GFI Group Reviews

Unfortunately GFI has recently gone through some regulatory fines (latest one Oct2 2019 - $25m USD) and as such they are tight on money. Unlike other companies their response has not really been to take responsibility so well, instead they are finding fast track ways to recoup this money so far they have not paid employees bonuses that were due (2019) -ie bonuses were announced and then paid late or not paid at all in Sep/Oct 2019, in some instances they have changed the rules. - an example is that the term bonuses was changed to "cash advance" which meant that for several years (close to a decade) they can claim the money that they paid you back without any reason provided. All these rules were changed after employees had worked the period in question and earned the bonus, then were told actually this is the new system. GFI Group is owned by BGC now - the management at BGC is firstly more biased towards the businesses that they owned prior to owning GFI - this is not surprising of course, perhaps its natural but it doesn't help if you are an employee at GFI. All of the decisions for GFI's future are made over at BGC now and the management over there are very stingy. BGC shares are actually publically listed and its a stock that is obviously bought and sold in large proportions by the staff, so the stock's performance since management took over can inform you what the staff thinks about them. As there are with the entire industry there are likely to be more investigations into practices. There is a huge backlog of activity that the regulators have not looked into and I imagine this process will continue into the next few years. Current Management is poor, they lack direction, they make many mistakes because they are not firm on what their plan is and they have no idea on what is going on in the business day to day. Those running the Asian businesses have never even done the job, so they have no idea what it entails which doesn't really make me feel like this is going to improve in the short term. The commissions and market shares of inter dealer brokers are constantly going down, with financial institutions and clients finding cheaper and more efficient ways to trade. The interdealer broker business is a dying one anyway, with the addition of a sneaky management who is trying to squeeze its employees, not paying them what they earned and constantly changing the rules on them after the fact. I would strongly recommend against choosing a career at GFI group.

As with any other small company, opportunities to move up the corporate ladder are slim to nothing.