US Mid-Market Equity House: Cantor
Yes, we Cantor!
In a breakthrough year, Cantor reached the upper ranks of US equity capital markets practitioners after years of building its business. For applying the same entrepreneurial spirit that makes it a top trader to fundraising for its clients, Cantor is IFR’s US Mid-Market Equity House of the Year.
Cantor knocking on the door of the top 10 in US equity capital markets in 2025 is the culmination of nearly a decade spent building a platform that reflects the bank’s entrepreneurial approach towards investment banking.
Trading has always been the cornerstone for the New York brokerage house, which former chairman and current US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick once labelled “the biggest little guy in the financial services market”.
“Be the greatest in the world at what you do, or don’t do it at all.” Those were Sage Kelly’s orders in 2016 when Lutnick tapped the veteran healthcare banker to lead Cantor’s investment bank and build an ECM business. Lutnick hired Pascal Bandelier in 2017 to lead a similar push into equity sales and trading.
Nearly a decade later, Cantor has had its best year ever, with US$3.45bn of apportioned credit as a bookrunner on 33 equity and equity-linked deals during the IFR Awards period, a 12th place finish from 15th in 2024 and 28th in 2023.
The results do not include contributions from Wall Street’s top SPAC business, where Cantor raised US$6bn by listing 22 new vehicles.
Cantor gained traction after veteran healthcare banker Jason Fenton joined in 2023 as co-head of global ECM alongside Asif Ahmed, who joined in 2016.
Their efforts resulted in key bookrunner assignments for Avidity Biosciences (US$690m) and Beam Therapeutics (US$500m) – two of the largest biotech deals of 2025.
Using biotech as a springboard, Cantor started taking market share in other sectors after Beau Bohm joined in mid-2024 as the third co-head of global ECM.
“It was a very exciting opportunity to come in as Cantor is going through this significant growth phase,” said Bohm. “We’ve more than doubled the size of the investment bank in the last two years.”
Bohm went to work immediately, helping Cantor industrials banker Jim Nappo pitch for Airo Group, an aerospace and defence company.
Nappo’s initial pitch led to Airo founder Chirinjeev Kathuria meeting Bohm and Kelly to solidify Cantor’s lead-left assignment on the US$69m IPO.
Airo launched in early April but was grounded by market volatility associated with the "liberation day" US tariff announcements by president Donald Trump. Cantor stayed in close contact with investors as market conditions stabilised, allowing Airo to go public in June after just one day of marketing.
By September, Airo shares had more than doubled, leading the way to an US$89.4m follow-on that came within the IPO lockup.
Cantor also showed an ability to scale up for larger issuers as an active bookrunner for Fermi’s US$784.9m Nasdaq/LSE IPO in September.
Comfort provided by the upstart AI data centre REIT’s management team under co-founders Toby Neugebauer and former Texas governor Rick Perry was offset by a need for extensive education for investors and the REIT’s banking partners.
Cantor called on its real estate advisory affiliate Newmark to expedite the learning curve, leading to prominent roles on Fermi’s US$100m private placement in August as well as its upsized IPO a month later.
The ECM buildout mirrors an expanding sales and trading effort that now ranks it among the top US market makers, with a staff of 300-plus serving 7,000 institutional investors, mostly small and independent firms.
“The natural flow between our trading to syndicate desks puts us in a position to be nimble and entrepreneurial when it comes to committing capital,” said Aldin Dervisevic, Cantor’s co-head of ECM syndicate. Eric Sivin is also co-head of ECM syndicate.
In October, Cantor led a US$210m primary block trade for nuclear power play ASP Isotopes that was de-risked by reverse enquiry from Cantor’s trading desk.
Cantor’s annual Crypto & AI/Energy Infrastructure Conference allows the bank to cultivate relationships with companies in frontier growth sectors, including Gemini Space Station, which attended this year’s conference after Cantor led the crypto exchange’s US$446.3m IPO in October.
Cantor’s commitment to frontier growth will likely propel it to new heights in 2026, illustrated by its active role in digital asset manager Grayscale Investments’ upcoming IPO.
Having Lutnick in Washington, championing crypto and other frontier growth sectors, puts a halo around Cantor’s ECM efforts.