GFI to Review Unsolicited Bid from BGC Partners

Interdealer broker GFI Group Inc. (GFIG), responding to a $675 million hostile bid from rival BGC Partners Inc. (BGCP), said a special board committee will review the offer.

GFI said its board continues to support a planned sale to CME Group Inc. (CME) for $580 million in stock, and advised shareholders not to take any action.

The company plans to advise stockholders of the committee's formal position by Nov. 4.

Late Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that BGC would launch a tender offer after an effort to strike a friendly deal foundered. BGC launched the $5.25-a-share offer Wednesday.

BGC's all-cash offer is 15% higher than the $4.55-a-share price that CME agreed in July to pay for GFI. Under that deal, CME would keep GFI's energy-trading platform, Trayport, and its pricing-and-data business, known as Fenics, and sell the firm's brokerage-and-clearing operation back to GFI executives.

BGC, which is run by Cantor Fitzgerald Chief Executive Howard Lutnick, said in September that it planned a tender offer. GFI's board said Sept. 15 that the offer was likely to lead to a "superior proposal" under the terms of its agreement with CME. But lawyers for the two sides in recent weeks hit an impasse in negotiations over a confidentiality agreement, the Journal reported.

- Liz Hoffman contributed to this article.

Write to Josh Beckerman at [e-mail]

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires