BGC Partners, Inc.

Welcome to the BGC Partners, Inc. first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jason Krasickas, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning. We issued BTC's first quarter 2021 financial results press release and presentation summarizing these results earlier this morning. You can find these at ir.bgcpartners.com. Please note you can find additional details on our quarterly results in today's press release and investor presentation. Unless otherwise stated, the results provided on today's call compare only the first quarter of 2021 with the year earlier period. We will be referring to our results on this call only on an adjusted earnings basis unless otherwise stated. We may also refer to adjusted EBITDA. You may refer to our liquidity, which we define as cash and cash equivalents plus marketable securities that have not been financed, reverse repurchase agreements and securities owned, less securities loaned, and repurchase agreements. We define total capital as redeemable partnership interest, total stockholders' equity, and non-controlling interest in subsidiaries. Please see today's press release for results under generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. Please also see the relevant sections in the back of today's press release for the complete and updated definitions of any non-GAAP terms or reconciliations of these items to corresponding GAAP results and how, when, and why management uses such terms. Additional information with respect to our GAAP and non-GAAP results mentioned on today's call is available on our website at ir.b2cpartners.com and in our investor presentation. We refer to the company's technology-driven businesses as Spenix, Spenix Operants, Spenix Markets, Spenix Pro Platforms, Spenix Integrated Market Data Software and Solutions, and Post-Trade Services. Businesses are categorized as financially 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 pre-taxed adjusted earnings and margins of at least 25%. I also remind you that the information regarding our business on today's call that are not historical are full of missing statements. These include statements about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company's business, results, financial position, liquidity, and outlook. Any forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, except as required by law. BGC undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Any outlook targets discussed on this call assume no material acquisitions, buybacks, extraordinary transactions, or meaningful changes to the company's stock price. For discussion of additional risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results of those contained in the forward-looking statements, see BGC's SEC filings. including but not limited to the risk factors and special note of forward-looking information set forth in the filings and any updates to such risk factors and special note on forward-looking information contained in the subsequent reports on Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and Form 8-K. I am now happy to turn the call over to Howard Butnik, Chairman of the Board and CEO of BTC Partners.

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2021 conference call. Joining me for today's call are BGC's Chief Operating Officer, Sean Windyak, and our Chief Financial Officer, Steve Biscay. BGC's margins improved across nearly all measures, driven by record Cenex and current revenues. Excluding the one-off pandemic-driven volume and volatility that occurred toward the end of the first quarter last year, we estimate our overall revenues would have grown by approximately $8 million as compared to a year ago. Beginning this quarter, we will categorize our Phenix businesses as Phenix Markets and Phenix Growth Platforms. Phenix Markets includes the fully electronic portions of BGC's brokerage business, our data software and post-trade revenues that are unrelated to Phenix Growth Platforms, as well as Phenix integrated revenues. Our Phenix Growth Platforms include Phenix U.S. Treasuries, Phenix Go, Lucera, fenex fx and our other newer standalone platforms these platforms were designed to build volumes and market share which we've accomplished over the last two years we expect to leverage our strong market share gains to drive significant revenue growth from our fenix growth platforms going forward fenix markets and fenix growth platforms compete with highly valued companies such as the cme trade web and market access Fenex overall generated its fourth consecutive record quarter of net revenues, which grew 40% to $105.6 million. Fenex markets revenues grew 36.5% this quarter to $95.1 million and had a pre-tax profit margin of 30.2%. Revenues from our Fenix growth platforms grew at $10.6 million, an increase of 82.1%. So can you guys hear me okay? I hope. As we continue to grow our higher margin businesses, we are well positioned for increased profitability. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Sean Williamson. Sean Williamson. I think Sean's line just dropped off. So, Steve Biscayne, you want to jump in now? And we'll bring Sean when we get back on as soon as he reconnects.