BGC Partners Boosts Offer For GFI Group To $6.10 Per Share

(RTTNews) - BGC Partners, Inc. (BGCP) said Tuesday that it has increased its fully financed, all-cash tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of GFI Group Inc. (GFIG) to $6.10 per share.

BGC Partners also extended the expiration date for the tender offer to 5:00 PM ET on February 3, unless extended. The offer was previously scheduled to expire at 5:00 PM ET, on January 29.

BGC's revision to its cash offer of $6.10 per share represents a premium of $0.25, or about 4%, to the $5.85 per share stock and cash consideration offered by the CME Group Inc. (CME) and GFI management.

Additionally, BGC said that is delivering an executed agreement to the board of GFI that, if countersigned by GFI, provides that BGC would increase its fully financed, all-cash tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of GFI by an additional $0.10 per share.

The proposed revision to $6.20 per share would represent a premium of $0.35, or about 6%, to the $5.85 per share stock and cash consideration offered by CME and GFI management.

BGC has given the GFI special committee and board until 11:59 PM ET Tuesday to commence the "match period" under GFI's merger agreement with CME in order for GFI shareholders to receive the additional $0.10 per share.

As of 5:00 PM on January 16, about 13.9 million shares were tendered pursuant to the BGC offer. The 13.9 million tendered shares, together with the 17.1 million shares of GFI common stock already owned by BGC, represent about 24.4% of GFI's outstanding shares.

New York-based BGC Partners and CME Group are engaged in a bidding war for GFI Group since September 2014.

GFI shareholders are scheduled to vote on CME's offer on January 27.