Cantor Fitzgerald Plans a Hiring Spree as Businesses Grow

(Bloomberg) -- Cantor Fitzgerald LP, the brokerage run by Chief Executive Officer Howard Lutnick, is planning a hiring spree as it looks to boost market share in its equities and investment-banking businesses. 

“At this time of the year, you rarely see this type of a hiring agenda and acceleration of growth,” Pascal Bandelier, Cantor’s global head of equities, said in an interview. “We’re encouraged by what we’re seeing, so we’re moving forward.” 

Cantor Fitzgerald is broadening an expansion that started with Anshu Jain joining as president in 2017. Bandelier, who was hired in the early months of Jain’s tenure, said his team has added almost 20 people in the past year alone, including in investment banking. That’s on top of “multiple hundreds of hires in the last couple of years,” he said. 

The hiring is being driven by a surge in performance at the closely held firm, Bandelier said. The equities business has grown by more than 200% since 2017, he said, declining to disclose more specific figures. In just the past year, risk arbitrage and special purpose acquisition vehicle trading have doubled, he said.

Hires are being made both in the U.S. and abroad, Bandelier said. A dozen workers are expected to join the technology, media and telecommunications business as Cantor seeks more work in that sector after previously building out health-care banking. The equities business will grow by as many as 25 people, including in sales, Bandelier said. The firm has recently added talent for risk arbitrage as well. 

Cantor is looking to expand in public and private capital markets, Bandelier said, while also adding bankers for special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs -- an area in which Cantor ranks among the top three firms, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That comes even as the boom in blank-check companies shows signs of cooling from record issuance earlier this year.

“We’re doing the opposite of shying away -- we’re investing more resources,” Bandelier said. “It should give you the conviction that, despite a pause in the SPAC markets over the last six months, we have a lot of conviction as a firm that this way of going public will be a very important feature going forward.”

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