BGC Partners, Inc.

Good morning.

We issued BGC's first quarter 2023 financial results press release and the presentation summarizing these results this morning prior to the market open. 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, any historical results provided on today's call compare only the first quarter of 2023 with the prior year period. Certain revenue figures provided for the current period as indicated. 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. BGC generates a significant amount of its revenues in non-US dollar-denominated currencies, particularly the euro and pound sterling. BGC presents revenue comparisons on a constant currency basis 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 assumed foreign exchange rates used to determine the company's prior period revenues applied to the current period revenues. Please see today's press release for results under generally accepted accounting principles Please also see the relevant sections of the back of today's press release for the complete and updated definitions of any non-GAAP terms, 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.bcpartners.com. We refer to the company's technology-driven businesses as Fenex. Fenex offerings include Fenex Markets and Fenex Growth Platforms. I also remind you that the 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, results, financial position, liquidity, and outlook. Any forward-looking statements about risks and uncertainties, except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Any outlook and targets discussed in this call assume no material acquisitions, buybacks, extraordinary transactions, or meaningful changes to the company's stock price. or discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results 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 a special note on forward-looking information contained in the subsequent reports on Form 10-K and Q in Form 8-K. I'm now happy to turn the call over to Howard Ludnick, Chairman of the Board and CEO of BGC Partners.

Thanks, Jason. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2023 conference call. With me today are BGC's Chief Operating Officer, Sean Windiat, and our Chief Financial Officer, Jason Hull. As we expected, long-term growth for BGC has begun. The first quarter saw growth across each of our business lines. Our quarterly revenue grew by over 5 percent, or 7 percent in constant currency, with growth accelerating so far in the second quarter with revenue up 9% through the first 19 trading days. We expect BGC's revenue to continue to grow as a relationship between trading volumes and the enormous increase in bond issuance returns following the end of zero interest rates. FedEx had a record quarter with market-leading revenue growth of 12% or over 14% in constant currency, representing over 26% of our total revenue in the first quarter. We expect to complete our corporate conversion on June 30th and trade under our new ticker BGC at the beginning of July. With respect to FMX, progress continues with the CFTC on the final approval of our futures exchange, and we intend to announce our strategic partners prior to the launch. With that, I'll turn the call over to Sean.