UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 8-K

CURRENT REPORT

PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d)

OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

Date of Report (Date of Earliest Event Reported): October 26, 2017

BGC Partners, Inc.

(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

499 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022

(Address of principal executive offices)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (212) 610-2200

Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions:

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is an emerging growth company as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act of 1933 (§230.405 of this chapter) or Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (§240.12b-2 of this chapter).

On October 26, 2017, BGC Partners, Inc. (the “Registrant,” “we,” “us,” “BGC Partners,” “BGC,” or the “Company”) issued a press release announcing its financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2017.    A copy of the press release is attached as Exhibit 99.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K and is incorporated by reference herein.

Except as indicated below, the information in this Item 2.02 and Exhibit 99.1 attached to this Current Report on Form 8-K are being furnished under Item 2.02 of Form 8-K. Such information shall not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section, nor shall it be deemed incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), or the Exchange Act, except as expressly set forth by specific reference in such filing and as set forth below.

In the press release, the Registrant uses non-GAAP financial measures including, but not limited to, “pre-tax distributable earnings” and “post-tax distributable earnings”, which are supplemental measures of operating results that are used by management to evaluate the financial performance of the Company and its consolidated subsidiaries. BGC believes that distributable earnings best reflect the operating earnings generated by the Company on a consolidated basis and are the earnings which management considers available for, among other things, distribution to BGC Partners, Inc. and its common stockholders, as well as to holders of BGC Holdings partnership units during any period.

As compared with “income (loss) from operations before income taxes”, and “net income (loss) per fully diluted share”, all prepared in accordance with GAAP, distributable earnings calculations primarily exclude certain non-cash compensation and other expenses that generally do not involve the receipt or outlay of cash by the Company and/or which do not dilute existing stockholders, as described below. In addition, distributable earnings calculations exclude certain gains and charges that management believes do not best reflect the ordinary operating results of BGC.

Adjustments Made to Calculate Pre-Tax Distributable Earnings

Pre-tax distributable earnings are defined as GAAP income (loss) from operations before income taxes and noncontrolling interest in subsidiaries excluding items, such as:

Distributable earnings also excludes non-cash GAAP gains attributable to originated mortgage servicing rights (“OMSRs”) and non-cash GAAP amortization of mortgage servicing rights (“MSRs”). The Company recognizes OMSR gains equal to the fair value of servicing rights retained on mortgage loans originated and sold. Newmark amortizes MSRs in proportion to the

net servicing revenue expected to be earned. Subsequent to the initial recording, MSRs are amortized and carried at the lower of amortized cost or fair value. However, it is expected that cash received with respect to these servicing rights, net of associated expenses, will increase pre-tax Adjusted Earnings in future periods.

Distributable earnings calculations also exclude certain unusual, one-time or non-recurring items, if any. These charges are excluded from distributable earnings because the Company views excluding such charges as a better reflection of the ongoing, ordinary operations of BGC.

In addition to the above items, allocations of net income to founding/working partner and other limited partnership units are excluded from calculations of pre-tax distributable earnings. Such allocations represent the pro-rata portion of pre-tax earnings available to such unit holders. These units are in the fully diluted share count, and are exchangeable on a one-to-one basis into common stock. As these units are exchanged into common shares, unit holders become entitled to cash dividends rather than cash distributions. The Company views such allocations as intellectually similar to dividends on common shares. Because dividends paid to common shares are not an expense under GAAP, management believes similar allocations of income to unit holders should also be excluded when calculating distributable earnings performance measures.

BGC’s definition of distributable earnings also excludes certain gains and charges with respect to acquisitions, dispositions, or resolutions of litigation. This includes the one-time gains related to the Nasdaq and Trayport transactions. Management believes that excluding such gains and charges also best reflects the ongoing operating performance of BGC.

However, the payments associated with BGC’s expected annual receipt of Nasdaq stock and related mark-to-market gains or losses are anticipated to be included in the Company’s calculation of distributable earnings for the following reasons:

To make period-to-period comparisons more meaningful, one-quarter of each annual Nasdaq contingent payment amount, as well as gains or losses with respect to associated mark-to-market movements and/or hedging, will be included in the Company’s calculation of distributable earnings each quarter as “Other income”.

The Company also treats gains or losses related to mark-to-market movements and/or hedging with respect to any remaining shares of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (“ICE”) in a consistent manner with the treatment of Nasdaq shares when calculating distributable earnings.

Investors and analysts should note that, due to the large gain recorded with respect to the Trayport sale in December 2015, and the closing of the back-end merger with GFI in January 2016, non-cash charges related to the amortization of intangibles with respect to acquisitions are also excluded from the calculation of pre-tax distributable earnings.

Adjustments Made to Calculate Post-Tax Distributable Earnings

Since distributable earnings are calculated on a pre-tax basis, management intends to also report post-tax distributable earnings to fully diluted shareholders. Post-tax distributable earnings to fully diluted shareholders are defined as pre-tax distributable earnings, less noncontrolling interest in subsidiaries, and reduced by the provision for taxes as described below.

The Company’s calculation of the provision for taxes on an annualized basis starts with the GAAP income tax provision, adjusted to reflect tax-deductible items. Management uses this non-GAAP provision for taxes in part to help it to evaluate, among other things, the overall performance of the business, make decisions with respect to the Company’s operations, and to determine the amount of dividends paid to common shareholders.

The provision for taxes with respect to distributable earnings includes additional tax-deductible items including limited partnership unit exchange or conversion, employee loan amortization, charitable contributions, and certain net-operating loss carryforwards.

BGC incurs income tax expenses based on the location, legal structure and jurisdictional taxing authorities of each of its subsidiaries. Certain of the Company’s entities are taxed as U.S. partnerships and are subject to the Unincorporated Business Tax (“UBT”) in New York City. Any U.S. federal and state income tax liability or benefit related to the partnership income or loss, with the exception of UBT, rests with the unit holders rather than with the partnership entity. The Company’s consolidated financial statements include U.S. federal, state and local income taxes on the Company’s allocable share of the U.S. results of operations. Outside of the U.S., BGC operates principally through subsidiary corporations subject to local income taxes. For these reasons, taxes for distributable earnings are presented to show the tax provision the consolidated Company would expect to pay if 100 percent of earnings were taxed at global corporate rates.

Calculations of Pre-tax and Post-Tax Distributable Earnings per Share

BGC’s distributable earnings per share calculations assume either that:

The share count for distributable earnings excludes shares expected to be issued in future periods but not yet eligible to receive dividends and/or distributions.

Each quarter, the dividend to BGC’s common stockholders is expected to be determined by the Company’s Board of Directors with reference to a number of factors, including post-tax distributable earnings per fully diluted share. In addition to the Company’s quarterly dividend to

common stockholders, BGC Partners expects to pay a pro-rata distribution of net income to BGC Holdings founding/working partner and other limited partnership units, as well as to Cantor for its non-controlling interest. The amount of this net income, and therefore of these payments, is expected to be determined using the above definition of pre-tax distributable earnings per share.

Other Matters with Respect to Distributable Earnings

The term “distributable earnings” should not be considered in isolation or as an alternative to GAAP net income (loss). The Company views distributable earnings as a metric that is not indicative of liquidity or the cash available to fund its operations, but rather as a performance measure.

Pre- and post-tax distributable earnings are not intended to replace the Company’s presentation of GAAP financial results. However, management believes that they help provide investors with a clearer understanding of BGC Partners’ financial performance and offer useful information to both management and investors regarding certain financial and business trends related to the Company’s financial condition and results of operations. Management believes that distributable earnings and the GAAP measures of financial performance should be considered together.

BGC anticipates providing forward-looking quarterly guidance for GAAP revenues and for certain distributable earnings measures from time to time. However, the Company does not anticipate providing a quarterly outlook for other GAAP results. This is because certain GAAP items, which are excluded from distributable earnings, are difficult to forecast with precision before the end of each quarter. The Company therefore believes that it is not possible to forecast quarterly GAAP results or to quantitatively reconcile GAAP results to non-GAAP results with sufficient precision unless BGC makes unreasonable efforts.

The items that are difficult to predict on a quarterly basis with precision and which can have a material impact on the Company’s GAAP results include, but are not limited, to the following:

For more information on this topic, please see certain tables in BGC’s most recent quarterly financial results press release including “Reconciliation of GAAP Income (Loss) to Distributable Earnings”. These tables provide summary reconciliations between pre- and post-tax distributable earnings and the corresponding GAAP measures for the Company.

In addition, pre-tax distributable earnings for the Real Estate Services Business and for the consolidated Company will exclude any non-cash provision or benefit related to risk-sharing obligations, net of charge-offs.

Adjusted EBITDA Defined

BGC also provides an additional non-GAAP financial performance measure, “adjusted EBITDA”, which it defines as GAAP “Net income (loss) available to common stockholders”, adjusted to add back the following items:

The Company also discloses “Adjusted EBITDA before allocations to units”, which is Adjusted EBITDA excluding GAAP charges with respect to allocations of net income to limited partnership units. Such allocations represent the pro-rata portion of pre-tax earnings available to such unit holders. These units are in the fully diluted share count, and are exchangeable on a one-to-one basis into common stock. As these units are exchanged into common shares, unit holders become entitled to cash dividends rather than cash distributions. The Company views such allocations as intellectually similar to dividends on common shares. Because dividends paid to common shares are not an expense under GAAP, management believes similar allocations of income to unit holders should also be excluded by investors when analyzing BGC’s results on a fully diluted share basis with respect to Adjusted EBITDA.

The Company’s management believes that these adjusted EBITDA measures are useful in evaluating BGC’s operating performance, because the calculation of this measure generally eliminates the effects of financing and income taxes and the accounting effects of capital spending and acquisitions, which would include impairment charges of goodwill and intangibles created from acquisitions. Such items may vary for different companies for reasons unrelated to overall operating performance. As a result, the Company’s management uses these measures to evaluate operating performance and for other discretionary purposes. BGC believes that adjusted EBITDA is useful to investors to assist them in getting a more complete picture of the Company’s financial results and operations.

Since these Adjusted EBITDA measures are not recognized measurements under GAAP, investors should use these measures in addition to GAAP measures of net income when analyzing BGC’s operating performance. Because not all companies use identical EBITDA calculations, the Company’s presentation of these Adjusted EBITDA measures are may not be comparable to similarly titled measures of other companies. Furthermore, these Adjusted

EBITDA measures are not intended to be a measure of free cash flow or GAAP cash flow from operations, because these Adjusted EBITDA measures do not consider certain cash requirements, such as tax and debt service payments.

For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP “Net income (loss) available to common stockholders”, the most comparable financial measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP, see the section of BGC’s most recent quarterly financial results press release titled “Reconciliation of GAAP Income (Loss) to Adjusted EBITDA”.

Liquidity Defined

BGC also uses a non-GAAP measure called “liquidity”. The Company considers liquidity to be comprised of the sum of cash and cash equivalents plus marketable securities that have not been financed, reverse repurchase agreements, and securities owned, less securities loaned and repurchase agreements. BGC considers this an important metric for determining the amount of cash that is available or that could be readily available to the Company on short notice.

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities.

The information set forth under the heading “Dividend Information” set forth in Exhibit 99.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K is being filed under Item 2.02 of Form 8-K and shall be deemed incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act, except as expressly set forth by specific reference in such filing. All other information set forth in Exhibit 99.1 is being furnished.

Discussion of Forward-Looking Statements about BGC Partners

Statements in this document and in the financial results press release for the quarter ended September 30, 2017 regarding BGC that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements” that involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, BGC undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For a discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see BGC’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors set forth in the most recent Form 10-K and any updates to such risk factors contained in subsequent Forms 10-Q or Forms 8-K.

EXHIBIT INDEX

SIGNATURES

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this report on Form 8-K to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

[Signature Page to Form 8-K, dated October 26, 2017, regarding the Company’s

third quarter 2017 Earnings Release.]