Bloomberg: Feasting on Crypto Gains? Trump Commerce Secretary's Family Rakes in $2.5 Billion in One Year
Original Title: Howard Lutnick's Sons Score Record Year as Cantor Denies Trump Conflicts
Original Author: Todd Gillespie, Bloomberg
Original Translation: Luffy, Foresight News
On Cantor Fitzgerald LP's year-end expense report this year, there may be a special item.
“As I was leaving the office, I jokingly told someone that I'd gladly buy him a fold-up bed because he's coming in on Sunday and not leaving until Friday,” said 53-year-old Cantor Investment Bank Co-CEO Sage Kelly in an interview at the firm's New York office.
The New York-based boutique private financial firm, which has steadily climbed the Wall Street rankings, seized the opportunity of the cryptocurrency craze, revived its special purpose acquisition company (SPAC)-driven dealmaking, and is having its busiest and most successful year ever.
Currently controlled by brothers Brandon Lutnick and Kyle Lutnick, Cantor saw their father Howard Lutnick join the Donald Trump administration earlier this year as Commerce Secretary. Sources say the firm is on track to surpass $2.5 billion in revenue by 2025, a historic high representing over a 25% increase from last year.
Left to Right: Pascal Bandelier, Christian Wall, Kyle Lutnick, Brandon Lutnick, Sage Kelly, photographed at the company's New York office
“Industry titans like Howard, steadfast figures, working here for 40 years, running the company for 30, his departure inevitably leaves a huge void,” said Kelly. He, along with Pascal Bandelier and Christian Wall, serves as Co-CEO overseeing the firm's operations. “But the entire company stepped up and succeeded—credit to Brandon and to Kyle as well.”
Executives have expressed aversion to the notion that "Washington connections have helped Cantor succeed." They argue that Cantor's success was not incidental but was achieved through a lean team and years of proactive preparation in areas that traditional banks have shunned.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the company's 250 traders are expected to generate over $1 billion in revenue. Based on data from Coalition Greenwich, each banker contributes about $4 million in revenue, a level of efficiency roughly twice that of Wall Street's large institutions.
A Cantor spokesperson declined to comment on the company's financial performance.
This year, Cantor led the industry in the number of U.S. IPOs underwritten and ranked fifth in all U.S. stock issuance deals, surpassing established institutions such as Barclays and Citigroup. The company's trading business is thriving, with most clients coming from overseas; additionally, Cantor is poised to acquire the O'Connor hedge fund from UBS Group by year-end. However, the deal faced a last-minute setback due to losses in a business related to the bankruptcy of auto parts supplier First Brands Group.
Cantor has also hired bankers with plans to expand into the German market and participate in the wave of mergers and acquisitions among U.S. regional banks (of which there are approximately 4,000 in the U.S.). Another target market is the Middle East: Cantor has established a banking team in Dubai and is preparing to enter Abu Dhabi, aiming to introduce stock sales and trading, as well as investment banking services, to the region.
Most of Cantor's revenue surge comes from cryptocurrency-related trades, including providing financing services to multibillion-dollar crypto treasury companies; in addition, the company laid the groundwork in earlier years for now-thriving areas such as rare earth minerals, quantum computing, robotics, and data centers, which have also yielded substantial returns.
Howard Lutnick joined President Donald Trump's administration earlier this year, serving as Secretary of Commerce
"The global top five core themes happen to align with our five largest investments over the past three to four years," said 46-year-old Bandelier. He also serves as head of equities, with the department's revenue expected to double by 2025 from the high water mark in 2008.
After taking over the majority ownership of the company along with their younger siblings, the Lutnick brothers drew widespread attention from Wall Street and Washington. Executives dismissed conflict of interest accusations, stating that they now operate the company independently of Howard and had long positioned themselves in these inevitably hot sectors, with current profits being a natural outcome.
“I assure you, we did not get here by chance,” Kelly said. “It's easy for competitors to say so because they are not involved in our day-to-day operations and do not understand the hardships involved.”
On Tuesday, at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton hotel in Miami Beach, Brandon Lutnick described to an audience the recent busy period the family had gone through.
“My brother Kyle and I have always looked forward to being in these positions, but it all happened much sooner than we expected,” said 27-year-old Brandon. He serves as the Chairman and CEO of the parent company, with his 29-year-old brother Kyle as the Vice Chairman. “For our company, this year has been a stellar one.”
The previous evening, Brandon hosted a dinner where he sat next to former presidential cryptocurrency advisor Bo Hines and cryptocurrency exchange founders, the Winklevoss brothers. Crypto asset supporter and TV personality Kevin O'Leary, known for the show "Shark Tank," also sat beside him.
Cantor also partnered with long-time client Tether, planning to launch a stablecoin in the U.S.; acting as the company's financial advisor (Cantor is also an investor in Tether), aiding in its fundraising efforts. This funding round could value Tether at up to $5 trillion, bringing Cantor billions in profits. Additionally, the Genius Act passed by the Trump administration in July established a regulatory framework for stablecoins in the U.S., from which Cantor also benefited.
“Even before Howard entered government, we were already involved in the cryptocurrency space,” Kelly said. “Prior to Howard’s tenure, we ventured into the tech and industrial sectors, as well as the power and renewable energy industries.”
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and Cantor Chairman Brandon Lutnick at the 2025 Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas
Not everyone believes in Cantor's independence. In August of this year, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren requested more information following reports that Cantor was considering brokering a deal where a hedge fund would profit if U.S. tariffs were lifted. Insiders revealed that while other banks had been involved in such deals, Cantor, to avoid potential conflict of interest accusations, not only dropped the deal but also refused to provide advisory services for the Trump Media Technology Group's Bitcoin asset vault.
"When the son of the Secretary of Commerce takes over a Wall Street firm once led by his father, one cannot help but question the compliance of it all," Wyden wrote in an email sent to Bloomberg in August.
However, in a time where politics and business are intertwined in unprecedented ways, Cantor did not shy away from engaging with government officials. At a conference in Miami, the company hosted the President's son Eric Trump as well as Texas Senator Ted Cruz—who chairs the committee responsible for reviewing the Department of Commerce led by Howard Lutnick. That evening, Brandon Lutnick rushed to Washington to attend a dinner at the White House, dining with Wall Street tycoons and his father.
For years, cryptocurrency has been under scrutiny, but early investors believe that the arrival of wealth is only a matter of time.
"One must endure the winter to welcome the spring," said Wall, a 50-year-old in charge of the company's fixed-income business, which launched a multi-billion-dollar loan service collateralized by Bitcoin and completed its first transaction in May. Wall stated that the Trump administration's support for innovation, regulatory clarity, and the subsequent institutional adoption are "ushering in a whole new world."
Bandelier said the company's success has also benefited from the languishing of mid-sized U.S. banks. "This has been the easiest hiring period of my career," he said.
In a sense, Cantor and the cryptocurrency industry have already undergone change as this year's Miami conference (the third in four years) was open to the media for the first time.
Another landmark event was the keynote speaker, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, delivering a speech before two of the most influential U.S. financial regulators—SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Acting Chair Caroline Pham.
During the conference break, these three posed for a photo with Brandon Lutnick and Cantor's Chief Legal Officer Stephen Merkel, all smiles.
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