connectivity and network solutions, clearing, market data and network connectivity products, trade compression and other post-trade services, market data and related information services and other back-office services to a broad assortment of financial and non-financial institutions. Our integrated platform is designed to provide flexibility to customers with regard to price discovery, trade execution and transaction processing, as well as accessing liquidity through our platforms, for transactions executed either OTC or through an exchange. Through our Fenics® group of electronic brands, we offer several trade execution, market infrastructure and connectivity services, as well as post-trade services. Fenics® brands also operate under the names Fenics®, FMX™, FMX Futures Exchange™, Fenics Markets Xchange™, Fenics Digital™, Fenics UST™, Fenics FX™, Fenics Repo™, Fenics Direct™, Fenics MID™, Fenics Market Data™, Fenics GO™, Fenics PortfolioMatch™, BGC®, BGC Trader™, kACE 2 ®, and Lucera®. Our customers include many of the world’s largest banks, broker-dealers, investment banks, trading firms, hedge funds, governments, corporations, and investment firms. BGC is a global operation with offices across all major geographies, including New York and London, as well as in Bahrain, Beijing, Bogota, Brisbane, Cape Town, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dubai, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hong Kong, Houston, Johannesburg, Madrid, Manila, Melbourne, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, Monaco, Nyon, Paris, Perth, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, São Paulo, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Toronto, and Zurich. As of December 31, 2023, we had 2,104 brokers, salespeople, managers, technology professionals and other front-office personnel across our businesses. BGC, BGC Group, BGC Partners, BGC Trader, GFI, GFI Ginga, CreditMatch, Fenics, Fenics.com, FMX, Sunrise Brokers, Poten & Partners, RP Martin, kACE2, Capitalab, Swaptioniser, CBID, Caventor, LumeMarkets, Lucera, and Aurel are trademarks/service marks, and/or registered trademarks/service marks of BGC Group and/or its affiliates. Our History Our business originated from Cantor, one of the oldest and most established inter-dealer and wholesale brokerage franchises in the financial intermediary industry. Cantor started our wholesale intermediary brokerage operations in 1972. In 1996, Cantor launched its eSpeed system, which revolutionized the way government bonds are traded in the inter-dealer market by providing a Fully Electronic trading marketplace. eSpeed completed an initial public offering and began trading on Nasdaq in 1999. Cantor subsequently continued to operate its inter-dealer Voice and Hybrid brokerage businesses separately from eSpeed. Prior to the events of September 11, 2001, our financial brokerage business was widely recognized as one of the leading full-service wholesale financial brokers in the world, with a rich history of developing innovative technological and financial solutions. After September 11, 2001, and the loss of the majority of our U.S. -based employees, our Voice financial brokerage business operated primarily in Europe. In August 2004, Cantor announced the reorganization and separation of its inter-dealer Voice and Hybrid brokerage businesses into a subsidiary called “BGC,” in honor of B. Gerald Cantor, the pioneer in screen brokerage services and fixed income market data products. 14 Table of Contents In April 2008, BGC and certain other Cantor assets merged with and into eSpeed, and the combined company began operating under the name “BGC Partners, Inc.” In June 2013, we sold certain assets relating to our U.S. Treasury benchmark business and the name “eSpeed” to Nasdaq. In 2011, we also acquired and built up a commercial real estate services business called “Newmark,” which we spun-off to BGC’s stockholders in November 2018. In addition, we acquired and built-up an insurance brokerage business, which we sold in November 2021. We also acquired the Futures Exchange Group from Cantor in July 2021, which represents our futures exchange and related clearinghouse. We have substantially rebuilt our U.S. presence and have continued to expand our global footprint through the acquisition and integration of established brokerage companies and the hiring of experienced brokers. Through these actions, we have been able to expand our presence in key markets and position our business for sustained growth. Since 2015, our acquisitions have included GFI, Sunrise Brokers, Poten & Partners, Ginga Petroleum, the Futures Exchange Group, Trident, Open Energy Group and ContiCap SA. Since the founding of eSpeed, we have continued to pioneer advances in electronic trading across the wholesale capital markets. Fenics, BGC’s higher-margin technology-driven business, has grown significantly, supported by our investment in new trading technologies and platforms, as well as from trends of proliferating electronic execution across the capital markets and the demand for data services. Fenics is the foundation for our Fully Electronic and associated Hybrid transactions across all asset classes. For the purposes of this document and subsequent SEC filings, all of our Fully Electronic businesses may be collectively referred to as “Fenics.” Fenics’ offerings include Fully Electronic financial brokerage products and services, as well as offerings in data, network, and post-trade services across the Company. We currently operate electronic marketplaces in multiple financial markets through Fenics and multi-asset Hybrid platforms for Voice and Fully Electronic execution. We also operate a number of newer standalone, Fully Electronic platforms such as Fenics UST, Fenics FX, Fenics GO, and PortfolioMatch, among others. Going forward, we expect Fenics to become an even more valuable part of BGC as it continues to grow. On November 3, 2021, we announced FMX, which will combine Fenics’ U.S. Treasury business with a state-of-the-art U.S. Rates futures platform. On January 22, 2024, FMX received CFTC approval to operate an exchange for U.S. Treasury and SOFR futures. We intend to launch the FMX Futures Exchange in the summer of 2024 and we plan to discuss our strategic partners and further details on, or before, our first quarter 2024 earnings call. Corporate Conversion On July 1, 2023, BGC Partners completed its conversion to a Full C-Corporation in order to reorganize and simplify its organizational structure. As a result of the Corporate Conversion, BGC Group became the public holding company for, and successor to, BGC Partners, and its Class A common stock began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “BGC” in place of BGC Partners’ Class A common stock. Upon completion of the Corporate Conversion, the former stockholders of BGC Partners and the former limited partners of BGC Holdings now participate in the economics of the BGC businesses through BGC Group. The Corporate Conversion was intended to improve transparency and reduce operational complexity across our business. As a result of the Corporate Conversion, BGC Partners became a wholly owned subsidiary of BGC Group and BGC Holdings reorganized from a Delaware limited partnership into a Delaware limited liability company through a merger with and into Holdings Merger Sub, with Holdings Merger Sub continuing as a wholly owned subsidiary of BGC Group. Each outstanding share of BGC Partners Class A common stock and BGC Partners Class B common stock was converted into one share of BGC Group Class A common stock and BGC Group Class B common stock, respectively. Non-exchangeable limited partnership units of BGC Holdings were converted into equity awards denominated in cash, restricted stock and/or RSUs of BGC Group. Exchangeable limited partnership units of BGC Holdings were exchanged for shares of BGC Partners Class A common stock prior to the Corporate Conversion and were converted into shares of BGC Group Class A common stock at the closing of the Corporate Conversion. 64.0 million Cantor units were converted into shares of BGC Group Class B common stock, subject to the terms and conditions of the Corporate Conversion Agreement, provided that a portion of the 64.0 million shares of BGC Group Class B common stock issued to Cantor will exchange into BGC Group Class A common stock in the event that BGC Group does not issue at least $75,000,000 in shares of BGC Group Class A common stock or BGC Group Class B common stock in connection with certain acquisition transactions prior to the seventh anniversary of the Corporate Conversion. BGC Group assumed all BGC Partners RSUs, RSU Tax Accounts or restricted stock awards outstanding as of June 30, 2023. In connection with the Corporate Conversion, on July 1, 2023, the BGC Holdings Limited Partnership Agreement was terminated. There were no limited partnership units of BGC Holdings remaining after the Corporate Conversion was completed. 15 Table of Contents Please refer to “Our Organizational Structure” for diagrams of the Company’s organizational structure before and after the Corporate Conversion, as well as “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operation—Overview and Business Overview—Corporate Conversion” for more information regarding the Corporate Conversion. Overview of Our Products and Services Financial Brokerage While Voice and Hybrid brokerage revenues still represent the majority of BGC’s overall revenues, we continue to convert our Voice and Hybrid brokerage business to our higher margin, technology-driven Fenics business, which has grown to represent 25% of total BGC revenues during the fourth quarter and the year ended 2023. Over the past several years, we have invested in, and developed, new state-of-the-art trading platforms, including Fenics UST, Fenics FX, Fenics GO, and PortfolioMatch, across Rates, FX, Equities, and Credit, respectively. We have also invested in, and deployed, trading technology solutions across our entire business, including our Voice and Hybrid brokerage desks, with an aim to increase our average broker productivity and to accelerate trends of electronic conversion. Underpinning our efforts to automate and electronify our overall brokerage business are macro trends across the capital markets, where the adoption of electronic trading has accelerated in recent years. We categorize our Fenics business as Fenics Markets and Fenics Growth Platforms as follows: • Fenics Markets includes the Fully Electronic portion of BGC’s brokerage business, data, network and post-trade revenues that are unrelated to Fenics Growth Platforms, as well as Fenics Integrated revenues. Fenics Integrated seamlessly integrates hybrid liquidity with customer electronic orders either by GUI and/or API. Desks are categorized as “Fenics Integrated” if they utilize sufficient levels of technology such that significant amounts of their transactions can be or are executed without broker intervention and have expected pre-tax margins of at least 25%. • Fenics Growth Platforms includes Fenics UST, Fenics GO, Lucera, Fenics FX, PortfolioMatch and our other newer standalone platforms. Revenues generated from data, network and post-trade attributable to Fenics Growth Platforms are included within their related businesses. We have leveraged our platforms to provide real-time product and price discovery information and straight-through processing to our customers for an increasing number of products. Our end-to-end solution includes real-time and auction-based transaction processing, credit and risk management tools, and back-end processing and billing systems. Customers can access our trading application through our privately managed global high speed data network, over the Internet, or through third-party communication networks. FMX will provide fully electronic trading in cash treasuries, foreign exchange and interest rate futures by combining our Fenics’ U.S. Treasury business with a state-of-the-art U.S. Rates futures platform. On January 22, 2024, FMX received CFTC approval to operate an exchange for U.S. Treasury and SOFR futures. We intend to launch the FMX Futures Exchange in the summer of 2024 and we plan to discuss our strategic partners and further details on, or before, our first quarter 2024 earnings call. For more information about FMX, see “Item 7—Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Overview and Business Environment.” Energy and Commodities Brokerage Our Energy and Commodities business provides a comprehensive suite of transaction services across environmental and emissions products, where we are a market leader, as well as weather derivatives, liquefied natural gas and natural gas, oil, power, base metals, dry bulk products such as coal and iron ore, and soft and agricultural products. Over the past few years, we have expanded our Energy and Commodities brokerage business through strategic acquisitions and hires and organic growth, with a key focus on clean energy and transition fuels. These acquisitions include Ginga Petroleum, which we acquired in March 2019. Ginga Petroleum complemented our existing energy brokerage businesses within BGC, GFI, and Poten & Partners. Ginga Petroleum provides a comprehensive range of brokerage services for physical and derivative energy products including naphtha, liquefied petroleum gas, fuel oil, biofuels, middle distillates, petrochemicals and gasoline. In February 2023, we acquired Trident, which specializes in environmental products and OTC and exchange traded energy products. Trident bolsters our leading environmental brokerage business and complements our existing energy brokerage offerings. In 2023, we announced the launch of our Weather Derivatives business, expanding BGC’s brokerage business into the weather and climate space. The Weather Derivatives business helps market participants analyze climate-related risks and mitigate their financial exposure. We are providing liquidity to these increasingly important markets as the role of weather and 16 Table of Contents climate change impacts the way risk is managed. The launch of this business highlights BGC’s commitment to expand and explore new opportunities across the global energy and commodities space. We also offer ship brokerage services through Poten & Partners, which we acquired in November 2018. Poten & Partners is a leading ship brokerage, consulting and business intelligence firm specializing in LNG, tanker and LPG markets. Founded over 80 years ago and with 170 employees worldwide, Poten & Partners provides its clients with valuable insight into the international oil, gas and shipping markets. Brokerage Categories The following table identifies some of the key products that we broker, inclusive of those discussed above: Category Product Type Rates Interest Rate Swaps, Interest Rate Options, Listed Rates Products, U.S. Treasuries, European Government Bonds, Other Global Government Bonds, Repurchase Agreements, Money Markets, Agency Fixed Income Credit Corporate Bonds, High Yield Bonds, Emerging Market Bonds, Index CDS, Single Name CDS, Exotic Credit Derivatives, Asset-Backed Securities, Loans, Structured Products Foreign Exchange Foreign Exchange Options, Spot FX, FX Forward, Non-Deliverable Forwards, Precious Metals Energy and Commodities Environmental/Emission Products, Weather Derivatives, Energy & Petrochemical Consulting, Ship Brokerage, Power, Liquefied Natural Gas, Natural Gas, Base Metals, Dry Bulk (Coal & Iron Ore), Oil, Soft & Agricultural Products Equities OTC Equity Derivatives, Listed Equity Futures & Options, Delta One Product, Convertibles, Cash Equities Certain trades in these key product types settle for clearing purposes with CF&Co, one of our affiliates. CF&Co is a member of FINRA and the FICC, a subsidiary of the DTCC. In addition, certain affiliated entities are subject to regulation by the CFTC, including CF&Co and BGC Financial. For certain products, we, CF&Co, BGC Financial and other affiliates act in a matched principal or principal capacity in markets by posting and/or acting upon quotes for our account. Such activity is intended, among other things, to assist us, CF&Co and other affiliates in managing proprietary positions (including, but not limited to, those established as a result of combination of trades and errors), facilitating transactions, framing markets, adding liquidity, increasing commissions and attracting order flow. Technology Offerings Our data, network and post-trade offerings provide a range of trade lifecycle services which include market data and analytics services, infrastructure and connectivity solutions, and post-trade services, such as trade compression, risk mitigation, matching, initial margin optimization, and other data, network and post-trade optimization services. These businesses have highly recurring and compounding revenue bases, which are reported within our Fenics business. We have invested in the growth of our Fenics businesses, which continue to scale and represent record levels of BGC’s overall revenue. Fenics Market Data™ is a supplier of real-time, tradable, indicative, end-of-day and historical market data. Our market data product suite includes fixed income, interest rate derivatives, credit derivatives, foreign exchange and money markets, energy and commodities, equity derivatives and regulatory solution market data products and services. The data is sourced from the Voice, Hybrid and Fully Electronic brokerage operations and made available to financial professionals, research analysts, compliance and surveillance departments, and other market participants via direct data feeds and BGC-hosted FTP environments, as well as via information platforms such as Bloomberg, LSEG Data & Analytics, ICE Data Services and other select specialist vendors. Through our network business, we provide customized screen-based market solutions to both related and unrelated parties. Our clients are able to develop a marketplace, trade with their customers and access our network and our intellectual property. We can add advanced functionality to enable our customers to distribute branded products to their customers through online offerings and auctions, including private and reverse auctions, via our trading platform and global network. As part of our network business, our Lucera® brand delivers high-performance technology solutions designed to be secure and scalable and to power demanding financial applications across several offerings: LumeFX® (distributed FX 17 Table of Contents platform with managed infrastructure and software stack), LumeMarkets™ (multi-asset class aggregation platform), Connect™ (global SDN for rapid provisioning of connectivity to counter-parties), and Compute™ (on-demand, co-located compute services in key financial data centers). Through kACE 2 , our analytics brand, we offer derivative price discovery, pricing analysis, risk management and trading software used by approximately 280 client sites in over 30 countries. Our clients include mid-tier banks, financial institutions and corporate clients. Our Gateway module links our client base with their counterparties, trading venues and regulators, and provides automated order flow, straight through processing, data distribution and regulatory reporting. Our post-trade services include post-trade risk mitigation services provided using our Capitalab® brand. Capitalab provides compression, matching and optimization services that are designed to bring greater capital and operational efficiency to the global derivatives market. Capitalab assists clients in managing the growing cost of holding derivatives, while helping them to meet their regulatory mandates and promote sustainable growth and lower systemic risk and to improve resiliency in the industry. Industry Recognition Our businesses have consistently won global industry awards and accolades in recognition of their performance and achievements. Recent examples include: • Fenics Market Data named Americas Data and Analytics Vendor of the Year at the GlobalCapital Americas Derivatives Awards 2023 • Fenics Market Data named Best Market Data Provider at FX Markets e-FX Awards 2023 • Fenics Market Data named Best Market Data Provider at WatersTechnology Inside Market Data & Inside Reference Data Awards 2023 • Fenics Market Data named Best Provider of Broker Market Data at TradingTech Insight Awards – USA (A-Team) 2023 and TradingTech Insight Awards – Europe (A-Team) 2023 • Capitalab named Americas Optimisation Service of the Year at the GlobalCapital Americas Derivatives Awards 2023 Customers and Clients We primarily serve the wholesale financial and energy and commodity markets, with clients including many of the world’s largest banks, brokerage houses, investment firms, hedge funds, and investment banks. Customers using our products and services also include professional trading firms, futures commission merchants, and other professional market participants and financial institutions. Our market data products and services are available through many platforms and are available to a wide variety of capital market participants, including banks, investment banks, brokerage firms, asset managers, hedge funds, investment analysts, compliance and surveillance professionals and financial advisors. We also license our intellectual property portfolio and offerings to various financial markets participants. For the year ended December 31, 2023, our top ten customers, collectively, accounted for approximately 30.0% of our total revenue on a consolidated basis, and our largest customer accounted for approximately 4.8% of our total revenue on a consolidated basis. Sales and Marketing Our brokers and salespeople are our primary marketing and sales resources, and utilize a combination of sales, marketing and co-marketing/co-branding campaigns. Our sales and marketing programs are aimed at enhancing the ability of our brokers to cross-sell effectively in addition to informing our customers about our product and service offerings. We leverage our customer relationships through a variety of direct marketing and sales initiatives and build and enhance our brand image through marketing and communications campaigns targeted at a diverse audience, including traders, potential partners and the investor and media communities. Our brokerage product team is composed of product managers who are each responsible for a specific part of our brokerage business. The product managers seek to ensure that our brokers, across all regions, have access to technical expertise, support and multiple execution methods in order to grow and market their business. This approach of combining marketing with our product and service strategy has enabled us to turn innovative ideas into both Fully Electronic and Hybrid deliverable solutions. Our team of business development professionals is responsible for growing our global footprint through raising awareness of our products and services. The business development team markets our products and services to new and existing 18 Table of Contents customers. As part of this process, they analyze existing levels of business with these entities in order to identify potential areas of growth and also to cross-sell our multiple offerings. Our Trading Technology Pre-Trade Technology. Our financial brokers use a suite of pricing and analytical tools that have been developed both in-house and in cooperation with specialist software suppliers. The pre-trade software suite combines proprietary market data, pricing and calculation libraries, together with those outsourced from external providers. The tools in turn publish to a normalized, global market data distribution platform, allowing prices and rates to be distributed to our proprietary network, data vendor pages, secure websites and trading applications as indicative pricing. Inter-Dealer and Wholesale Trading Technology. We utilize sophisticated proprietary electronic trading platforms to provide execution and market data services to our customers. The services are available through our proprietary API, FIX and a multi-asset proprietary trading platforms, operating under brands including BGC Trader™, CreditMatch®, Fenics®, FMX™ GFI ForexMatch®, BGCForex™, BGCCredit™, BGCRates™, FenicsFX™, FenicsUST™, FenicsDirect™, Fenics GO™, MidFX, GBX™, and Fenics Invitations™. These platforms presently support a wide and constantly expanding range of products and services, which include U.S. Treasuries and other government bonds, Repos, OTC interest rate derivatives in multiple currencies, spot FX, NDFs, FX options, corporate bonds, credit derivatives and other products. Every product on the platforms is supported in either view-only, Hybrid/managed or Fully Electronic mode, and can be transitioned from one mode to the next in response to market demands. The flexible BGC technology stack is designed to support feature-rich workflows required by the Hybrid mode as well as delivering high throughput and low transaction latency required by the Fully Electronic mode. Trades executed by our customers in any mode are, when applicable, eligible for immediate electronic confirmation through direct STP links as well as STP hubs. The BGC trading platform services are operated out of several globally distributed data centers and delivered to customers over BGC’s global private network, third-party connectivity providers as well as the Internet. BGC’s proprietary graphical user interfaces and the API/FIX connectivity are deployed at hundreds of major banks and institutions and service thousands of users. Post-Trade Straight Through Processing Technology. Our platform automates transaction processing, confirmation and other functions, substantially improving and reducing the cost of many of our customers’ back offices and enabling STP. In addition to our own system, confirmation and trade processing is also available through third-party hubs, including MarkitWIRE, ICElink, Reuters RTNS, and STP in FIX for various banks. We have electronic connections to most mainstream clearinghouses, including DTCC, CLS Group, Euroclear, Clearstream, Monte Titoli, LCH.Clearnet, Eurex Clearing, CME Clearing and the OCC. As more products become centrally cleared, and as our customers request that we use a particular venue, we expect to expand the number of clearinghouses to which we connect in the future. Systems Architecture. Our systems consist of layered components, which provide matching, credit management, market data distribution, position reporting, customer display and customer integration. The private network currently operates from six concurrent core data centers (three of which are in the U.K., and one each in Trumbull, Connecticut, Weehawken, New Jersey and Secaucus, New Jersey) and many hub cities throughout the world acting as distribution points for all private network customers. The redundant structure of our system provides multiple backup paths and re-routing of data transmission in the event of failure. In addition to our own network system, we also receive and distribute secure trading information from customers using the services of multiple, major Internet service providers throughout the world. These connections enable us to offer our products and services via the Internet to our global customers. Software Development We devote substantial efforts to the development and improvement of our Hybrid and Fully Electronic marketplaces and licensed software products and services. We work with our customers to identify their specific requirements and make modifications to our software, network distribution systems and technologies that are responsive to those needs. Our efforts focus on internal development, strategic partnering, acquisitions and licensing. Our Intellectual Property We regard our technology and intellectual property rights, including our brands, as a critical part of our business. We hold various trademarks, trade dress and trade names and rely on a combination of patent, copyright, trademark, service mark and trade secret laws, as well as contractual restrictions, to establish and protect our intellectual property rights. We own 19 Table of Contents numerous domain names and have registered numerous trademarks and/or service marks in the United States and foreign countries. Our trademark registrations must be renewed periodically, and, in most jurisdictions, every 10 years. We have adopted a comprehensive intellectual property program to protect our proprietary technology and innovations. We currently have licenses covering various patents from related parties. We also have agreements to license technology that may be covered by several pending and/or issued U.S. patent applications relating to various aspects of our electronic trading systems, including both functional and design aspects. We have filed a number of patent applications to further protect our proprietary technology and innovations and have received patents for some of those applications. We will continue to file additional patent applications on new inventions, as appropriate, demonstrating our commitment to technology and innovation. Our patent portfolio continues to grow, and we continue to look for opportunities to license and/or otherwise monetize the patents in our portfolio. Competition We encounter competition in all aspects of our business. Our existing and potential competitors include other wholesale financial brokerage and inter-dealer brokerage firms, multi-dealer trading companies, financial technology companies, market data and information vendors, securities and futures exchanges, electronic communications networks, crossing systems, software companies, financial trading consortia, shipping brokers, business-to-business marketplace infrastructure companies, as well as niche market energy and other Internet-based commodity trading systems. We compete primarily with other inter-dealer or wholesale financial brokers for market share, brokers, salespeople and suitable acquisition candidates. Inter-Dealer and Wholesale Financial Brokers We primarily compete with two publicly traded, diversified inter-dealer and wholesale financial brokers, TP ICAP and Tradition. Other competitors include Dealerweb, an inter-dealer and wholesale financial brokerage business within Tradeweb, XP Inc.’s fixed income and FX inter-dealer brokerage business, and a number of private firms that tend to specialize in specific product areas or geographies, such as Marex Spectron Group Limited, which focuses on energy and commodities. Demand for wholesale brokerage services is directly affected by the overall level of economic activity, international and domestic economic and political conditions, including central bank policies, broad trends in business and finance, including employment levels, the level and volatility of interest rates, changes in and uncertainty regarding tax laws and substantial fluctuations in the volume and price levels of securities transactions. Other significant factors affecting competition in the brokerage industry are the quality and ability of professional personnel, the depth and pricing efficiency of the markets in which the brokers transact, the strength of the technology used to service and execute on those markets and the relative prices of products and services offered by the brokers and by competing markets and trading processes. Market Data and Information The majority of our large inter-dealer and wholesale financial broker competitors also sell proprietary market data and information, which competes with our market data offerings. In addition to direct sales, we resell market data through large market data and information providers. These companies have established significant presences on the vast majority of trading desks across our industry. Some of these market data and information providers, such as Bloomberg L.P. and LSEG Data & Analytics, include in their product mix electronic trading and execution of both OTC and listed products in addition to their traditional market data offerings. Growth in new trading venues has led to fragmentation of liquidity across the financial markets. Our network solutions business helps aggregate liquidity and connect counterparties across these marketplaces. We compete with other market infrastructure and connectivity providers, such as Pico, ION Group and Bloomberg, which recently acquired Broadway Technology in this space. Our post-trade services that offer derivative compression, matching and optimization services operate in an industry which has benefited from increased regulatory requirements. Competition in this space includes OSSTRA, a joint venture between CME Group Inc. and IHS Markit Ltd, Parameta Solutions, TP ICAP’s data and analytics business, and Quantile owned by LSEG and Capitolis. 20 Table of Contents Exchanges and Other Trading Platforms Although our business will often use exchanges to execute transactions brokered in both listed and OTC markets, we believe that exchanges have sought and will seek to migrate products traditionally traded in OTC markets by inter-dealer and wholesale financial brokers to exchanges. However, we believe that when a product goes from OTC to exchange-traded, the underlying or related OTC market often continues to experience growth in line with the growth of the exchange-traded contract. In addition, ICE operates both regulated exchanges and OTC execution services, and in the latter, it competes directly with inter-dealer and wholesale financial brokers in energy, commodities, and credit products. ICE entered these OTC markets primarily by acquiring independent OTC brokers. We also compete with CME across U.S. interest rates products, including our expected launch of an exchange for U.S. Rates futures in 2024, as well as in foreign exchange products. We believe that it is likely ICE, CME, or other exchange operators may seek to compete with us in the future by acquiring other such brokers, by creating listed products designed to mimic OTC products, or through other means. In addition to exchanges, other electronic trading platforms which primarily operate in the dealer-to-client markets, including those run by MarketAxess and Tradeweb, now compete with us in the inter-dealer markets. At the same time, we have begun to offer an increasing number of our products and services to the customers of firms like MarketAxess and Tradeweb. Banks and Broker-Dealers Banks and broker-dealers have in the past created and/or funded consortia to compete with exchanges and inter-dealer brokers. For example, CME’s wholesale businesses for fully electronic trading of U.S. Treasuries and spot foreign exchange both began as dealer-owned consortia before being acquired by ICAP plc. An example of a current and similar consortium is Tradeweb. Several large banks continue to hold public equity stakes in Tradeweb. LSEG Data & Analytics, is Tradeweb’s single largest shareholder. Although Tradeweb operates primarily as a dealer to customer platform, some of its offerings include a voice and electronic inter-dealer platform. Tradeweb’s management has previously said that it would like to further expand into other inter-dealer markets, and in June 2021, it acquired Nasdaq’s U.S. fixed income electronic trading platform, formerly known as eSpeed. In 2013, BGC sold the eSpeed platform to Nasdaq, and subsequently launched a competing platform, Fenics UST. In addition, certain investment management firms that traditionally deal with banks and broker-dealers have expressed a desire to have direct access to certain parts of the wholesale financial markets via firms such as ours. We believe that over time, interdealer-brokers will therefore gain a growing percentage of the sales and trading market currently dominated by banks and broker-dealers. Since their collective revenues are many times those of the global inter-dealer market, we believe that gaining even a small share of banks and broker-dealers’ revenues could lead to a meaningful increase in our revenues. Additionally, wholesale financial brokers have aimed to grow their agency brokerage businesses, which typically serve a broader client set, including banks, broker-dealers, and institutional clients, such as TP ICAP’s acquisition of Liquidnet in March 2021. Seasonality Traditionally, the financial markets around the world generally experience lower volume during the late summer and toward the end of the year due to a slowdown in the business environment around holiday seasons. Therefore, our revenues tend to be strongest in the first quarter and lowest in the second half of the year. For the year 2023, we earned approximately 26.4% of our revenues in the first quarter, while in 2022 we earned 28.2% of our revenues in the first quarter. Regulation U.S. Regulation The financial services industry in the United States is subject to extensive regulation under both federal and state laws. As registered broker-dealers, introducing brokers and FCMs, and other types of regulated entities as described below, certain of our subsidiaries are subject to laws and regulations which cover all aspects of financial services, including sales methods, trade practices, use and safekeeping of customers’ funds and securities, minimum capital requirements, recordkeeping, business practices, securities lending and financing of securities purchases and the conduct of associated persons. We and our subsidiaries also are subject to the various anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act, the Exchange Act, the Commodity Exchange Act, certain state securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder. We also may be subject to vicarious and controlling person liability for the activities of our subsidiaries and our officers, employees and affiliated persons. 21 Table of Contents The SEC is the federal agency primarily responsible for the administration of federal securities laws, including adopting rules and regulations applicable to broker-dealers (other than government securities broker-dealers) and enforcing both its rules regarding broker-dealers and the Treasury’s rules regarding government securities broker-dealers. In addition, we operate a number of platforms that are governed pursuant to SEC Regulation ATS. Broker-dealers are also subject to regulation by state securities administrators in those states in which they conduct business or have registered to do business. In addition, Treasury rules relating to trading government securities apply to such activities when engaged in by broker-dealers. The CFTC is the federal agency primarily responsible for the administration of federal commodities future laws and other acts, including the adoption of rules applicable to FCMs, DCMs and SEFs such as BGC Derivative Markets and GFI Swaps Exchange LLC. Much of the regulation of broker-dealers’ operations in the United States has been delegated to self-regulatory organizations. These self-regulatory organizations adopt rules (which are subject to approval by the SEC) that govern the operations of broker-dealers and government securities broker-dealers and conduct periodic inspections and examinations of their operations. In the case of our U.S. broker-dealer subsidiaries, the principal self-regulatory organization is FINRA. FINRA was formed from the consolidation of the NASD’s member regulation operations and the regulatory arm of the NYSE Group to act as the self-regulatory organization for all broker-dealers doing business within the United States. Accordingly, our U.S. broker-dealer subsidiaries are subject to both scheduled and unscheduled examinations by the SEC and FINRA. In our futures-related activities, our subsidiaries are also subject to the rules of the CFTC, futures exchanges of which they are members and the NFA, a futures self-regulatory organization. The changing regulatory environment, new laws that may be passed by Congress, and rules that may be promulgated by the SEC, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the CFTC, the NFA, FINRA and other self-regulatory organizations, or changes in the interpretation or enforcement of existing laws and rules, if adopted, may directly affect our operations and profitability and those of our competitors and customers and of the securities markets in which we participate in a way that could adversely affect our business. The SEC, self-regulatory organizations and state securities administrators conduct informal and formal investigations of possible improprieties or illegal action by broker-dealers and their “associated persons,” which could be followed by the institution of administrative, civil and/or criminal proceedings against broker-dealers and/or “associated persons.” Among the sanctions that may result if administrative, civil or criminal proceedings were ever instituted against us or our “associated persons” are injunctions, censure, fines, penalties, the issuance of cease-and-desist orders or suspension or expulsion from the industry and, in rare instances, even imprisonment. The principal purpose of regulating and disciplining broker-dealers is to protect customers and the securities markets, rather than to protect broker-dealers or their creditors or equity holders. From time to time, our “associated persons” have been and are subject to routine investigations, none of which to date have had a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations or prospects. Regulators and legislators in the U.S. and EU continue to craft new laws and regulations for the global OTC derivatives markets. The Dodd-Frank Act mandates or encourages several reforms regarding derivatives, including new regulations for swaps markets creating impartiality considerations, additional pre- and post-trade transparency requirements, and heightened collateral or capital standards, as well as recommendations for the obligatory use of central clearing for most standardized derivatives. The law also requires that standardized OTC derivatives be traded in an open and non-exclusionary manner on a DCM or a SEF. BGC Derivative Markets and GFI Swaps Exchange, our subsidiaries, operate as SEFs. Mandatory Dodd-Frank Act compliant execution on SEFs by eligible U.S. persons for “made available to trade” products and a wide range of other rules relating to the execution and clearing of derivative products have been implemented. We also own ELX, which became a dormant contract market on July 1, 2017 and in July 2021, we completed the purchase of the CX Futures Exchange (now FMX Futures Exchange) from Cantor, which represents our futures exchange and related clearinghouse. These rules require authorized execution facilities to maintain robust front-end and back-office IT capabilities and to make large and ongoing technology investments. These execution facilities may be supported by a variety of voice and auction-based execution methodologies, and our Hybrid and Fully Electronic trading capability have performed strongly in this regulatory environment. On June 25, 2020, the CFTC approved a final rule prohibiting post-trade name give-up for swaps executed, prearranged or prenegotiated anonymously on or pursuant to the rules of a SEF and intended to be cleared. The rule provides exemptions for package transactions that include a component transaction that is not a swap that is intended to be cleared. The rule went into effect on November 1, 2020 for swaps subject to the trade execution requirement under the Commodity Exchange Act Section 2(h)(8) and July 5, 2021 for swaps not subject to the trade execution requirement, but intended to be cleared. On November 2, 2023, the SEC adopted Regulation SE under the Exchange Act to create a regime for the registration and regulation of SBSEFs. The SEC rules regarding the over-the-counter derivatives market seek to harmonize as closely as practicable with parallel rules of the CFTC that govern SEFs and swap execution generally. Among other things, Regulation SE under the Exchange Act made changes to implement the Exchange Act’s trade execution requirement for security-based swaps 22 Table of Contents and address the cross-border application of that requirement; implement Section 765 of the Dodd-Frank Act to mitigate conflicts of interest at SBSEFs and national securities exchanges that trade security-based swaps; and promote consistency between proposed Regulation SE and existing rules under the Exchange Act. Any entity that meets the definition of a SBSEF must file an application to register with the SEC within 180 days of the effective date of February 13, 2024. The SEC also adopted final rules on December 13, 2023 regarding central clearing of certain secondary market repurchase and reverse repurchase transactions and secondary market purchase and sale transactions involving U.S. Treasury securities. The central clearing mandate will impact certain market participants who do not clear today, and some have expressed concerns about the potential impact of additional clearing costs that may impact liquidity. The full impact of this change, and what effect it will have, whether positive or negative, on our industry, our clients or us is unknown at this time. In addition, several state laws that have recently come into effect, and may come into effect in the future, have created and will create new compliance obligations in relation to personal data. U.K. Regulation The FCA is the relevant statutory regulator for the United Kingdom financial services industry. The FCA’s objectives are to protect customers and financial markets, protect and enhance the integrity of the United Kingdom financial system and promote competition between financial services providers. It has broad rule-making, investigative and enforcement powers derived from the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and subsequent and derivative legislation and regulations. The FCA’s recent focus has been on financial and operational resilience, and promoting market integrity. Currently, we have subsidiaries regulated by the FCA (some include BGC Brokers L.P., GFI Securities Limited, and GFI Brokers Limited). From time to time, we have been and are subject to periodic examinations, inspections and investigations, including periodic risk assessment and related reviews of our U.K. group. As a result of such reviews, we may be required to include or enhance certain regulatory structures and frameworks in our operating procedures, systems and controls. When acquiring control of regulated entities, we may be required to obtain the consent of their applicable regulator. The FCA has in the past developed a practice of requiring senior officers of regulated firms to provide individual attestations or undertakings as to the status of a firm’s control environment, compliance with specific rules and regulations, or the completion of required tasks. Officers of BGC Brokers L.P. and GFI Brokers Limited have previously given such attestations or undertakings and may do so again in the future. Similarly, the FCA can seek a voluntary requirement notice, which is a voluntary undertaking on behalf of a firm that is made publicly available on the FCA’s website. The SMCR came into effect in the U.K. on December 9, 2019 for FCA solo-regulated firms. Personal accountability requirements fall on senior managers, and a wider population of U.K. staff are subject to certification requirements and conduct rules. SMCR has increased the cost of compliance and will potentially increase financial penalties for non-compliance. European Regulation The EMIR Directive on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories was adopted in July 2012. EMIR fulfills several of the EU’s G20 commitments to reform OTC derivatives markets. The reforms are designed to reduce systemic risk and bring more transparency to both OTC and listed derivatives markets. Along with the implementation of EMIR reporting requirements, the REMIT Implementation Acts became effective on January 7, 2015. The REMIT Implementing Acts developed by the European Commission define the details of reporting under REMIT, drawing up the list of reportable contracts and derivatives; defining details, timing and form of reporting, and establishing harmonized rules to report that information to the ACER. They enable ACER to collect information in relation to wholesale energy market transactions and fundamentals through the Agency’s REMIT Information System (ARIS), to analyze this data to detect market abuse and to report suspicious events to the National Competent Authorities, which are responsible for investigating these matters further, and if required, imposing sanctions. Market participants and third parties reporting on their behalf have had to: (i) report transactions executed at organized marketplaces and fundamental data from the central information transparency platforms; and (ii) report transactions in the remaining wholesale energy contracts (OTC standard and non-standard supply contracts, transportation contracts) and additional fundamental data. To achieve a high level of harmonization and convergence in regular supervisory reporting requirements, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors issued guidelines on prudential reporting with the aim of developing a supervisory reporting framework based on common formats, known as COREP. COREP has become part of European Banking Authorities’ implementing technical standards on reporting under Basel III. Basel III (or the Third Basel Accord) is a global regulatory standard on bank capital adequacy, stress testing and market liquidity risk introduced by bank regulators in most, if not all, of the world’s major economies. Basel III is designed to strengthen bank capital requirements and introduces new regulatory requirements on bank liquidity and bank leverage. The ongoing adoption of these rules could restrict the ability of our large bank and broker-dealer customers to operate proprietary trading businesses and to maintain current capital market 23 Table of Contents exposures under the present structure of their balance sheets, and will cause these entities to need to raise additional capital in order to stay active in our marketplaces. Meanwhile, global “Basel IV” standards are expected be adopted in the years to come. Much of our global derivatives volumes continue to be executed by non-U.S. based clients outside the United States and subject to local prudential regulations. As such, we will continue to operate a number of European regulated venues in accordance with EU or U.K. legislation and licensed by EU-based national supervisors or the FCA. These venues are also operated for non-derivative instruments for these clients. MiFID II was published by the European Securities and Markets Authority in September 2015 and implemented in January 2018 and introduced important infrastructural changes. MiFID II requires a significant part of the market in these instruments to trade on trading venues subject to transparency regimes, not only in pre- and post-trade prices, but also in fee structures and access. In addition, it has impacted a number of key areas, including corporate governance, transaction reporting, pre- and post-trade transparency, technology synchronization, best execution and investor protection. MiFID II was intended to help improve the functioning of the EU single market by achieving a greater consistency of regulatory standards. By design, therefore, it was intended that EU member states should have very similar regulatory regimes in relation to the matters addressed to MiFID. MiFID II has also introduced a new regulated execution venue category called an OTF that captures much of the voice-and hybrid-oriented trading in the EU. Much of our existing EU derivatives and fixed income execution business now take place on OTFs. Further to its decision to leave the EU, the U.K. has implemented MIFID II’s requirements into its own domestic legislation. Brexit may impact future market structures and MiFID II rulemaking and implementation due to potential changes in mutual passporting and equivalence arrangements between the U.K. and EU member states. See “— Brexit” below. Rights in relation to an individual’s personal data in the EU and U.K. are governed respectively by the GDPR in the EU and the equivalent Data Protection Act 2018 in the U.K. Since May 25, 2018, when these two pieces of legislation came into effect, we have been subject to new compliance obligations in relation to such personal data and the possibility of significant financial penalties for non-compliance. The FCA introduced the “Consumer Duty” in July 2023. The purpose of this regulation is to enhance the protection of retail consumers in financial markets. Some other relatively minor divergence of U.K. regulation from EU regulation has occurred since the implementation of Brexit. While we generally believe the net impact of the rules and regulations are positive for our business, it is possible that unintended consequences of the rules and regulations may materially adversely affect us in ways yet to be determined. Brexit On January 1, 2021, the U.K. formally left the EU and U.K.-EU trade became subject to a new agreement that was concluded in December of 2020. The exit from the EU is commonly referred to as Brexit. Financial services fall outside of the scope of this trade agreement. At the time the relationship was expected to be determined by a series of “equivalence decisions,” each of which would grant mutual market access for a limited subset of financial services where either party finds the other party has a regulatory regime that achieves similar outcomes to its own. In March 2021, the U.K. and EU agreed a Memorandum of Understanding on Financial Services Regulatory Cooperation which creates a structure for dialogue but does not include commitments on equivalence. In light of ongoing uncertainties, market participants are still adjusting the way in which they conduct business between the U.K. and EU. The impact of Brexit on the U.K.-EU flow of financial services and economies of the U.K. and the EU member states continues to evolve. We implemented plans to ensure continuity of service in Europe and continue to have regulated offices in place in many of the major European markets. As part of our ongoing Brexit strategy, ownership of BGC Madrid, Copenhagen and Frankfurt and GFI Paris, Madrid and Dublin branches was transferred to Aurel BGC SAS (a French-based operation and therefore based in the EU) in July 2020. We have been generally increasing our footprint in the EU which includes the establishment of a new branch office of Aurel BGC SAS in Milan and a new office in Monaco under a new local Monaco subsidiary. Regardless of these and other mitigating measures, our European headquarters and largest operations are in London, and market access risks and uncertainties have had and could continue to have a material adverse effect on our customers, counterparties, business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations. Furthermore, in the future the U.K. and EU’s regulation may diverge, which could disrupt and increase the costs of our operations, and result in a loss of existing levels of cross-border market access. 24 Table of Contents Other Regulation Our subsidiaries that have foreign operations are subject to regulation by the relevant regulatory authorities and self-regulatory organizations in the countries in which they do business. The following table sets forth certain jurisdictions, other than the U.S., in which we do business and the applicable regulatory authority or authorities of each such jurisdiction: Jurisdiction Regulatory Authorities/Self-Regulatory Organizations Argentina Comisión Nacional de Valores Australia Australian Securities and Investments Commission and Australian Securities Exchange Bahrain The Central Bank of Bahrain Brazil Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission, the Central Bank of Brazil, BM&F BOVESPA and Superintendencia de Seguors Privados Canada Ontario Securities Commission, Autorite des Marches Financiers (Quebec), Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) Chile Superintendencia de Valores y Seguros China China Banking Regulatory Commission, State Administration of Foreign Exchange Colombia Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia Denmark Finanstilsynet Dubai International Financial Centre Dubai Financial Supervisory Authority France ACPR (L’Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution), AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers) Germany Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BAFIN) Hong Kong Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and The Hong Kong Monetary Authority Ireland Central Bank of Ireland Italy Commissione Nazionale Per Le Societa E La Borsa (CONSOB) Japan Japanese Financial Services Agency, Japan Securities Dealers Association and the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission Mexico Banking and Securities National Commission, Comision Nacional Bancaria y de Valores (CNBV) Monaco Commission for the Control of Financial Affairs (CCAF) Peru Ministerio de Economica y Finanzas Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission Russia Federal Service for Financial Markets Singapore Monetary Authority of Singapore South Africa Johannesburg Stock Exchange 25 Table of Contents South Korea Financial Services Commission Spain Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) Switzerland Financial Markets Supervisory Authority (FINMA), Swiss Federal Banking Commission United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority While we continue to have a compliance framework in place to comply with both existing and proposed rules and regulations, it is possible that the existing regulatory framework may be amended, which amendments could have a positive or negative impact on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Capital Requirements U.S. Every U.S.-registered broker-dealer is subject to the Uniform Net Capital Requirements. FCMs, such as our subsidiary, Mint Brokers, are also subject to CFTC capital requirements. These requirements are designed to ensure financial soundness and liquidity by prohibiting a broker or dealer from engaging in business at a time when it does not satisfy minimum net capital requirements. In the United States, net capital is essentially defined as net worth (assets minus liabilities), plus qualifying subordinated borrowings and less certain mandatory deductions that result from excluding assets that are not readily convertible into cash and from conservatively valuing certain other assets, such as a firm’s positions in securities. Among these deductions are adjustments, commonly referred to as “haircuts,” to the market value of securities positions to reflect the market risk of such positions prior to their liquidation or disposition. The Uniform Net Capital Requirements also impose a minimum ratio of debt to equity, which may include qualified subordinated borrowings. Regulations have been adopted by the SEC that prohibit the withdrawal of equity capital of a broker-dealer, restrict the ability of a broker-dealer to distribute or engage in any transaction with a parent company or an affiliate that results in a reduction of equity capital or to provide an unsecured loan or advance against equity capital for the direct or indirect benefit of certain persons related to the broker-dealer (including partners and affiliates) if the broker-dealer’s net capital is, or would be as a result of such withdrawal, distribution, reductions, loan or advance, below specified thresholds of excess net capital. In addition, the SEC’s regulations require certain notifications to be provided in advance of such withdrawals, distributions, reductions, loans and advances that exceed, in the aggregate, 30% of excess net capital within any 30-day period. The SEC has the authority to restrict, for up to 20 business days, such withdrawal, distribution or reduction of capital if the SEC concludes that it may be detrimental to the financial integrity of the broker-dealer or may expose its customers or creditors to loss. Notice is required following any such withdrawal, distribution, reduction, loan or advance that exceeds, in the aggregate, 20% of excess net capital within any 30-day period. The SEC’s regulations limiting withdrawals of excess net capital do not preclude the payment to employees of “reasonable compensation.” Four of our subsidiaries, BGCF, GFI Securities LLC, Fenics Execution, LLC and Mint Brokers, are registered with the SEC and are subject to the Uniform Net Capital Requirements. As an FCM, Mint Brokers is also subject to CFTC minimum capital requirements. BGCF, GFI Securities LLC, Fenics Execution, LLC, Amerex Brokers LLC and Trident Brokerage Services LLC are registered as Introducing Brokers with the NFA. BGCF is also a member of the FICC, which imposes capital requirements on its members. In addition, our SEFs, BGC Derivative Markets and GFI Swaps Exchange are required to maintain financial resources to cover operating costs for at least one year, keeping at least enough cash or highly liquid securities to cover six months’ operating costs. The Company also operates a DCM, FMX Futures Exchange, and DCO, CX Clearinghouse, L.P., through the Futures Exchange Group, which are required to maintain financial resources to cover operating costs for at least one year, keeping at least enough cash or highly liquid securities to cover six months’ operating costs. Compliance with the Uniform Net Capital Requirements may limit the extent and nature of our operations requiring the use of our registered broker-dealer subsidiaries’ capital, and could also restrict or preclude our ability to withdraw capital from our broker-dealer subsidiaries or SEFs. 26 Table of Contents Non-U.S. Our international operations are also subject to capital requirements in their local jurisdiction. BGC Brokers L.P., GFI Brokers Limited, and GFI Securities Limited, which are based in the U.K., are currently subject to solo capital requirements established by the FCA’s Investment Firm Prudential Regime. In addition, BGC European Holdings LP is subject to the FCA’s consolidated capital requirements. The capital requirements of our French entities (and their EU branches) are predominantly set by ACPR and AMF. U.K. and EU authorities apply stringent provisions with respect to capital applicable to the operation of these brokerage firms, which vary depending upon the nature and extent of their activities. In addition, the majority of our other foreign subsidiaries are subject to similar regulation by the relevant authorities in the countries in which they do business. Additionally, certain other of our foreign subsidiaries are required to maintain non-U.S. net capital requirements. For example, in Hong Kong, BGC Securities (Hong Kong), LLC, GFI (HK) Securities LLC and Sunrise Brokers (Hong Kong) Limited are regulated by the Securities and Futures Commission. BGC Capital Markets (Hong Kong) Limited and GFI (HK) Brokers Ltd, are regulated by The Hong Kong Monetary Authority. All are subject to Hong Kong net capital requirements. In France, Aurel BGC SAS and BGC France Holdings; in Australia, Fixed Income Solutions Pty Ltd and BGC Partners (Australia) Pty Limited; in Japan, BGC Shoken Kaisha Limited’s Tokyo branch and BGC Capital Markets Japan LLC’s Tokyo Branch; in Singapore, BGC Partners (Singapore) Limited, GFI Group Pte Ltd and Ginga Global Market Pte Ltd; in South Korea, BGC Capital Markets & Foreign Exchange Broker (Korea) Limited and GFI Korea Money Brokerage Limited; in the Philippines, GFI Group (Philippines) Inc., all have net capital requirements imposed upon them by local regulators. In addition, the LCH (LIFFE/LME) clearing organization, of which BGC Brokers L.P. is a member, also imposes minimum capital requirements. In Latin America, BGC Liquidez Distribuidora De Titulos E Valores Mobiliarios Ltda. (Brazil) has net capital requirements imposed upon it by local regulators. We had net assets in our regulated subsidiaries of $734.1 million and $666.0 million for the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively. Human Capital Management Unless the context indicates otherwise, references in this Human Capital Management section to our “employees” include our professionals who are independent contractors. Our Fundamental Values BGC is an organization built on strong values, employee engagement and ownership. At our core, we are committed to our employees by providing an opportunity to participate in our success. We believe that by cultivating a dynamic mix of people and ideas, we enrich the performance of our business, the experience of our increasingly diverse employee base and the dynamism of the communities in which we operate. We value hard work, innovation, superior client service, strong ethics and governance, equal opportunities, and philanthropy. These values are woven into our corporate culture. We believe these values foster sustainable, profitable growth. We strive to be exemplary corporate citizens and honor high ethical principles in our interactions with other businesses, our employees and the communities in which we live and work. We take corporate social responsibility and sustainability seriously: we want to contribute to the common good. Workforce As of December 31, 2023, we employed approximately 3,895 employees in 27 countries spread across five continents. Within this total, 99% of our employee base was comprised of full-time employees. Brokers, salespeople, managers, technology professionals and other front-office personnel across our business comprise approximately 2,104 employees, representing 54.0% of the total workforce. Approximately 28.0% of our brokers, salespeople, managers, technology professionals and other front-office personnel were based in the Americas, and approximately 51.0% were based in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with the remaining approximately 21.0% based in the Asia-Pacific region. Various of our employees also work for Cantor and its affiliates and provide services to us pursuant to the Administrative Services Agreement and devote only a portion of their time to our business, and therefore have not been included in the counts above. Generally, our employees are not subject to any collective bargaining agreements, except for certain of our employees based in our Latin American and European offices that are covered by the national, industry-wide collective bargaining agreements relevant to the countries in which they work. We have invested significantly in our human capital resources through acquisitions, and the hiring of new brokers, salespeople, managers, technology professionals and other front-office personnel. The business climate for these acquisitions and recruitment has been competitive, and it is expected that these conditions will persist for the foreseeable future. We have been able to attract businesses and brokers, salespeople, managers, technology professionals and other front-office personnel to our platform as we believe they recognize that we have the scale, technology, experience and expertise to succeed. 27 Table of Contents Human Capital Measures and Objectives In operating our business, we focus on certain human capital measures and objectives that are key drivers of our revenues and margins. We continually work to expand our trading across more products and geographical regions and to grow our Fully Electronic business while seeking to manage our human capital resources to maximize our profitability in the face of shifting demands and conditions. Our key human capital measures and objectives include front-office employee headcount (described above) and average revenue per front-office employee. As we continue to deepen the integration of Fenics technology solutions into our workflows, and convert more of our Voice and Hybrid businesses to our Fenics businesses, we expect our average revenue per front-office employee to continue to improve. As of December 31, 2023, our front-office revenue-generating headcount was approximately 2,104 brokers and salespeople, managers and technology professionals, up 6.0% from 1,985 a year ago due to acquisitions and investments made to broaden our existing product offerings. Compared to the prior year period, average revenue per front-office employee for the year ended December 31, 2023, increased by 11.4% to approximately $958,000. We invest heavily in developing our technology and new products and services in order to drive increased front-office productivity and generate higher margins, in particular with respect to our Fenics businesses. For example, converting Voice and Hybrid trading to Fully Electronic trading generally improves our margins as automated and electronic trading allows the same number of employees to manage a greater volume of trades resulting in a decrease in the marginal cost of trading. Our Fully Electronic business has generally grown faster than our overall business, with average front office productivity increasing by 11.4% for the year ended December 31, 2023 compared to the prior year. We constantly manage our cost-base and may engage in cost-savings initiatives and restructurings in order to improve our margins. Retention Measures To facilitate the retention of our employees, we have maintained our flexible work arrangements, where appropriate, made compensation adjustments, and provided additional benefits, including a 401(k) match for many of our U.S. support employees. We have taken significant measures to develop a safe work environment for all employees, which is conducive to work in our office locations, particularly for front-office brokers and revenue generating employees, subject to applicable state and local regulatory requirements. We have established a more flexible hybrid approach in many instances for non-revenue generating roles or for roles which are not office dependent, where appropriate. We continue to offer employee assistance programs and additional avenues for mental health consultation and wellness. We continue to take significant steps to protect our employees and encourage them all to get vaccinated. Performance-Based and Highly Retentive Compensation Structure Many of our key brokers, salespeople, managers, technology professionals and other front office professionals have a substantial amount of their own capital invested in our business, aligning their interests with our stockholders. We believe that our emphasis on equity-based compensation promotes recruitment, motivation of our brokers and employees and alignment of interest with shareholders. Virtually all of our executives and front-office employees have equity stakes in the Company and generally receive grants of deferred equity as part of their compensation. We believe that having investments in us, our executives and key brokers and other employees feel a sense of responsibility for the health and performance of our business and have a strong incentive to maximize our revenues and profitability. As of December 31, 2023, our employees, executive officers and directors individually owned approximately 13% of our equity, on a fully diluted basis. We currently issue RSUs, and in the case of certain U.K. employees who held partnership units prior to the Corporate Conversion, restricted stock awards, as well as other forms of equity-based compensation, to provide liquidity to our employees, to align the interests of our employees and management with those of common stockholders, to help motivate and retain key employees, and to encourage a collaborative culture that drives cross-selling and revenue growth. These awards contain extended vesting schedules which we consider to be highly retentive and that vary based upon compensation level and role (typically three-to-seven-year ratable vesting), which in most cases are largely dependent upon continued service. Prior to the Corporate Conversion, we issued limited partnership units, as well as other forms of unit-based compensation, including grants of exchangeability of limited partnership units into shares of BGC Class A common stock and grants of shares of our restricted stock, to motivate and retain key employees. These limited partnership units, which could be redeemed at any time for zero, were subject to forfeiture if the non-compete, confidentiality or non-solicit provisions of the BGC Holdings Limited Partnership Agreement related to these awards were violated, were also extremely retentive. In addition, prior to the Corporate Conversion, we paid amounts due to a partner upon termination of service over a number of years in order to ensure compliance with partner obligations. 28 Table of Contents We also enter into various agreements with certain of our employees, and prior to the Corporate Conversion, partners whereby these individuals receive loans which may be either wholly or in part repaid from the distributions that the individuals receive on some or all of their LPUs in BGC Holdings and Newmark Holdings, prior to the Corporate Conversion, and by distributions that the individuals receive on some or all of their LPUs in Newmark Holdings and any dividends paid on participating RSUs and restricted stock awards, subsequent to the Corporate Conversion. Certain of these loans also may be either wholly or in part repaid from the proceeds of the sale of our employees’ shares of BGC Class A common stock. In addition, certain loans may be forgiven over a period of time. We believe that these loans incentivize and promote retention of our employees. Compensation Recovery/Clawback Policy The Company has adopted a Clawback Policy for its executive officers effective as of December 1, 2023, with retroactive applicability to October 2, 2023. The Clawback Policy applies to Incentive-Based Compensation. The Clawback Policy provides for recovery of Incentive-Based Compensation received by a covered person in the event of an accounting restatement due to material noncompliance with financial reporting requirements that is in excess of the Incentive-Based Compensation that such person would have received based upon the restated financial reporting measure. The Clawback Policy only applies to Incentive-Based Compensation and does not apply to compensation that is purely discretionary or purely based on subjective goals or goals unrelated to financial reporting measures. Human Capital and Social Policies and Practices We are committed to our people, our stockholders and the community as a whole. We have a variety of programs to incentivize and support our employees, from employee ownership to comprehensive benefits and training. We have a passionate commitment to charity. Employee Diversity, Inclusion and Equal Opportunity We believe that by cultivating a dynamic mix of people and ideas, we improve the performance of our business and enrich the experience of our employees. We are committed to equal opportunity, diversity and other policies and practices that seek to further our development of a diverse and inclusive workplace. We consider all qualified applicants for job openings and promotions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or reassignment, national origin or ancestry, age, disability, service in the armed forces, pregnancy or maternity, familial status, marriage and civil partnership, genetic information or any other characteristic that has no bearing on the ability of employees to do their jobs well. We continue to develop initiatives to support these values. Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent Our recruitment, promotion and compensation processes are designed to enable us to treat employees fairly, and our compensation decisions are differentiated based on performance. Our success depends on our ability to attract and retain talented, productive and skilled brokers and technologists and other employees to transact with our customers in a challenging and regulated environment that is experiencing ever-increasing competition for talent. We are investing in creating a diverse, inclusive and incentivized work environment where our people can deliver their best work every day. Talent remains at the core of who we are as a company, and we remain committed to having a culture built around inclusion which we expect will increase the diversity of our workforce. We continue to work to enhance our ability to attract, develop and retain top talent with an emphasis on increasing opportunities for representation of traditionally underrepresented groups at all levels of the organization, encompassing people early in their careers and experienced personnel, and hiring, retention, and development initiatives with a focus on diversity and inclusion. Our goal is to build an even more successful organization that more closely reflects our clients bases and the population at large. Employee Resource Groups In order to incentivize and enable our employees to grow both professionally and personally, we build employee resource groups. A number of initiatives across our geographic regions are in place to promote our corporate values and foster greater diversity and inclusion. Examples include a range of early career work experiences and internship programs focusing on diverse talent, mentorship programs, and initiatives to foster women’s leadership. The Network of Women – The Network of Women (“NOW”) program supports the recruitment, development and retention of women across our organization. NOW strives to offer a variety of opportunities and tools to help our employees make new professional contacts, find mentors, and develop their careers with the goal of advancing our business reputation. 29 Table of Contents These events and activities also provide opportunities for our members to support one another through a valuable exchange of experiences, advice and best practices for career success. As an organization dedicated to economic growth, opportunity, integrity, and commitment, we seek to empower women within BGC and within the communities we affect and serve as a business. The work of our long-standing Network of Women is a key driving force in accomplishing this goal. The Rising Professionals League – The Rising Professionals League (“RPL”) was introduced to build upon the legacy of Cantor Fitzgerald by inspiring early career professionals to grow professionally and socially while promoting a cohesive environment and positively impacting the community. RPL strives to instill a strong sense of inclusion and belonging for early career professionals through a variety of opportunities that promote professional development and support the community through acts of thoughtful service. Employee Engagement, Communication, Management and Leadership Training and Development We are investing in our employees’ long-term development and engagement by delivering training and development programs and fostering a culture where our people can thrive and maximize their potential. We require annual regulatory and mandatory training in anti-money laundering and anti-crime, global sanctions, ethics, cyber-security and harassment prevention, among other topics. We also provide or support periodic job-specific and other developmental training for our employees so they can maximize their potential, as well as a tuition reimbursement program for eligible employees. We provide virtual and in-person leadership training to managers on topics including management effectiveness, communication skills, interview skills and delivering effective performance evaluations, managing diverse teams and other topics. This training is supplemented by a library of online training courses that managers and employees have access to on a number of topics to assist them in their career development and, if applicable, management skills. Our individual business lines offer ongoing learning and development opportunities tied to deepening the understanding of the subject matter expertise of their professionals. We also have intern and early career programs throughout the year in various parts of our business. Our success depends on employees’ understanding of how their work and engagement contribute to our strategy, culture, values, and regulatory environment. We use various channels to facilitate open and direct communication, including internal calls and meetings with employees, training and policy updates, employee resource groups such as NOW and RPL, and social and family outings and events. We have also rolled out organizational Core Values (Integrity, Commitment and Opportunity), appointed Culture Champions in our London office, and implemented other initiatives which seek to embed these values and drive an enhanced culture across our workforce. Succession Planning From time to time, the Board discusses succession planning, including our consideration of succession strategy, the impact of any potential absence due to illness or leave of certain key executive officers or employees, as well as competing demands on the time of certain of our executive officers who also provide services to Cantor, Newmark, and various other ventures and investments sponsored by Cantor. Our Board also discusses from time to time, as part of its succession planning, engagement and encouragement of future business leaders and the process of introducing directors to leaders in our business lines, including discussing business strategies and challenges with our existing senior business leaders. The Board may also discuss short-term succession in the event that certain of the senior executive officers should, on an interim or unexpected basis, become temporarily unable to fulfill their duties. The Board also considers hiring and retention of leaders required for the changing business landscape and to lead future business lines. At the business and departmental levels, managers discuss and identify potential talent, opportunities for employee growth, successors, and future leaders. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) / Sustainability Information We believe that our ESG policies and practices will create sustainable long-term value for BGC, our stockholders and other stakeholders, our clients and our employees while also helping us mitigate risks, reduce costs, protect brand value, and identify market opportunities. In April 2021, we established a Board-level ESG Committee to provide oversight with respect to our ESG and sustainability policies and practices. The ESG Committee charter may be found on our website at www.bgcg.com/esg/governance under the heading “Independent Environmental, Social and Governance Committee.” With the Board’s and the ESG Committee’s oversight, we are embedding social and human capital, employment, environmental, sustainability, charitable and corporate governance policies and practices into our corporate strategy, compensation, disclosure, and goals to maintain and advance long-term stockholder value. 30 Table of Contents For more information about these topics, new and evolving initiatives and specific examples of policies and practices, see our website at www.bgcg.com/esg. Our Environmental Focus, Environmental Markets and Sustainable Business Practices We are focused on the environment and recognize the importance of treating our natural resources with the greatest respect, so that they are available to future generations. As a responsible business operating within financial services, we are actively aware of climate change and other major issues affecting the environment. Our philosophy is that long-term change in the way in which we use energy, and our collective impact on the environment, cannot happen without the involvement of the world’s capital markets. Sustainable Business Practices We aim to be a leading broker for the transition to a green economy, and we believe BGC Environmental Brokerage Services is a leader in the world’s environmental and green energy markets. Our Environmental Brokerage Services business, established in 2011, provides expert innovative carbon offset solutions and advice to the world’s green energy markets, from transactions and financing to technology and consulting. For decades, we have helped clients worldwide navigate complex financial requirements in order to achieve their environmental initiatives, thereby supporting our clients’ efforts to meet their emission reduction goals through the provision of brokerage services. In 2023, we announced the launch of our Weather Derivatives business, expanding BGC’s brokerage business into the weather and climate space. The Weather Derivatives business helps market participants analyze climate-related risks and mitigate their financial exposure. We are providing liquidity to these increasingly important markets as the role of weather and climate change impacts the way risk is managed. The launch of this business highlights BGC’s commitment to expand and explore new opportunities across the global energy and commodities space. For more information on BGC Environmental Brokerage Services, please visit www.bgcebs.com . Workplace Strategies In our workplaces, we are studying how to make our own contribution to state, national and global environmental initiatives and require the same of our vendors and suppliers when doing business with us. As part of this, we are considering how to minimize our future carbon footprint when planning office renovations and will continue to focus our attention in the near term on methods of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, increasing use of renewable energy, conserving water, and reducing waste generation. BGC supports sustainable business practices and is focused on the steps necessary to establish a sustainability program internally as we focus on our own energy usage. We believe it is our responsibility to improve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption to protect the environment through continuous improvement of our energy use practices and increased scrutiny on the energy efficiency of the buildings we utilize for our space. We intend to continue to work on these initiatives. For more information about these initiatives as they evolve, visit our website at www.bgcg.com/esg/environmental . To learn more about our policies and practices and our continuing efforts related to Human Capital Management, ESG and sustainability matters, please refer to the ESG and sustainability section of our website at www.bgcg.com/esg and to our periodic reports filed under the Exchange Act for further information. You may also find our Corporate Governance Guidelines, Code of Ethics, the charters of the committees of our Board of Directors, Hedging Policy, Environmental Policy, information about our charitable initiatives and other ESG and sustainability policies and practices on our website. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, our websites or other websites referenced herein, is not part of, and not incorporated into, this document. 31 Table of Contents OUR ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE Dual Class Equity Structure of BGC Group, Inc. We have a dual class equity structure, consisting of shares of BGC Class A common stock and BGC Class B common stock. We expect to retain and have no plans to change our dual class structure. BGC Class A common stock. Each share of BGC Class A common stock is generally entitled to one vote on matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders. As of December 31, 2023, there were 403.6 million shares of BGC Class A common stock issued and 390.1 million shares outstanding. On June 21, 2017, Cantor pledged 10.0 million shares of BGC Class A common stock in connection with a partner loan program. On November 23, 2018, those shares of BGC Class A common stock were converted into 10.0 million shares of BGC Class B common stock and remain pledged in connection with the partner loan program, as amended and restated effective as of October 5, 2023 with such modifications thereto as necessary to reflect the Corporate Conversion. Prior to the Corporate Conversion, Cantor, CFGM and other Cantor affiliates were entitled to exchange BGC Partners Class A common stock into shares of BGC Partners Class B common stock from time to time, on a one-to-one basis, subject to adjustment. See Exchange Agreement with Cantor Prior to the Corporate Conversion” for more information. From time to time, we may actively continue to repurchase shares of our Class A common stock including from Cantor, Newmark, our executive officers, other employees, partners and others. BGC Class B common stock. Each share of BGC Class B common stock is generally entitled to the same rights as a share of BGC Class A common stock, except that, on matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders, each share of BGC Class B common stock is entitled to 10 votes. The BGC Class B common stock generally votes together with the BGC Class A common stock on all matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders. As of December 31, 2023, Cantor and CFGM held an aggregate of 96.3 million shares of BGC Class B common stock, representing 88.0% of the outstanding shares of BGC Class B common stock and approximately 64.8% of our total voting power. As of December 31, 2023, Mr. Lutnick and individuals related to Mr. Lutnick owned 13.1 million shares of our outstanding Class B common stock, representing 12.0% of the outstanding shares of BGC Class B common stock and approximately 8.9% of our total voting power. Together, Cantor, CFGM, Mr. Lutnick and individuals related to Mr. Lutnick owned 100.0% of the outstanding shares of BGC Class B common stock and approximately 73.7% of our total voting power. Shares of BGC Class B common stock are convertible into shares of BGC Class A common stock at any time in the discretion of the holder on a one-for-one basis. Accordingly, if Cantor, CFGM, Mr. Lutnick and individuals related to Mr. Lutnick converted all of their BGC Class B common stock into BGC Class A common stock on December 31, 2023, Cantor would have held 18.7% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock, CFGM would have held 0.6% of the voting power, Mr. Lutnick and individuals related to Mr. Lutnick would have held 6.4% of the voting power, and the public stockholders would have held 74.3% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock (and Cantor and CFGM’s indirect economic interests in BGC U.S. and BGC Global would remain unchanged). As a result of the Corporate Conversion, 64.0 million Cantor units, including 5.7 million purchased on June 30, 2023, were converted into shares of BGC Group Class B common stock, subject to the terms and conditions of the Corporate Conversion Agreement, provided that a portion of the 64.0 million shares of BGC Group Class B common stock issued to Cantor will exchange into BGC Group Class A common stock in the event that BGC Group does not issue at least $75,000,000 in shares of BGC Group Class A or B common stock in connection with certain acquisition transactions prior to July 1, 2030, the seventh anniversary of the Corporate Conversion. On July 2, 2023, Cantor distributed an aggregate of 15.8 million shares of Class B common stock held by it in satisfaction of its remaining deferred share distribution obligations pursuant to the April 2008 distribution rights shares and the February 2012 distribution rights shares. 14.0 million of the July 2023 distribution shares were distributed to satisfy April 2008 distribution rights shares and 1.8 million of the July 2023 distribution shares were distributed to satisfy February 2012 distribution rights shares. 15.4 million of the July 2023 distribution shares will remain Class B common stock in the hands of the recipient, and 0.4 million of such shares were converted into an equivalent number of shares of Class A common stock in the hands of the recipient pursuant to the terms of BGC Group’s Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation. Upon distribution of the July 2023 distribution shares, Cantor satisfied all obligations to deliver shares of common stock to satisfy the April 2008 distribution rights shares and February 2012 distribution rights shares. Exchange Agreement with Cantor Prior to the Corporate Conversion On June 5, 2015, we entered into the Exchange Agreement with Cantor providing Cantor, CFGM and other Cantor affiliates entitled to hold BGC Partners Class B common stock the right to exchange BGC Partners Class A common stock into 32 Table of Contents shares of BGC Partners Class B common stock from time to time, on a one-to-one basis, subject to adjustment. As of December 31, 2023, Cantor and CFGM did not own any shares of BGC Partners Class A common stock. In connection with the Corporate Conversion on July 1, 2023, the Exchange Agreement with Cantor terminated in accordance with its own terms. Amendments to the BGC Holdings Partnership Agreement Prior to the Corporate Conversion On December 13, 2017, the Amended and Restated BGC Holdings Partnership Agreement was amended and restated a second time to include prior standalone amendments and to make certain other changes related to the Separation. The BGC Holdings Partnership Agreement also removed certain classes of BGC Holdings units that were no longer outstanding, and permitted the general partner of BGC Holdings to determine the total number of authorized BGC Holdings units. The BGC Holdings Limited Partnership Agreement was approved by the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of BGC Partners. On March 10, 2023, BGC Holdings entered into the LPA Amendment. The LPA Amendment revised certain restrictive covenants pertaining to the “Partner Obligations” and “Competitive Activity” provisions in the BGC Holdings Partnership Agreement. Specifically, the LPA Amendment (i) reduced the length of the post-termination period during which a partner must refrain from soliciting or doing business with customers, soliciting employees, engaging in a “Competing Business,” or otherwise refraining from harming the partnership; and (ii) revised the scope of the non-compete under the “Partner Obligations” and “Competitive Activity” provisions in the BGC Holdings Limited Partnership Agreement to cover “Competing Businesses” (as defined therein) for which a partner performed the same or similar services (a) involving a product, product line or type, or service of a “Protected Affiliate” (as defined therein) within a specific geographic area, (b) involving a “Client” or a “Client Representative” (each as defined therein) of a Protected Affiliate, or (c) for which the likely disclosure of confidential information was inevitable. The LPA Amendment was approved by the Board of Directors and Audit and Compensation Committee of BGC Partners. Classes of Founding/Working Partner Interests and Limited Partnership Units Prior to the Corporate Conversion Prior to the Corporate Conversion, our executives and front-office employees held partnership stakes in us and our subsidiaries and generally received their equity compensation through LPUs. Upon the closing of the Corporate Conversion, the BGC Holdings Limited Partnership Agreement was terminated, and the former stockholders of BGC Partners and former limited partners of BGC Holdings now participate in the economics of the BGC businesses through BGC Group. Following the Corporate Conversion, the equity portion of our compensation structure is no longer based upon the issuance of partnership units but instead based upon the use of equity awards issued under the Equity Plan in order to incentivize and retain our employees, executive officers, and directors, such as RSUs. Prior to the Corporate Conversion, while BGC Holdings limited partnership interests generally entitled our partners to participate in distributions of income from the operations of our business, upon leaving BGC Holdings (or upon any other redemption or purchase of such limited partnership interests as described below) any such partners were only entitled to receive over time, and provided he or she did not violate certain partner obligations, an amount for his or her BGC Holdings limited partnership interests that reflected such partner’s capital account or compensatory grant awards, excluding any goodwill or going concern value of our business, unless Cantor, in the case of the founding partners, and we, as the general partner of BGC Holdings at that time, otherwise determined. We also could have effected redemptions of BGC Holdings LPUs and FPUs and concurrently granted shares of our Class A common stock, or could have granted our partners the right to exchange their BGC Holdings limited partnership interests for shares of our Class A common stock (if, in the case of founding partners, Cantor so determined and, in the case of working partners and limited partnership unit holders, if we, as the BGC Holdings general partner at that time, with Cantor’s consent, determined otherwise) and thereby allowed them to realize any higher value associated with our Class A common stock. Similar provisions with respect to Newmark Holdings limited partnership interests are contained in the Newmark Holdings limited partnership agreement. Limited partnership interests in BGC Holdings (prior to the Corporate Conversion) and Newmark Holdings (received in connection with the Spin-Off) consist of: (i) “founding/working partner units” held by limited partners who are employees of the relevant company; (ii) “limited partnership units,” which consist of a variety of units that are generally held by employees such as REUs, RPUs, PSUs, PSIs, PSEs, HDUs, U.K. LPUs, APSUs, APSIs, APSEs, AREUs, ARPUs and N Units; (iii) “Cantor units” which are the exchangeable limited partnership interests held by Cantor entities; and (iv) Preferred Units, which are working partner units that may be awarded to holders of, or contemporaneous with, the grant of certain limited partnership units. These Preferred Units carried the same name as the underlying unit, with the insertion of an additional “P” to designate them as Preferred Units. Such Preferred Units could not be made exchangeable into BGC Class A common stock and accordingly were not included in the fully diluted share count. Each quarter, the net profits of BGC Holdings were allocated to such Preferred Units at a rate of either 0.6875% (which is 2.75% per calendar year) of the allocation amount assigned to them based on their award price, or such other amount as set forth in the award documentation, before calculation and distribution of 33 Table of Contents the quarterly BGC Holdings distribution for the remaining BGC Holdings units. The Preferred Units were not entitled to participate in BGC Holdings distributions other than with respect to the Preferred Distribution. Non-distributing partnership units, or N Units, carried the same name as the underlying unit with the insertion of an additional “N” to designate them as the N Unit type and were designated as NREUs, NPREUs, NLPUs, NPLPUs and NPPSUs. The N Units were not entitled to participate in BGC Holdings distributions, were not allocated any items of profit or loss and were not made exchangeable into shares of BGC Class A common stock. Subject to the approval of the Compensation Committee or its designee, certain N Units may have been converted into the underlying unit type (i.e., an NREU could be converted into an REU) and could then participate in BGC Holdings distributions, subject to terms and conditions determined by us as the general partner of BGC Holdings, in our sole discretion, including that the recipient continue to provide substantial services to us and comply with his or her partnership obligations. Cantor’s Right to Purchase Cantor Units Prior to the Corporate Conversion Prior to the Corporate Conversion, Cantor had the right to purchase Cantor units from BGC Holdings upon redemption of non-exchangeable FPUs redeemed by BGC Holdings upon termination or bankruptcy of the Founding/Working Partner. In addition, where either current, terminating, or terminated partners were permitted by the Company to exchange any portion of their FPUs and Cantor consented to such exchangeability, the Company would offer to Cantor the opportunity for Cantor to purchase the same number of Cantor units in BGC Holdings at the price that Cantor would have paid for Cantor units had the Company redeemed the FPUs. If Cantor acquired any Cantor units as a result of the purchase or redemption by BGC Holdings of any FPUs, Cantor would be entitled to the benefits (including distributions) of such units it acquired from the date of termination or bankruptcy of the applicable Founding/Working Partner. On April 16, 2023, Cantor purchased from BGC Holdings an aggregate of (i) 533,757 Cantor units for aggregate consideration of $1,051,080 as a result of the redemption of 533,757 FPUs, and (ii) 85,775 Cantor units for aggregate consideration of $173,154 as a result of the exchange of 85,775 FPUs. On June 30, 2023, Cantor purchased from BGC Holdings an aggregate 143,885 Cantor units for aggregate consideration of $285,421 as a result of the redemption of 143,885 FPUs. In connection with the Corporate Conversion, on June 30, 2023, Cantor purchased from BGC Holdings an aggregate of 5,605,547 Cantor units for aggregate consideration of $10,029,063 as a result of the redemption and exchange of the remaining 5,605,547 FPUs outstanding at that time. Following such purchases, there were no FPUs remaining in BGC Holdings. BGC OpCos Partnership Structures We are a holding company with no direct operations, and our business is operated through two operating partnerships, BGC U.S. OpCo, which holds our U.S. businesses, and BGC Global OpCo, which holds our non-U.S. businesses. Prior to the Corporate Conversion, the limited partnership interests of the two operating partnerships were held by us and BGC Holdings, and the limited partnership interests of BGC Holdings were held by LPU holders, Founding Partners, and Cantor. We held the BGC Holdings general partnership interest and the BGC Holdings special voting limited partnership interest, which entitled us to remove and appoint the general partner of BGC Holdings, and served as the general partner of BGC Holdings, which entitled us to control BGC Holdings. BGC Holdings, in turn, held the BGC U.S. OpCo general partnership interest and the BGC U.S. OpCo special voting limited partnership interest, which entitled the holder thereof to remove and appoint the general partner of BGC U.S. OpCo, and the BGC Global OpCo general partnership interest and the BGC Global OpCo special voting limited partnership interest, which entitled the holder thereof to remove and appoint the general partner of BGC Global OpCo, and served as the general partner of BGC U.S. OpCo and BGC Global OpCo, all of which entitled BGC Holdings (and thereby us) to control each of BGC U.S. OpCo and BGC Global OpCo. Since BGC Holdings held BGC U.S. OpCo limited partnership interests and BGC Global OpCo limited partnership interests, LPU holders, Founding Partners, and Cantor indirectly had interests in BGC U.S. OpCo limited partnership interests and BGC Global OpCo limited partnership interests. Further, in connection with the Separation and Distribution Agreement, limited partnership interests in Newmark Holdings were distributed to the holders of limited partnership interests in BGC Holdings, whereby each holder of BGC Holdings limited partnership interests who at that time held a BGC Holdings limited partnership interest received a corresponding Newmark Holdings limited partnership interest, equal in number to a BGC Holdings limited partnership interest divided by 2.2 (i.e., 0.4545 of a unit in Newmark Holdings). Accordingly, existing partners at the time of the Separation in BGC Holdings are also partners in Newmark Holdings and received corresponding units issued at the applicable ratio. Thus, such partners have an indirect interest in Newmark OpCo. As a result of a series of transactions prior to and in anticipation of the Corporate Conversion, all BGC Holdings units held by Newmark employees were redeemed or exchanged, in each case, for shares of BGC Class A common stock or cash. 34 Table of Contents Upon the closing of the Corporate Conversion, the BGC Holdings Limited Partnership Agreement was terminated, we became the owner of all of the limited partnership interests of the two BGC operating partnerships, and the former stockholders of BGC Partners and former limited partners of BGC Holdings now participate in the economics of the BGC businesses through BGC Group. Pre-Corporate Conversion Structure of BGC Partners, Inc. as of June 30, 2023 The diagram below reflects the ownership structure of BGC Partners and BGC Holdings as of June 30, 2023 and prior to the Corporate Conversion. The diagram does not reflect the various subsidiaries of BGC, BGC U.S. OpCo, BGC Global OpCo, or Cantor, or the noncontrolling interests in our consolidated subsidiaries that existed on June 30, 2023 other than Cantor’s units in BGC Holdings. The diagram also does not reflect certain BGC Holdings partnership units and RSUs as follows, in each case as of June 30, 2023: (a) 29.5 million Preferred Units, including Preferred N Units, granted and outstanding to BGC Holdings partners; (b) 39.2 million N Units, excluding Preferred N Units, granted and outstanding to BGC Holdings partners; (c) 22.5 million RSUs issued on June 30, 2023, in exchange for partners’ units in BGC Holdings; (d) 12.3 million RSUs issued prior to June 30, 2023; (e) RSU Tax Accounts associated with certain RSUs; (f) 1.7 million contingent shares issued in exchange for former partners’ units in BGC Holdings; and (g) 1.2 million contingent shares related to acquisitions. 35 Table of Contents The diagram reflects the following activity of BGC Class A common stock and BGC Holdings partnership unit activity from January 1, 2023 through June 30, 2023: (a) 16.1 million shares of BGC Class A common stock issued for vested N Units; (b) 2.4 million shares of BGC Class A common stock issued for vested RSUs; (c) an aggregate of 4.3 million limited partnership units granted by BGC Holdings; (d) 10.7 million shares of BGC Class A common stock repurchased by BGC 36 Table of Contents Partners; (e) 2.8 million shares of Class A common stock issued by BGC Partners under its acquisition shelf Registration Statement on Form S-4 (Registration No. 333-169232), of which there were no shares remaining available for issuance under such Registration Statement as of June 30, 2023, and 2.3 million shares of Class A common stock issued by BGC Partners under the acquisition shelf 2019 Form S-4 Registration Statement (Registration No. 333-233761) but not the 17.7 million of such shares remaining available for issuance by BGC Partners under such Registration Statement as of June 30, 2023; (f) 0.5 million limited partnership units forfeited; (g) 0.7 million limited partnership units related to prior period adjustments; (h) 0.8 million limited partnership units for vested N Units; and (i) 20 thousand shares issued by BGC Partners under its DRIP Registration Statement (Registration No. 333-173109), but not the 9.2 million of such shares remaining available for issuance by BGC Partners under the DRIP Registration Statement as of June 30, 2023. Current Structure of BGC Group, Inc. as of December 31, 2023 (Following the Corporate Conversion) The following diagram illustrates our organizational structure as of December 31, 2023. The diagram does not reflect the various subsidiaries of BGC Partners, BGC U.S. OpCo, BGC Global OpCo, or Cantor, or the noncontrolling interests in our consolidated subsidiaries. The diagram also does not reflect certain ownership of BGC Group as follows: (a) for purposes of economic percentages, 22.4 million shares of BGC Group Class A restricted common stock as these are not entitled to receive any dividends (however, these shares of BGC Group Class restricted common stock are included for voting power of BGC Group); (b) 11.1 million assumed RSUs; (c) 37.3 million RSUs converted from former partners’ units in BGC Holdings; (d) 16.3 million RSUs issued in relation to employee compensation; (e) 5.9 million contingent shares to be issued to terminated employees per their respective separation agreements; and (f) 0.8 million contingent shares issued in exchange for acquisition units. * Percentage includes restricted shares issued in exchange for former partners’ units in BGC Holdings. ** BGC Partners is a wholly owned subsidiary of BGC Group and consolidated with other wholly and non-wholly owned subsidiaries. *** Public stockholders includes unrestricted shares owned by employees, executives, and directors due to an inability to track such shares once they leave the Company’s transfer agent. The diagram reflects the following activity of BGC Class A common stock, BGC Class B common stock, and BGC Holdings partnership unit activity from July 1, 2023 through December 31, 2023 as: (a) 64.0 million shares of BGC Class B common stock issued to Cantor in exchange for Cantor’s 64.0 million BGC Holdings partnership units; (b) 5.8 million shares of restricted BGC Class A common stock issued for limited partnership interests; (c) 15.8 million shares of BGC Class B common stock distributed by Cantor in satisfaction of its remaining deferred share distribution obligations pursuant to distribution rights 37 Table of Contents provided to certain current and former partners of Cantor; (d) the restrictions released on 9.3 million shares of BGC Class A common stock; (e) 0.4 million shares of BGC Class A common stock which were converted from 0.4 million shares of Class B common stock distributed by Cantor in satisfaction of its remaining deferred share distribution obligations pursuant to distribution rights provided to certain current and former partners of Cantor; (f) 12.6 million shares of BGC Class A common stock repurchased by us; and (g) 10.4 million shares of BGC Class A common stock issued for vested RSUs; (h) 0.4 million shares of BGC Class A common stock issued for contingent shares issued in exchange for acquisition units; and (i) 0.5 million shares of BGC Class A common stock issued for contingent shares issued in exchange for former partners’ units in BGC Holdings; (j) 1.2 million shares of BGC Class A restricted common stock forfeited by former partners and employees; (k) 2.5 million shares of BGC Class A common stock issued for compensation. No shares of Class A common stock were issued by us under our acquisition shelf 2019 Form S-4 Registration Statement (Registration No. 333-233761) between July 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023; 17.7 million of such shares remain available for issuance by us under such Registration Statement. Also, an immaterial number of shares of Class A common stock were issued by us under our DRIP Registration Statement (Registration No. 333-173109) between July 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023; 9.2 million of such shares remain available for issuance by us under the DRIP Registration Statement. WHERE YOU CAN FIND MORE INFORMATION We file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. These filings are available to the public from the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov . Our website address is www.bgcg.com . Through our website, we make available, free of charge, the following documents as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with, or furnished to, the SEC: our Annual Reports on Form 10‑K; our proxy statements for our annual and special stockholder meetings; our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q; our Current Reports on Form 8-K; Forms 3, 4 and 5 and Schedules 13D with respect to our securities filed on behalf of Cantor, CFGM, our directors and our executive officers; and amendments to those documents. Our website also contains additional information with respect to our industry and business. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, our website is not part of, and is not incorporated into, this Annual Report on Form 10‑K.