BGC Partners, Inc.

Hello there, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for your patience. The BGC Partners Incorporated second quarter 2022 earnings conference call will begin momentarily. Thank you. We'll be right back. © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to the BGC Partners Incorporated Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to the speaker today, Jason Chrysikos, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you, and please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. we should BGC second quarter 2022 financial results press release and presentation summarizing these results 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 second quarter of 2022 with the prior year period and compare revenue excluded insurance due to its sale on November 1st, 2021. 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. We 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. This quarter, BGC is providing revenue year-over-year comparisons on a constant currency basis. BGC generates a significant amount of its revenue in non-U.S. dollar-denominated currencies, particularly in the euro and pound sterling, in order to present a better comparison of the company's revenues during the period, which exhibited volatile foreign exchange movements. BGC's constant currency movements assume foreign exchange rates used to determine the company's prior period revenues applied to the current period revenues. Please also 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, reconciliations of these items to the 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.btcpartners.com and in our investor presentation. We refer to the company's technology-driven business as FENIX. Fenix offerings include Fenix markets and Fenix growth platforms. I also remind you that information regarding our business on today's call that are not historical are forward-looking 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 about risks and uncertainties can accept as required by law. BGC undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Any outlook and 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 to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see BGC's SEC filings, including but not limited to the risk factors, and special note on forward-looking information set forth in these filings and any updates to such risk factors, and special note on forward-looking information contained in subsequent reports in Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, or Form 8-K. With that, I'm now happy to turn the call over to Howard Lunick, Chairman of the Board and CEO of BGC Partners.

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2022 conference call. With me today are BGC's Chief Operating Officer, Sean Windyett, and our new Chief Financial Officer, Jason Hoff. I would like to start by welcoming Jason to BGC and welcoming him to his first BGC conference call as our new CFO. I am pleased to announce that the joint committee of our independent directors of the board, which was constituted to consider the conversion to a corporate structure, has agreed to pursue and move forward with the corporate conversion subject to documentation. This conversion is intended to be effective January 1st, 2023, subject to the regulatory process. We believe this change will improve operational efficiencies and benefit our shareholders and stakeholders by implementing a more simple transparent corporate structure. BGC's adjusted earnings margin continued to improve, representing the seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin expansion. Our sustained margin improvement reflects higher levels of automation and digitization across our overall business. FEMEX registered another quarter of double-digit revenue growth outpacing the industry and our overall business. FedEx now represents over 25% of our overall revenues, its highest mark ever. We continue to make progress developing our comprehensive cryptocurrency offering, which includes the expansion of Lucera's infrastructure across the cryptocurrency ecosystem, as well as the recently announced plans for a cryptocurrency exchange, which we anticipate will be launched late in the fourth quarter or early in the first. Additionally, BGC arranged the first intermediated block trade of CME Bitcoin options in Asia in July. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jason.