BGC Partners Plans To Commence Tender Offer To Buy GFI Group For $5.25/shr

(RTTNews) - BGC Partners Inc. (BGCP) said that it plans to commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of GFI Group Inc. (GFIG) for $5.25 per share in cash in a transaction valued at about $675 million.

BGC'S offer of $5.25 per share in cash represents more than a 15% premium to the $4.55 per share all-stock transaction announced by CME Group and GFI Group on July 30, 2014 and more than a 68% premium to the price of GFI Group shares on July 29, 2014, the last day prior to the announcement of the CME transaction.

BGC said it remains willing to engage directly with the Board of GFI Group to negotiate a transaction. However, GFI Group's prior refusal to engage in such discussions requires BGC to take its superior, all-cash offer directly to shareholders.

In late July, CME Group said it agreed to acquire Fenics and Trayport businesses of GFI Group Inc.

The deal was a two-step transaction. First, CME would acquire GFI Group for $580 million and assume $240 million in debt. Then, a consortium of GFI Group management, led by current Executive Chairman Michael Gooch and CEO Colin Heffron, would acquire GFI Group's wholesale brokerage and clearing businesses for $165 million in cash and the assumption, at closing, of about $63 million of unvested deferred compensation and other liabilities.