Cantor Fitzgerald And BGC Partners' Michael Lehrman To Be Honored As This Year's Urban Hero

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Partners, Inc. ("BGC"), parent company of real estate powerhouse Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, today announced that Michael Lehrman, Global Head of Real Estate, will be presented with the Urban Heroes Award on November 5, 2012, at the Catalog for Giving of New York City's 17^th Annual Urban Heroes Awards Benefit. All proceeds from the event will benefit The Catalog for Giving's twelve member organizations.

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Every three years, The Catalog for Giving of New York City chooses a select group of new youth organizations to support. The twelve organizations currently benefiting from the Catalog for Giving's commitment to supporting disadvantaged youth include: Breakthrough New York; Children of Promise; Generation Citizen; Girls for Gender Equity; Girls Write Now; I Challenge Myself; NY Web Center; Opening Act; Resilience Advocacy Project; ROW New York; Stoked; Time in Children's Art Initiative. Over the past ten years, The Catalog for Giving has helped over 150,000 children in New York City.

"For me, helping my four young children understand charitable giving, giving back to the community and helping others is paramount. I want them to see that all children should be inspired, successful and aspire to be leaders in our New York City community," said Mr. Lehrman. He continued: "I've been committed to helping disadvantaged New York City youth for a long time, so I jumped at the opportunity to participate with The Catalog for Giving, an organization many of my real estate colleagues have long supported."

Mr. Lehrman noted that The Catalog for Giving recently participated in Cantor Fitzgerald/BGC's 2012 Charity Day as one of the organizations to which Cantor Fitzgerald/BGC donated 100% of their global revenues on the day, commemorating their employees who perished in the World Trade Center attacks. Mr. Lehrman hopes that the New York community will also help the Catalog for Giving's charitable efforts NOW by visiting www.catalogforgiving.org and helping this great organization.

About Mr. Lehrman

Mr. Lehrman serves as Global Head of Real Estate for BGC Partners, Vice-Chairman and Co-Founder of Cantor Commercial Real Estate and Executive Managing Director of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. He is responsible for BGC's real estate platform and led the acquisitions of Newmark Knight Frank, and the assets of Grubb & Ellis, and the integration of these companies into real estate powerhouse, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank.

Prior to joining BGC, Mr. Lehrman was a Managing Director at Credit Suisse, and Co-Head of the Credit Suisse Real Estate Direct Group completing over $100 billion in North American real estate loan origination and over $30 billion of high yield real estate debt and equity distribution.  Mr. Lehrman oversaw the expansion of the business in the US, Mexico, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East, with offices in Dubai and Mexico City. 

Mr. Lehrman is a graduate of Columbia Business School where he received an MBA in both Real Estate and Finance, New York University Graduate School of Business where he received a diploma in Real Estate, and Carnegie-Mellon University where he received dual Bachelor of Science degrees in both Industrial Management and Managerial Economics.

About BGC Partners/Newmark Grubb Knight Frank

BGC Partners, Inc., a leading global brokerage company primarily servicing the wholesale financial and real estate markets, conducts over $200 trillion in financial transactions for customers annually. BGC offers customers over 220 products, including commercial real estate, fixed income securities, interest rate swaps, foreign exchange, equities, equity derivatives, credit derivatives, commodities, futures, and structured products.

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, part of BGC Partners, is one of the world's leading commercial real estate advisory firms, providing a fully integrated platform of services to prominent multinational corporations and institutional investors and to owners and users of real estate on a local, regional and national level.

Headquartered in New York, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, together with its affiliates and London-based partner Knight Frank, employs more than 11,000 professionals, operating from more than 300 offices in established and emerging property markets on five continents. Through its global platform, Newmark Grubb Knight Frank serves the property requirements of tenants, landlords, investors and developers worldwide.

For more information, please visit www.bgcpartners.com.

About Cantor Fitzgerald

Cantor Fitzgerald, a leading global financial services firm at the forefront of financial and technological innovation, has been a proven and resilient leader for over 65 years. Cantor is a preeminent capital markets investment bank serving more than 5,000 institutional clients around the world, recognized for its strengths in institutional equity and fixed income sales and trading and for its expanding presence serving the middle market with investment and banking services, prime brokerage, and commercial real estate financing. Cantor Fitzgerald also is a leader in new businesses including advisory and asset management services, gaming technology, e-commerce and other ventures. Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. is one of 21 primary dealers authorized to trade U.S. government securities with The Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Cantor Fitzgerald's 1,600 employees serve clients through over 30 locations, including major financial centers around the world in the Americas, Europe, Asia/Pacific, and the Middle East. For more information please visit www.cantor.com.

Note to Editors: Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. is the parent entity of Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.

About Cantor Commercial Real Estate (CCRE)

Cantor Commercial Real Estate, an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., is a fully-integrated commercial real estate finance company providing innovative financing solutions to the real estate capital markets. CCRE originates competitively underwritten fixed- and floating-rate mortgages and mezzanine loans secured by diverse asset types in most major U.S. markets. CCRE is capitalized by strong institutional sponsorship including affiliates of CIM Group and Cantor Fitzgerald & Co., and is led by an experienced team of real estate professionals with extensive track records originating, structuring, managing and distributing commercial real estate loans in various economic cycles. Its three founding partners are Anthony Orso, Steven Kantor and Michael Lehrman, who have worked together for over ten years managing a leading real estate lending and distribution platform before joining Cantor Fitzgerald. The CCRE management team includes seasoned professionals with a deep network of borrower, broker, and banking relationships.

About The Catalog for Giving

The Catalog for Giving is an eighteen-year-old venture charity dedicated to transforming the lives of at-risk NYC youth by identifying, nurturing, and funding innovative start-up organizations that provide education and life skill development for disadvantaged children. The Catalog serves like a fund-of funds for generous individuals and foundations interested in supporting a variety of these types of grassroots programs, but lacking the expertise to find them on their own. Our organizations are small and young, generally, flying beneath the radar screen of traditional funders.  Thanks to our careful vetting, mentoring and monitoring, we have a terrific history of supporting programs that succeed and expand, serving thousands of children for years to come. With a special focus on education and life skill development, the programs that make up The Catalog for the three year period of 2012-2014 are Breakthrough New York, Children of Promise, Generation Citizen, Girls for Gender Equity, Girls Write Now, I Challenge Myself, New York WEB Center, Opening Act, Resilience Advocacy Project, Row New York, Stoked and Time In Children's Arts Initiative.  Please visit www.catalogforgiving.org to learn more about The Catalog for Giving and our twelve member programs.

SOURCE Cantor Fitzgerald; BGC Partners, Inc.