SELECT NEWS AND CLIPPINGS 2011
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
TEN YEAR COMMEMORATION OF 9/11
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
SELECT NEWS AND CLIPPINGS 2011
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
TEN YEAR COMMEMORATION OF 9/11
SELECT NEWS AND CLIPPINGS 2011
16
DAILY NEWS NYDailyNews.com
Sunday, August 14, 2011
A PROMISE KEPT
From tragedy,
Cantor commits
big to those it lost
N THE NIGHT of Sept. 11, 2001, Cantor
Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick picked
up the phone in his Manhattan apartment
and dialed into a conference call.
Lutnick’s brother, best friend and 656
other colleagues were dead. His firm, 960 people
strong a day earlier, was decimated.
Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick
rebuilt company after loss of hundreds of
employees in disaster, and ensured their
families would be taken care of financially.
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CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
O
BY RICH SCHAPIRO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
On the other end of the line
were some of the surviving Cantor employees.
“We have two choices,” Lutnick told them.
“We could shut the fi rm and
attend our friends’ funerals, or
we’re going to work
harder than we’ve
ever worked before to
help their families.”
The decision was
unanimous:
Cantor Fitzgerald, Wall
Street’s most venerable bond trading
firm, would rise from
the ashes.
The stakes were gargantuan.
Lutnick did not announce it then,
but he and the other surviving execs harbored grander plans.
They vowed to distribute 25%
of the firm’s profits to victims’
families for five years and provide
them with health benefits for 10.
Lutnick revealed the firm’s intentions on Sept. 19.
Ten years later, Cantor has
handed out more than $180 million to the families and fulfilled
its promise to pay their health
care.
“Cantor was very good to us,”
said Bonnie McEneaney whose
husband, Eamon, a senior vice
president and ex-lacrosse star,
perished in the attacks. “They
did a great job doing what they
said they’d do.”
To Lutnick, orphaned at 18
and shunned by his extended
family, it wasn’t an easy decision:
It was the only decision.
“I knew what hell was like and
this was my chance to do for the
families what my family did not
do for me,” Lutnick said from
the gleaming Park Ave. office
the firm moved into in 2007. “It
was a chance for me to express
my humanity.
“You couldn’t make any other
decision on Sept. 11,” added Lutnick, who was taking his son to
his first day of kindergarten when
the upper floors of the north tower
housing the Cantor
headquarters were
struck. “It couldn’t
be about work. It
couldn’t be about
money.”
Those fi rst few
days after the attack were pivotal.
To the awe of
Wall Street, Cantor
succeeded in getting its systems
running within 48 hours. Still,
the fi rm was hemorrhaging $1
million a day, Lutnick said.
E
mployees worked around
the clock in the firm’s London office and in a makeshift space in Rochelle
Park, N.J., sleeping in cots
lined up along a back wall.
On Sept. 13, the firm received
a lifeline from JPMorgan Chase
in the form of a $70 billion loan.
To salvage the fi rm, Cantor
execs made a stark decision: If
the boss of a business was dead,
it would not be reopened.
Among the casualties were the
corporate bonds and mortgagebacked securities units.
Cantor then went on a hiring
blitz, bringing on 35 people a
week to help rebuild its equities
and treasury businesses.
By 2004, the firm was on solid
footing.
“We decided to hit the gas,”
said Lutnick, who set a goal of
12 new hires a day.
A Cantor spinoff was formed,
BGC Partners, a brokerage that
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
DAIL
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S
TEN YEAR COMMEMORATION OF 9/11
set
emota.
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Charred from head to
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BY RICH SCHAPIRO
ANTHONY DELMUNDO
C
Peter Gadiel of Kent, Conn., lost his
son James (photo l.), and now runs
9/11 Families for a Secure America.
handled the dealer-to-dealer business wiped out on 9/11. Cantor,
meanwhile, focused on growing
as a financial services provider to
institutional markets.
B
GC hired 1,000 people in
2005, Lutnick said. Since
then, Cantor and BGC
have grown fast. Their
combined staffs total
1,500 people in New York.
BGC’s revenues topped $1.3
billion last year and the business
was poised for gains this year, Lutnick said.
Since Cantor Fitzgerald is private, Lutnick wouldn’t disclose its
finances, but analysts say the hiring blitz at the height of the recession shows the firm is thriving.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing.
Cantor took a hit during the financial crisis as a result of ballooning
defaults in home loans. Also, BGC
was among a group of brokerage
firms subpoenaed by then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo
in 2008 as part of an investigation into trading in credit default
swaps. No charges were filed.
While Lutnick and his other
top execs were rebuilding the firm,
658 families were adapting to life
without a loved one.
Among the Cantor staff-
ers killed was James Gadiel, a
23-year-old junior trader from
Connecticut.
Gadiel turned down several
higher-paid gigs to work at Cantor, calling it the “perfect job.”
His dad, Peter, was skeptical for
safety reasons. He feared terrorists would try again to strike the
twin towers.
After his fears were realized,
Peter Gadiel was crushed.
“For months after, I was in a
catatonic state,” said Gadiel, who
runs the group 9/11 Families for a
Secure America.
Gadiel is furious with the feds
for failing to protect his son, but
has only kind words for Cantor’s
chief executive.
“Howard went over and above,”
Gadiel said. “He’s done everything he can.”
Lutnick insists it’s people like
the Gadiels that motivate him and
his colleagues. For Lutnick, it’s a
family affair.
His sister, Edie, stepped in to
run the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief
Fund. Edie and Howard’s third
sibling, 34-year-old Gary Lutnick,
a Cantor managing director, died
in the attacks.
As the days creep toward the
10th anniversary of the city’s
darkest day, Lutnick says he often
thinks about all of the Cantor widows — women he describes as “the
most incredible people on Earth.”
Just this week, he received an
email from one of them.
“It is hard to believe that nearly
10 years have passed since my husband Dennis left for work and never returned home,” it read in part.
“It was the worst day of our lives.
As I reflect back on this time, I want
you to know how much my family
and I appreciate the help you have
provided to us and what a difference it has made in our lives.”
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
ANTOR FITZGERALD tax lawyer
Harry Waizer strolled into the World
Trade Center just before 8:46 a.m.
on Sept. 11, 2001, raring to start his
workday.
The then-50-year-old father of three staggered out minutes later — severely burned
from head to toe and his clothes in tatters.
Waizer had endured one of the most horrifying experiences imaginable: His elevator
suddenly went into a freefall and burst into
flames. Twice.
The soft-spoken Westchester man suffered
burns over most of his body, including in his
lungs. He would spend the next seven weeks
in a coma.
Still, Waizer was one of the very luckiest of
Cantor employees that day.
He survived.
“I was seconds away from joining my
friends on the 104th floor, and those seconds
were the difference between my survival and
my death,” said Waizer, now 60. “Yes, I feel
lucky.”
Initially, nothing seemed amiss as the elevator Waizer and a woman were in zipped
towards the tower’s 104th floor.
The elevator was nearing its destination
when it started to shake. Then,
without warning, it plummeted and erupted in flames.
“Everything
seemed
to be in slow motion,”
Waizer said. “There were
flames on the floor, carpeting, on the walls.”
He said he frantically
stamped out the fi re with
his canvas briefcase.
The elevator stopped
abruptly and then
started glid-
ing down toward the elevator bank on the
78th floor — but the horror was not over.
A few floors above, a fi re engulfed the elevator once again.
“A fi reball came in the gap of the door,
and this one caught me square in the face,”
Waizer said.
The fi re disappeared quickly, and then
the elevator doors opened to the 78th floor.
Waizer and the woman joined the flood of
shell-shocked workers marching down the
emergency stairs.
“At a moment like this, you’re not thinking deep thoughts. You are reacting,” Waizer
said. “What went through my head is, ‘I had
to get down and find help.’ That’s all I thought
about it. I had no thought about how injured
I might be.”
About one-third of the way down, an emergency worker spotted the badly burned pair
and cleared the path down for them.
After he was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center’s burn unit,
Waizer was put in a medically induced coma,
where he remained until the end of October.
Waizer awoke to the news that he had suffered third-degree burns across his face, arms,
hands and legs. He learned that terrorists had
slammed a plane into the tower. And then,
while lying in his hospital bed with his wife
standing over him, he got the worst news of
all: Most of his colleagues were dead.
“I started naming names, but I probably stopped after about a half-dozen,”
Waizer said. “I had had enough.”
Waizer underwent intensive rehab for
months and returned to Cantor in March
2004.
Waizer, who works about three days a
week, has back pain, nerve damage and
lacks strength in his left hand — but still
he counts himself fortunate.
“I recognize how close I
was,” he said.
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SELECT NEWS AND CLIPPINGS 2011
Harry Waizer
survived a WTC
elevator plunge
and two fi reballs.
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
TEN YEAR COMMEMORATION OF 9/11
8
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
SELECT NEWS AND CLIPPINGS 2011
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
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TEN YEAR COMMEMORATION OF 9/11
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
SELECT NEWS AND CLIPPINGS 2011
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
TEN YEAR COMMEMORATION OF 9/11
SELECT NEWS AND CLIPPINGS 2011
Opposite: a
Opposite: a
photograph of the photograph of the
twin towers covered
twin towers covered
with tributes. This with tributes. This
page: Howard W. page: Howard W.
Lutnick, chairman Lutnick, chairman
of Cantor Fitzgerald
of Cantor Fitzgerald
THE CHAIRMAN
‘I wrote
a couple
of thousand
THE CHAIRMAN
‘I wrote
a couple
of thousand
condolence
notes.notes.
I did itI from
5am’to 5am’
condolence
did it2am
fromto2am
42
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CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
3 September3 2011
September 2011
3 September3 2011
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30/09/2011 12:40
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30/09/2011 12:40
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CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
TEN YEAR COMMEMORATION OF 9/11
SELECT NEWS AND CLIPPINGS 2011
THE CHAIRMAN
PAGE 41: ARISTIDE ECONOMOPOULOS/CORBIS. PAGE 42: MICHEL SETBOUN/CORBIS. THIS PAGE: PETER MORGAN/REUTERS
Howard W. Lutnick is chairman and CEO
of the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald,
the hardest-hit company on September 11:
658 of its employees – including Lutnik’s
brother, Gary, and his best friend, Doug
Gardner – were killed in the northern tower.
Lutnick, who is married with four children,
faced controversy in the weeks after the
tragedy when the company was accused
of not doing enough to compensate victims’
relatives. He is also chairman and CEO
of the brokerage firm BGC Partners, Inc.
“If I could somehow do it all over again,
I would stand by the doors of the World Trade
Centre and not let anyone in. It’s so hard to
square what happened to our firm; it’s not
possible for all of these people to have been
killed together. We hired people we liked.
Inside Cantor we really were a great group of
people who cared for each other, combining
friends and co-workers in a special way. What
other firm employs 48 sets of brothers?
“After September 11, the purpose of our
business became to support the families
of those who died. For a long time I couldn’t
say the number 658 without crying. I was
not capable of dealing with the magnitude.
Someone would ask what had happened to
someone who had died, and I would see them
in my mind’s eye and that was the moment
they were killed. I would tell myself, ‘Pull
yourself together,’ but it would happen
again and again and it went on for months.
“That morning, I was taking my son Kyle
to his first day of kindergarten. The school
administrator told me a plane had hit the
building. Immediately I knew I had to go get
my guys, help my friends. As we drove down
Fifth Avenue, I could see one tower burning.
I knew right away it was ours. It was instantly
horrible. The driver was crying, ‘It’s bad, it’s
bad,’ all the way. I got to the doorway of the
building and grabbed people as they came out,
asking what floor they were from. I wanted to
hear that someone had made it out from ours.
“If the northern tower, our building,
had collapsed first, I wouldn’t be here. When
the southern tower collapsed it sounded
gargantuan, combining the roar of a jet engine
and a giant creak, like the boat in Titanic.
Everyone ran. This tornado of black smoke
seemed to be chasing me. I dived under a car,
certain I was going to die. I didn’t know what
was in the air, but I knew instinctively not to
breathe. I thought: ‘I was uptown. I was safe.
Now I’m gonna die, son of a gun, I’m gonna
die.’ The world was black and silent. I didn’t
know if I was blind or deaf. Then I saw my
hand, and as the world became grey, I knew
I was alive and had to get out of there.
“Over the next few weeks, every time I saw
someone who worked for us or had worked
for us I was so ecstatic I grabbed their face
and kissed them. I wrote 2,000 condolence
notes. I did it from 2am to 5am. I was having
nightmares, so I wrote these notes, sometimes
five pages if I knew the person. I would tell
stories about them, thinking their children
would want the notes some day.
“Of course, I had survivor guilt. I wasn’t
responsible for what happened to those who
had died, but I was responsible for helping
their families. That’s what drove me and the
employees. I could not have cared less about
work. Going home and hugging my wife and
family was the number one thing I wanted to
do. The only reason to work was to help the
families. To the surviving employees I said:
‘We can either shut the firm and go to 20
funerals on 35 days in a row, or work harder
than we ever have for the families.’ Our
London office was the reason we survived.
I don’t know if all those who brought us
flowers or sent us food realised how their
care and love helped us to survive. Amazingly,
we were able to be a profitable company
in the first full quarter after 9/11.
“Early on I said that the best way to show
people who were killed that we loved them
was to care for those they loved. In October
‘A tornado of black smoke
seemed to be chasing
me. I dived under a car,
certain I was going to die’
A burnt police car outside
the World Trade Centre
following the attacks
there was a brief period where the media
questioned our commitment. But I didn’t
mishandle it. I would do it the same way
again. We were so decimated we could
not afford to make mistakes. We only
had criticism from people who didn’t know
our plan. With 20/20 hindsight this is what
happened. Let’s say we’d written to a young
woman who lost her husband. But our human
relations department has been wiped out, so
we’d written to her at her last-known address
– it might not even be current – and anyway,
she’s staying at her mother’s. She doesn’t know
we have offered 10 years of healthcare and
a minimum of $100,000 per family. With
658 families affected, that’s $65 million.
“That young woman might have felt
we hadn’t done anything for her yet, and
of course we hadn’t. But we would. We
calculated what we needed to survive, then
distributed the money to the families. The
figure exceeded everyone’s expectations. We
gave 25 per cent of our profits to the families.
The surviving workers never let down their
dead colleagues in working to support their
families. We had so many people join us
afterwards. They knew we were in a tough
spot and they probably earned less money
than they could have gotten elsewhere, but
they accepted that we had to take care of the
families. There was a relief fund, a victims’
compensation fund; I held ‘town hall’
meetings. My wife set up support groups.
“I always felt I would have time to grieve
for my brother later. He was mine, he was
inside me. I didn’t plan his memorial for
months; I didn’t bury the fragments of his
bones for almost a year. I had too much to
do. I had to go to so many funerals. I had to
make sure the firm was capable of caring for
these families. I had a spectacular relationship
with my brother – I always did. I didn’t really
have any unfinished business with him. He
knew I loved him and how much I loved him.
He helped me because, ultimately, I was able
to really talk to the families who had lost
loved ones because I was one of them.
“Every September 11 we hold a memorial
service. We read the names of everyone
who died. We have a special charity day
every year and a day when everyone forgoes
their pay for the day to raise money. We have
tried to turn a difficult day into something
beautiful. I am proud of how we took care of
the families, proud that so many children of
those who died have come to work for us.
It’s an extraordinary compliment. We are
the world’s pre-eminent middle-market
investor bank; BGC is the No 2 in the
world in the inter-dealer broker market. I am
honoured to be associated with both. In the
worst of circumstances, these employees
covered themselves in glory. It makes me
proud every day to walk in the door.”
The Times Magazine 45
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3 September 2011
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
30/09/2011 12:40
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CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS
TEN YEAR COMMEMORATION OF 9/11
U.S. securities firm Cantor, Majority of employees victims
Interview with CEO Lutnick
The American securities company Cantor Fitzgerald, which had its offices in the 101st through 105th floors of World
Trade Center’s North Tower, suffered devastating damage in the simultaneous terrorist attacks, losing 658 of its
960 employees. We interviewed CEO Howard Lutnick about the struggles to rebuild the company and support
victims’ families.
----What were you doing on 9/11?
“I was just about to enter the building of my son’s kindergarten, where he was starting his first day, when
I received news by phone that the first plane had struck the WTC. I immediately rushed to the site and
found many people running out from the building.
“In an effort to ascertain the safety of our employees, I asked people at random what floor they had just
come down from. But the highest floor among all the people I stopped was the 92nd floor.”
----What is the background behind your decision to rebuild the company?
“I asked every employee on the 11th about their choice, between closing the company or rebuilding. The
result was, it was their unanimous choice to rebuild.
Unanimous decision to rebuild
Firm now larger than before the incident
“All of the employees who were working in those offices had died and our computer system was
completely destroyed, so it was unclear whether it would be possible to restart business. Attending 30
funerals a day for 25 straight days was hard beyond imagination, but rebuilding the company was almost
as difficult.
“With employees from our branch offices in New Jersey and abroad sleeping on their office floors, the
company’s rebuilding was on track by the 19th. At that point we announced that 25% of the company’s
profits over the next 5 years, as well as medical insurance for the next 10 years, would be provided to
families of the deceased. The primary purpose of rebuilding the company was to provide support to the
victims’ families. We recorded a slight profit in the October-December quarter of 2001, and were able to
provide to families an initial payment of $45 million at year’s end, and payments of $180 million over 5
years.”
----What difficulties did you face in the rebuilding?
“It was a very urgent situation. We were hiring at a pace of 35 per week, and my role was to simply ask
in the final interview if they could start work the following week. We also have several tens of employees
who are family of those who died. That self-assertive 22, 23-year-old youths would say that they want to
work at this company, where their parents’ lives were sacrificed, is a priceless thing. Now the number of
employees in New York is 1500, which is more than before 9/11.
“Providing emotional support toward victims’ families was just as important as the rebuilding the
company. My wife started up a support group for female family members of victims, who were pregnant
or had small children. I suffered from sleeplessness and hand-wrote 1700 letters of condolence deep in
the night. These were letters addressed to wives, parents and children of the 658 victims.”
----What is the company’s next goal?
“We have been able to accomplish our initial goal of supporting victims’ families. The next goal is to
repay the employees who have worked so hard. We have split off a portion of our business and listed it
on the stock market, but one option is to go public with the main company when the time comes.”
----Please offer counsel to people struggling in the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake.
“Think about what happiness is for yourselves and your families, and live to realize it. For example if the
restoration of fisheries will bring happiness, I’d want people to work hard to realize that. Helping the
families of 9/11 victims is what was important and led to happiness for me, so this is what I have worked
for.”
Photo caption:
Entered Cantor firm in 1983, immediately upon graduation from university. Took up office as President and CEO in 1991, and
has held his current position since 1996. Lost his younger brother, who worked for the same firm, in the simultaneous terror
attacks. Also serves as a director of the National 9/11 Museum. Lives with wife and 4 children. Age 50.
CANTOR FITZGERALD | BGC PARTNERS