BGC Partners has increased its offer for the GFI Group, the New York brokerage firm and clearinghouse, in an effort to wrest the company from the arms of its chosen suitor, the operator of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade.
The all-cash offer of $6.10 a share tops an offer of $5.85 a share in cash and stock from the exchange operator CME Group, which was approved by the board of GFI last month.
BGC, a New York-based brokerage firm headed by Howard W. Lutnick, the chairman and chief executive of Cantor Fitzgerald, urged GFI shareholders to vote against the CME deal next Tuesday and to tender their shares into its offer.
CME agreed to acquire in GFI in July. As part of the two-step deal, GFI’s wholesale brokerage business would be sold to a group led by GFI’s management.
Shares of GFI were up more than 6 percent in early afternoon trading on Tuesday.