BGC Group Inc (NASDAQ: BGC) Q2 2025 Earnings Call dated Jul. 31, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
John Abularrage — Co Chief Executive Officers
Jason Chryssikos — Head of Investor Relations
Sean Windeatt — Co Chief Executive Officer
Jason Hoff — CFO
JP Aubin — CFO
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Patrick Moley — Analyst
Eli Abboone — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
SA SA SA Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. Our conference will begin momentarily. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. Our conference will begin momentarily. S.A. greetings and welcome to the BGC Group Incorporated second quarter 2025 earnings call. @ this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press Star0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Jason Krisikis, Head of Investor Relations.
Thank you.
Jason Chryssikos — Head of Investor Relations
You may be thank you and hello everyone. This morning we issued BGC Second Quarter 2025 financial results which can be found at ir.bgCG.com any historical results provided on today’s call. Compare only the second quarter of 2025 with the prior year period unless otherwise specified. All references on today’s call to historic and record results are to BGC Standalone financial results excluding Newmarc prior to the spinoff in November 2018. We’ll be referring to our results on a non GAAP basis which include the terms Adjusted Earnings and adjusted ebitda. Please refer to today’s investor materials on our website for additional details on our financial results and for 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 them.
The outlook discussed today assumes no material acquisitions or dispositions. Our expectations are subject to change based on various macroeconomic, social, political and or other factors. Information on this call contains forward looking statements including without limitation statements about our economic outlook and business. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause our actual results to differ from expectations and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward looking statements. For information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from forward looking statements and a complete discussion of the risks and other factors that may impact these forward looking statements.
See our SEC filings including but not limited to the risk factors and disclosures within these SEC documents. With that, I’m now happy to turn the call over to Shawn Wendiat, Co Chief Executive Officer of BGC Group.
Sean Windeatt — Co Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Jason Good morning and welcome to our second quarter 2025 conference call. With me today are my fellow Co Chief Executive Officers John Abu Dharaj and JP o’, Bam, along with our Chief Financial Officer Jason Hoff. We delivered historic results generating Record revenues of $784 million, a 42% increase versus last year excluding OTC revenues grew by 21%, surpassing last quarter’s record revenues. We continue to gain market share in the ECS and financial markets with strong growth across all asset classes and geographies. BGC is now the world’s largest ECS broker. FMX had its best ever quarter with record volumes and market share across both FMX, UST and FX platforms.
Total Fenix revenues grew by 19% with Fenix growth platforms increasing by 30% driven by strong double digit growth from FMX, Portfolio Match and Lucera. Following our most recent acquisition we we launched a cost reduction program which we expect will be completed by year end and deliver at least $25 million in annualized savings through expense synergies. These savings will enhance our profitability, drive margins higher and we expect them to deliver long term shareholder value. These savings will close the gap between OTC’s current low teens margin and BGC’s current margin. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to John to go over the quarterly results of the business in more detail.
John Abularrage — Co Chief Executive Officers
Thank you. As Sean mentioned, we registered record quarterly results reflecting significant growth across every region and all asset classes. ECS revenues grew by 122.2% to a record 261 driven by OTC and strong organic growth across the energy complex. Excluding OTC, ECS revenues grew by 27% versus last year. Our rates revenues increased by 20.8% to $200.6 million reflecting higher volumes across all major interest rate products. Foreign exchange revenues were up 21.9% to $108.5 million due to strong growth in FX options and emerging market currencies. Credit revenues increased by 8.5% to $75.3 million driven by higher US and emerging market credit volumes.
Our equities revenues grew by 43.8% to $73.9 million driven by all major equities products with particular strength across EMEA and Americas due to higher volatility and market share gains. Data Network and Post Trade revenues increased by 15.1% to $35.5 million. This growth was primarily driven by Lucera and Fenex market data, partly offset by lower Post Trade revenues due to the sale of our Capital Lab business in the fourth quarter. Excluding Capital Labs, revenues grew by more than 20%. Now turning to Fennec. In the second quarter Fennex revenues improved by 18.6% to $162.9 million. Fennex Markets reported revenues of $134.1 million, an increase of 16.5%.
This growth was primarily driven by higher electronic trading volumes and Fennex market data. Fennex growth platforms generated revenues of $28.7 million, a 29.6% increase primarily driven by FMX, portfolio match and Lucera, excluding Capital Lab. Fenex growth platforms grew by approximately 38%. FMX UST generated record average daily volume of $68 billion in the second quarter, a 45% increase compared to last year. FMX continues to see strong support from its equity partners who have helped drive market share to more than 35% for the second quarter, up from 33% last quarter and 30% a year ago. FMX FX nearly doubled its ADV to a record $15.6 billion in the second quarter, driven by support from FMX’s equity partners as well as the addition of new products and participants.
FMX Futures Exchange successfully launched U.S. treasury futures in May 2025 and continued to scale its SOFR futures, ADV and open interest to record levels during the quarter. SOFR average daily open interest increased sequentially by 73% in the second quarter and July’s open interest has more than doubled from those levels. Portfolio Match ADV nearly doubled, reflecting market share gains across the US And EMEA credit markets. Portfolio Match’s strong growth was driven by new clients, increased distribution and deepening connectivity with large systematic traders. Lucera revenues grew by more than 40% driven by new clients and product launches.
And with that I’d now like to turn the call over to Jason.
Jason Hoff — CFO
Thank you John and hello everyone. BGC generated second quarter revenues of $784 million reflecting growth across all of our geographies. EMEA revenues increased by 50.3%, America’s revenues increased by 40.3% and Asia Pacific revenues increased by 17.4%. Turning to expenses, compensation and employee benefits under GAAP and for adjusted earnings increased by 53.1% and 51.4% respectively due to the acquisition of OTC and higher commissionable revenues during the period. Non compensation expenses under GAAP and adjusted earnings increased by 30.5% and 29% respectively, also driven by the acquisition of OTC. Moving on to earnings, our pre tax adjusted earnings grew by 38% to a record $173.6 million.
Post tax adjusted earnings increased by 34% to a record $153.7 million. Post tax adjusted earnings per share improved by 34.8% to an all time high of 31 cents per share and our adjusted EBITDA increased by 31.4% to $213.3 million. Turning to share count BGC’s fully diluted weighted average share count for adjusted earnings was 500.1 million shares during the period, a 0.3% decrease compared to the first quarter of 2025 and a 0.7% increase compared to a year ago. During the quarter we repurchased more than 16 million shares, of which 8 million are reflected in our weighted average share count this quarter.
The full impact of these share repurchases will be captured in the third quarter. We expect our share count to be lower in the third quarter and at year end, assuming no extraordinary transactions or events. As of June 30, our liquidity was $965.9 million compared with $897.8 million at year end 2024. With that, I’d like to turn the call back to Sean to go over our third quarter outlook.
Sean Windeatt — Co Chief Executive Officer
Thank you Jason. I’m pleased to provide the following guidance for the third quarter 2025 we expect to generate total revenues of between 715 and $765 million as compared to $561.1 million in the third quarter of 2024, which at the midpoint of our guidance would represent approximately 32% revenue growth. Excluding OTC, we expect third quarter revenues to grow around 12% at the midpoint. We anticipate pre tax adjusted earnings to be in the range of 150 to $165 million versus $126.7 million last year, which at the midpoint of guidance would represent an approximately 24% earnings growth. And we expect our adjusted earnings tax rate to be between 10% and 12% for the full year 2025.
Just before I hand over Operator for questions, I’d like to pass back over to John for a few comments.
John Abularrage — Co Chief Executive Officers
Thanks Sean. Before we begin the Q and A, we just want to take a moment to acknowledge the tragic shooting that occurred in Midtown Manhattan on Monday night, just a few blocks from one of our offices. On behalf of my co CEOs and our entire BGC family, and as a native New Yorker myself, I want to express our deepest sympathies to the victims, families and all those affected by the senseless act of violence. We also want to thank the nypd, the first responders and the building security and staff who work hard every day to keep us all safe.
Thank you.
Sean Windeatt — Co Chief Executive Officer
Thanks John and Operator with that we’d like to open the call for questions.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a Question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in a question queue. You may press Star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that’s Star one at this time. One moment while we post our first question. Our first question comes from Patrick Moley with Piper Sander. Please proceed.
Patrick Moley
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the question and congrats on a strong quarter. So revenue growth pretty impressive, over 21% year over year, organic. You’re, you know, you’re integrated this acquisition, maybe just, you know, thinking about the whole business and where things shake out. How do you view the growth algorithm from here? You said that the third quarter revenues are expected to grow 12% organic. You’re, you’re putting in this expense reduction program that’s going to finish up in the back half of the year. How should we think about the growth algorithm of the company and the margin trajectory from here? Thanks.
Sean Windeatt
Good morning, Patrick. So I think the easiest way to describe it is so we acquired otc. We’ve owned it now for three months, just over three months now. And we said that it had margins of in the low teens. So if you actually take out, if you take out the OTC acquisition, nothing changed. Great. Gearing revenue growth of 21% and pre tax AE at 26, 27%. So nothing has changed there. But only three, three and a half months into the transaction, what we said we would do last quarter is we said we will shrink that margin.
We’ll shrink the gap, should I say, between BGC’s margin and OTC’s margin. And we’ve embarked on our cost reduction program, $25 million cost reduction program, which will have completed by the end of the year. So you’ll see that benefit in 2026. So that’s just nine months after acquisition. And if you think about it, Patrick, if you took 6.25 million, one quarter of that 25 million, you would bridge the gap in earnings from the group’s earnings to that of OTC from 13 all the way up to 19 and close to 20. Right. So it is simply the fact that we bought the second largest acquisition this company has ever done and we’re three and a half months into it, will integrate it within those in those nine months and generate those synergies.
Patrick Moley
All right, thanks for that color. And then just as a follow up, you spoke in your prepared remarks about the strength that you’re seeing across FMX maybe on the futures side of it in particular. Could you just elaborate on how you’re feeling about that business, the traction you’re seeing there and where you’re at in terms of some of the FCM and partner on boards that you’re still waiting for. Thanks.
JP Aubin
Hey Patrick, JP here. We are very, very happy where we are today. As John mentioned earlier, we have record volume on software and increasing open interest ahead with our expectation also along with growing software product volumes and open interest. We work every day with our clients. It remains our main priority. We’re nearly the end of the connectivity process with our equity partners, which will allow them to engage with the platform in a meaningful way successfully. I would like to come back on two footprints we have on futures volumes. Our UST market share is now 35% from 33 and 30% two quarters ago.
Success number one, our software volume and open interest, I just talked about it, are up. Success number two. So as UST and software volume and open interest continue to scale, we do expect attention to shift to UST futures.
John Abularrage
Hey Patrick, it’s John. Just real quickly on the fcm, so we’re at the nine that we had mentioned before and I think I’m pretty comfortable staying at 12 for the year. By year end we’ll have 12 on, which will give us the vast majority of customer assets. Once that’s done, it’s just a timing. Issue. And again we’ll have the 12 by the end of the year which will give us the vast majority of the market. So completely comfortable with where we are with the FTNs as well.
Patrick Moley
Okay, thanks for that. That’s it for me. And congrats on the quarter again.
Jason Chryssikos
Thank you.
JP Aubin
Thank you.
operator
Once again to ask a question in Star one on your telephone keypad, the next question comes from Eli Abboone with Bank of America. Please proceed.
Eli Abboone
Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. So it seems like the ramp of the two and five year treasury futures has been tracking a little bit slower than the ramp for SOFR back in September. So I was wondering if there are any additional complexities or challenges with treasury futures that you did not have to grapple with with SOFR that are worth highlighting.
John Abularrage
Hey Eli, it’s John. No is the answer. You know, I think SOFR launched first. SOFR got up and running to where, you know, it is now with nearly 40,000 open interest today. We’re happy with that. We’re happy with how the interest in UST futures is going. We obviously get to benefit from seeing the work that’s going on in the background. There’s no additional impediments or speed bumps. And I think you’ll see US treasury futures follow the success of sofr, which follow the success of the cash platform. So very comfortable with where we are.
Eli Abboone
Got it. And I think you just mentioned that there are nine FCMs connected to FMX today. Can you give us any insight into how many have open interest on the platform? And for those that are connected but not actively trading, what’s the cause of the holdup?
John Abularrage
Right. So I can’t break them out for obvious reasons, but I guess what I would say to that is that you can assume that all or nearly all are there and have open interest on the platform and there is no hold up. It’s just a matter of growing it as we go forward.
Eli Abboone
Got it. And your FX business has been a success story from the first half of the year. Obviously there’s been some strong cyclical tailwinds there related to the global trade disputes. I was wondering if you could peel back some of those temporary tailwinds and give us any color on to what degree you’re seeing structural growth in that complex.
Sean Windeatt
Yeah, thanks. I think really it’s part of the market healing. You know, it started with rates and then it goes to fx. And now for the first time this quarter, you’ve seen growth in all of our asset classes. Remember, our FX business historically is an option business and options were lower. The FX option volumes were lower in the early 2000s actually they’ve now come back to normalized levels. I would say yes, you had a spike in volatility in April, but there’s been nothing special about the other months of this year. So it’s our strong multi brand platform starting in Asia, going into the UK and then into the us.
And maybe in addition, we’ve obviously seen volumes in our FMX FX platform grow and they’ve grown four to five times the growth of our peer platforms. We probably don’t call that out enough, but incredibly happy with both the voice hybrid and the FMX piece of the FX business.
Eli Abboone
Got it. And then the last one for me, sticking on your FX business, it looks like there’s been several quarters here where the voice portion of that business has outperformed your electronic franchise. I know the long term vision for all of your businesses is for them to consist of a higher proportion of electronic revenues over time. So can you help us make sense of some of those recent trends?
Sean Windeatt
Definitely. So remember, outside of equities and ECs in terms of rate credit and foreign exchange. Our clients have the choice to trade either voice or electronic, and we have the platforms that they can do if they wanted to, virtually all of their business electronically. But the key is it’s their choice. And I think, as I just mentioned, for example, in the options space, as we’ve been returning to what I would call normal levels of volatility, clients have opted during this significant growth period, again, back to normality, to execute more voice than electronic. Our gut feeling is we’re happy for our clients to trade in whichever method they choose.
I would expect, I would expect that trend to go slightly more electronic again over time now that the market has stabilized.
Eli Abboone
Got it. Thanks for taking the questions.
operator
Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Windy up for closing remarks.
Sean Windeatt
I’d just like to say thanks everybody for taking part in our conference call and have a great summer and speak to you all again very soon. Thank you.
operator
This does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.