BGC Partners is an American global financial services company based in New York City. Originally formed as part of the larger Cantor Fitzgerald organization, BGC Partners became its own entity in 2004.

In 1945, Bernard Gerald Cantor founded a brokerage service for inter-dealer fixed income markets. The resulting company was B.G. Cantor and Company, which later became Cantor Fitzgerald.

In 1965 Cantor Fitzgerald established an Institutional Equities Sales and Trading Division, which offers large block trading to asset managers, pension funds, and portfolio managers. In 1983, Cantor Fitzgerald became the first firm to offer worldwide screen brokerage services in US Government Securities.

In 1991, Howard Lutnick was named President of Cantor Fitzgerald, after having worked at the firm for the previous eight years. Lutnick placed a new emphasis on technological innovation at the company, and in 1996 lead the development of eSpeed, which went public in 1999.

The September 11, 2001 attacks claimed 658 employees of Cantor Fitzgerald and eSpeed, whose headquarters were in the World Trade Center. In response to the attacks, BGC Partners and Cantor Fitzgerald pledged to donate 25% of their profits to families of deceased employees.

BGC Partners was formed in 2004 when Cantor Fitzgerald spun out its voice brokerage business. The initials BGC standing for that company's founder, Bernard Gerald Cantor.

In April 2005, BGC Partners LP merged with Maxcor Financial Group Inc. to form BGC Partners.

In September 2005, BGC Partners held their first annual Charity Day event. The event featured Harry Carson, Boomer Esiason, and Mariano Rivera and raised money for the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund among other charities.

In 2007, BGC Partners opened an office in Seoul, South Korea and became the first inter-dealer broker to open an office in Istanbul, Turkey.

In 2008, BGC Partners merged with eSpeed and becomes BGC Partners Inc.

In November 2009, BGC Partners won Asia Risk Magazine's first ever award for Technology Development.

On April 1, 2013, NASDAQ OMX Group agreed to acquire an electronic Treasurys marketplace from brokerage firm BGC Partners Inc. in a cash-and-stock deal valued at as much as $1.23 billion. The sale caused BGC to see the biggest gain in stock prices since going public in December 1999. The assets sold to Nasdaq in this deal represented $100 million in sales in 2012, less than 6% of BGC's overall total.

On October 2, 2013 BGC’s subsidiary BGC Derivative Markets, L.P. launched operations as a Swap Execution Facility (SEF), consistent with the derivatives trading regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act. This followed BGC receiving CFTC approval to operate a Swap Execution Facility in September 2013.

BGC Charity Day was founded in 2005 to raise money for the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund and other nonprofits as a way to honor the victims of 9/11. Each year on or near September 11, BGC Charity Day brings in celebrities, athletes and politicians alike to man their phones and speak with clients, with all revenue from the day being donated to charities of choice. The Charity Day event has also spread beyond New York to all of BGC Partners' international offices.

When Hurricane Sandy hit the New York and New Jersey coasts in October 2012, damages quickly totaled in the billions, with thousands of family homes completely destroyed along beach properties. A Hurricane Sandy Family Relief Program was established and funded largely by BGC Partners and Cantor Fitgerald's Charity Day efforts. $10 million in the form of $1,000 debit cards were handed out to families whose homes were damaged in the storm. The eligible families were identified through nineteen schools located in areas hardest hit by the storm.

Cantor Fitzgerald Slacks On 9/11 Pledge, But Promises $10 Million To Sandy Relief

On May 20, 2013, a tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, killing 24 people and injuring hundreds more. Two days later, Howard Lutnick appeared on the Piers Morgan Live TV show and pledged to donate $2 million to families affected by the tornado. The donation was given out in the form of $1,000 debit cards given out to area families.

The company's global headquarters are in Midtown, New York City, while it also has an office in the Downtown Financial District. The company and its associated businesses also operate offices around the world:

In May 2012 the Financial Services Authority, Britain's financial regulator, announced its decision to prohibit Anthony Verrier (a senior executive at BGC) from performing any function in relation to any regulated activity in the financial services industry. The FSA stated it believes that Verrier is not a fit and proper person due to concerns over his honesty, integrity and reputation. Its decision followed a civil court ruling that Verrier led an unlawful poaching conspiracy against rival interdealer broker Tullett Prebon and did not tell the truth about it in court.

Also in May 2012 a story was published by the New York Daily News under the headline 'Cantor Fitzgerald VP was boss from hell, secretary says in suit' which reported on a lawsuit brought against the company by former employee Crystal Mitchell. Mitchell worked as an executive assistant to Michael Lampert at BGC USA, an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald, in March 2011. According to the suit filed by her lawyer David Harrison, her boss once threw a cup of tea at her because she hadn't removed the teabag. "The boiling hot liquid spilled on [Mitchell], burning her stomach and upper leg, and staining her clothes.” the suit said, adding that “Almost daily, Lampert humiliated and degraded Mitchell, yelling at her as if she was inferior and calling her: ‘stupid,’ ‘moron,’ ‘the dumbest person I ever met,’ ‘incompetent,’ and ‘idiot,’ ”. Elsewhere in the discrimination suit, she says she complained about the treatment to human resource managers — but her pleas for help were ignored.

In October 2012 the New York Post ran an article entitled 'Cantor, Moody's Dogfight' reporting on a 'feud' between the company and Moody's Investors Service. The article stated that Cantor Fitzgerald and Moody's had been feuding for months over differing opinions of Cantor's profitability. In July 2012 Cantor terminated its relationship with Moody's. In October 2012 the ratings agency dropped BGC's status to Ba2. In December 2012 Bloomberg reported that S&P cut Cantor to BBB- and left the rating for BGC Partners Inc., the company’s interdealer broker affiliate, unchanged at the lowest investment grade.

Two articles appeared in January 2013 written by Bloomberg journalist Zeke Faux. The first, dated January 8th was titled 'Cantor May Face Another Ratings Cut as Fitch Cites Slump' and quoted Mohak Rao, a Fitch analyst. Rao wrote in a report "Cantor’s institutional business and BGC’s financial brokerage business will remain challenged in the medium term because of lower trading volume”.

Two days later Zeke Faux published a second, much longer, article titled 'Cantor Growth Plan Sputters as 41% of Touted Hires Exit' citing that 41% of the 158 traders and bankers whose hirings Cantor announced in news releases since 2009 had left, according to industry records.

In 2012 the company became the title sponsor of the Masters snooker tournament.