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Operator
Good morning and welcome to the eSpeed First Quarter 2005 Earnings conference call. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] I would like to introduce the host for today’s conference, Ms. Kim Henneforth. Ma’am, you may begin.
Kim Henneforth - Investor Contact
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that statements made in this call contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27-A of the Securities Act of 1933. As amended in Section 21-G of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Such statements are based upon current expectations that involve risks and uncertainties. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical facts may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Our actual results from the timing of certain events may differ significantly from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause or contribute to such a discrepancy include but are not limited to, the effects of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the cost of and expenses of developing and maintaining and protecting our intellectual property, including judgments or settlements paid or received and their related costs, the possibility of future losses and negative cash flow from operations, the effect of market conditions, including trading volumes volatility, our price strategy and that of our competitors, our ability to develop new products and services, to enter new markets, to secure and maintain market share, to enter into marketing and strategic alliances, to hire new personnel, to expand the use of our electronic systems, to induce clients to use our marketplaces and services, and to effectively manage any growth we achieve, and other factors that are discussed under risk factors in eSpeed’s annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now I’d like to turn the call over to Howard Lutnick, Chairman and CEO of eSpeed.
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our first-quarter 2005 results. Joining me today are Kevin Foley and Jay Ryan. Jay will review our first quarter financial results, after which Kevin will talk about our core U.S. Treasury business and our new products. Following Kevin, I will review our guidance and outlook for the second quarter and for the full year 2005. And then we’ll be available to answer your questions. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to Jay.
Jay Ryan
Thanks, Howard, and good morning. For the first quarter, we reported GAAP net income of $0.02 per diluted share and non-GAAP net operating income of $0.05 per diluted share. The difference between non-GAAP net operating income and GAAP net income for the first-quarter of 2005 consists of $1.3 million dollars of expenses incurred for patent litigation costs related to 580 Patent and trading technologies, as well as a non-cash charge for business partners securities.
In terms of revenues, we reported first quarter results of 38.9 million. Our higher than expected revenue was a function of the diversity of our business. As we anticipated, our fully electronic revenues were down 2.4 million, reflecting the removal of the price improvement feature and the impact of our customer re-pricing. However, we’re pleased to report that we were able to securely offset this anticipated decrease in revenue with revenue growth in other areas of our business. Specifically, as BGC continues to expand its presence in voice [broker] training, our voice-assisted revenues grow. This growth in BGC, along with growth in Cantor, also increased our software solution revenues from related parties. Additionally, software solutions from unrelated parties benefited from our recent acquisition of Ecco.
Now, I’d like to review our operating expenses. On a sequential basis, operating expenses in the first quarter 2005 of 34.7 million were up 3.3 million from 31.4 million reported in the fourth quarter of 2004. The drivers behind first-quarter expense increases compared to the fourth quarter are in line with our previous expectations. The increase in expenses for the first quarter was primarily the result of increased comp expenses for compensation and employee benefits and occupancy and equipment. Compensation and employee benefits reflected increases due to expenses related to the full quarterly impact of our Ecco acquisition, the beginning of our transition to more of a restricted stock base compensation model, increased payroll taxes in the new calendar year, and the timing of a marginal increase in head count. Occupancy and equipment expenses increased as we incurred certain transitional expenses related to our new headquarters and incurred higher levels of depreciation and maintenance fees due to increased levels of investment and technology equipment necessary to support growth across our businesses.
We said last quarter increases and expenses above our projected run rate of 34 to 34.5 million would be directly associated with increases in anticipated revenues. Approximately 500,000 in operating expenses in the first quarter were the direct result of an increase from revenues from software solutions from related parties, generated from the growth and expansion of BGC and Cantor and are now part of our guidance for the rest of the year.
Accordingly, we expect second-quarter 2005 operating expenses to be approximately 34 to 35.5 million.
Turning to cash, we calculate free cash flow as operating cash flow minus cash used for capital expenditures, software development and intellectual property. For the first quarter of 2005 we generated negative free cash flow of approximately $8.6 million, which includes the reduction of approximately 8.6 million in liabilities. Excluding this paid-out of liabilities, our cash flow was flat.
As of March 31, 2005, our cash position was 189.7 million, down 20 million from 209.7 million at December 31, 2004. This decrease was primarily driven by 11.6 million of cash used for the repurchase of approximately 1.35 million shares during the first quarter. And reduction of our liabilities up 8.6 million, as previously discussed.
As of quarter-end, our fully diluted weighted average shares of common stock outstanding were approximately 52.8 million shares. Subsequently, end of the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 870,000 shares of eSpeed stock for a total of 7.5 million and an average price per share of $8.66. We currently have approximately 68.5 million remaining on eSpeed’s $100 million share repurchasing [indiscernible].
I’d now like to discuss certain non-operating items and insurance proceeds. In the second quarter of 2005, we expect to record non-operating patent litigation expenses of at least $.01 per diluted share. With respect to insurance, we still have available to us up to 19.5 million of September 11th related replacement insurance, once we exceed 2.9 million fixed assets that are remaining from the first payment of 20.5 million. Such insurance payments will be recorded as non-operating gains and we expect to begin recording such gains in the second half of 2005.
I’d now like to turn the call over to Kevin.
Kevin Foley - President
We are pleased to report to you today an improvement in eSpeed’s volumes. Sequentially, fully electronic volumes, excluding new products, increased 12.6% compared to a Federal Reserve U.S. Treasury volume increase of 11.2%. Our voice-assisted volumes increased sequentially 28.1%. BGC’s growth in voice brokerage created this growth for eSpeed.
We think enhanced client service is making a difference in our fully electronic business. During the quarter, we made further improvements to the speed and reliability of our systems. We’ve added several features requested by traders to assist them with faster trading and more volume, including new customized keyboard designs, customized trader alerts, and new protection against trade errors. Our dedicated program trading sales and support team identified several enhancements targeted to make eSpeed a more efficient and profitable venue for program traders and we have implemented these ideas.
We believe our overall volumes grew because of our new customer pricing and the removal of price improvement. Although one quarter does not necessarily make a trend, we believe that we will continue to show improvements in our business.
During the first quarter, our revenue per million declined as we removed price improvement and negotiated new customer pricing agreements. Associated with this decline in our per million metric, our fully electronic volumes increased. As I just pointed out, this volume growth outpaced the fed volume in the first quarter; but, because the first quarter didn’t fully include all of our new pricing agreements, and the removal of price improvements, the decline in our per transaction fees was not fully realized in our first quarter revenue per million.
Looking forward into the second quarter of 2005, we will have the full impact of both the removal of price improvements and of our new pricing agreements. We therefore expect that our revenue per million will further decline; but, we also expect that our fully electronic volumes will increase. As these items, work offset each other, we expect that our fully electronic revenue will be flat compared to the first-quarter.
Now, with respect to new products, first quarter volume for new products was down 12.2% sequentially. We continue to offer unique trading platform in the Foreign Exchange marketplace. And, we remain confident about our prospects in FX. However, we would like to explain to you what happened to new products during the first quarter. We’re committed to building a platform of expanding activity among market makers and traders. In the first quarter, the spreads and sizes of bids and offers contributed by market makers fluctuated. Some market makers took a less aggressive profile by providing smaller sizes to the bids and offers and sometimes slightly wider spreads. These factors led to a decrease in our foreign exchange volumes during this period, which is reflected in our new product numbers.
We remain focused on our pipeline of additional market makers, and we expect to add market makers in the near future. As we do, we expect this addition will mitigate these types of issues we saw during the first quarter. We believe that additional market makers added to our products will create even tighter spreads defer liquidity, which will naturally lead to higher volumes and new product growth.
We continue to grow the number of participating traders, and have introduced enhancements requested by these traders, including new choices in keyboard design and user interfaces. Specifically we expect that we will end the second quarter with more market makers and traders than we ended the first quarter. Because of the new product growth in the first quarter, we are no longer including a 1% per share positive impact from our foreign exchange product offering in the fourth quarter 2005. We now expect this incremental $0.01 positive impact in the first quarter 2006.
Now I would like to turn the call back over to Howard to review our outlook for the rest of the year.
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
For the second quarter 2005, we should expect to generate revenues in excess of $38 million and operating earnings to be in the range of $0.04 to $0.05 per diluted share. This guidance is based on the company’s expectation of the average daily Federal Reserve US Treasury volumes to be between $555 and $565 billion for the second quarter of 2005. So, the full year 2005 we expect to generate revenues of at least $165 million, operating expenses of approximately $141 to $142 million, and corresponding operating EPS of $0.15 to $0.18 per share. Our estimates assume that average daily Federal Reserve US Treasury volumes will be between $545 and $560 billion for the full year 2005. We remain excited about our growth prospects for the long-term. We are well positioned for the black box program trading driven growth we see coming in the US Treasury marketplace, and we continue to believe that the volumes in the US Treasury market will double by 2008. In addition, the potential reintroduction of this 30-year bond in February 2006 will be beneficial because historically the 30-year bond has been in the area of strength for us.
We continue to be confident about our ultimate success in foreign exchange. Partnering with large market makers and liquidity providers, and attracting customers onto our unique trading platform is the formula to which we will drive growth in foreign exchange. Our success continues to rely on the execution of our strategy by our management team and all of our employees.
With that I would like to turn the call over to the operator so that we can answer your questions.
Operator
Thank you. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] Our first question comes from Charlotte Chamberlain, Jefferies & Co. You may ask your question.
Charlotte Chamberlain - Analyst
Could you give us some light on 2 things. First of all the MTS acquisition, various news media said it is being bought by Canada, some say it is being bid by [EC]. Assuming either one or the other, could you go over with us what that acquisition might bring to the company?
The other thing is that you said that you are going to have another $0.01pershare of litigation expense, and I was wondering if that is the last of it, or should we be expecting additional expenditure on the patent litigation going forward?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
With respect to the patent question. We expect that in the near term we will continue to have paten expenses, however, in the next quarter they will probably be lower than they were in the prior quarters.
With respect to your first question, it is not our policy to comment on rumors in the marketplace with respect to acquisitions or other material transactions and therefore, I can’t comment with respect to MTS one way or the other.
Charlotte Chamberlain - Analyst
The trend in litigation expense, should we be assuming that once the final decision is reached that we got one big expense or should we be modeling that this basically goes to 0 by the end of the year?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
The patent process is a long process and we are committed to both protecting our intellectual property and building our intellectual property portfolio, and so how it will particularly go in any given quarter, I can’t really project other than to say that as Jay did, he gave insight into our expectation in the second quarter. And I thought that it was reasonably likely to be lower in the third quarter, but further out than out I can’t particular say.
Charlotte Chamberlain - Analyst
Going back to MTS and you not commenting on whether or not eSpeed or Cantor is part of the bidders for is. It is an electronic platform, as I understand it on trade past the electronic bond volume in Europe. Could you simply explain to us how that could be -- I mean you are not trading European bonds as far as I know, other than by voice-- is this conceivably something that could be [indiscernible] to either Cantor or eSpeed.
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
I can’t comment one way or the other. It is not our policy to comment on these types of transactions, so Charlotte I can’t comment one-way or the other.
Charlotte Chamberlain - Analyst
One more try here. Am I right in my assumption in as far as European bond trading is concerned that all of that is done by voice at this point either at Cantor or BGC?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
eSpeed does have an electronic trading system for government bonds in Europe and its area of strength is in basis trading currently, so eSpeed does do basis trading electronically in Europe currently.
Operator
Rich Repetto, Sandler O’Neill, you may ask your question.
Rich Repetto
First question, I thought I heard something on the share count. You said the diluted share count someone said was 52 or?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
Yes. $52.8 million. And that is as of at the end of the quarter and did not include the next information that we gave regarding subsequent buybacks, which was 870,000 shares.
Rich Repetto
Okay. So, the average was $54.1, and then the $52.8 was the ending balance. Is that correct?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
Absolutely.
Rich Repetto
Okay. First question, on the new products, Howard -- just trying to get a feel for FX what percentage of the new product volume -- I guess that is the majority would you say is more than two thirds of the volume? Is that fair?
Kevin Foley - President
With foreign exchanges more than half the volume of new products and it is the driver in the fluctuation of the new product number.
Rich Repetto
Okay. Can you just tell me how many market makers you have on now, and then why did they pull back on quoting to see the spreader side?
Kevin Foley - President
A couple of things. First of all, as you know it is an anonymous system and we don’t go directly into the nature of the different types of participants, but I’ll say that what see in the first quarter we don’t thing the operative issue is necessarily why this market maker or that market maker pulled back, but rather why it had an effect on the spread in eSpeed We think the reason that had an effect is because we did not have enough market makers to mitigate the behavior of individual market maker and that’s what we are focused on now. We believe that more market makers will mitigate the effects of the remainder of any individual market makers.
Rich Repetto
Okay. I guess we are talking about very small numbers then, about 1-2 market makers going up to -- I know this is in public statements in how many you had supply liquidity before, but going up to -- increasing it to some number higher than that?
Kevin Foley - President
We are focused very intently on the number of market makers, and on the number of traders. And we feel confident the number at the end of the second quarter is going to be bigger than the number at the end of first quarter.
Rich Repetto
Okay, but you won’t disclose right now how many you have?
Kevin Foley - President
We are just speaking to the general behavior in an anonymous system and I think we are confident that we have market makers coming on in the near future and we are going to finish the quarter the better than we finished the last quarter.
Rich Repetto
Okay. The next question comes around, Howard, the guidance on pricing -- excuse me, the revenue per million continuing to decline. I’m sure you have this worked out right now, at least when we see the decline from 4Q to 1Q, both the 21% decline about $0.83 -- at least what we calculate per million. Can you give us any feel for is this three quarters of the decline? Do we expect to see a little bit more or is this half the decline, or etc.?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
As you recall the FICA improvement feature came out of the system in the first couple weeks of January, so clearly that part has just a couple of weeks change between the first quarter and second quarter and the balance is with respect to our customer repricing. There is still the full quarterly effect of those that we did in the first quarter. So that reduction we would think could be less than you had seen previously, but we did say that we thought that our volumes would increase to work against that and we do have the expectation that in the second quarter our revenues, with respect to that line of business, will be comparatively flat so that the revenue per million will decline, but our volume will grow and they will effectively offset each other.
Rich Repetto
Okay. I guess you are assuming then some, again, modest increases in market share?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
Well, I think the math just -- the best way to say it is, we think our volumes increase to offset our pricing decline. So I don’t know how one expresses it more plainly than I think those 2 will just offset each other.
Rich Repetto
Okay and I guess the last thing is long-term strategies here. Now we -- We got a run rate and given yearly guidance as part of EPS, so it looks like for this year. We’re soft of in a holding pattern. Up until the new products gain traction and at this point we push it back a little bit. Am I missing something on -- that’s how you feel like the general lay of the land at this point?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
I think it’s our view that we guide what we have and what we know. And we tend to not want to guide that which we’re planning and that in which we’re working on because it’s our job to deliver that and, once we start to deliver those types of growth, then we can include that in our numbers. So, what our guidance is based on is the business that we see now.
Given the market conditions that we saw in the first quarter, with respect to our market makers and our new products, we pushed off for one quarter the timing by which we see our foreign exchange adding a penny a share to our quarter.
We have a significant number of initiatives within the treasury business. We have a significant number of initiatives, obviously, in the future space with our acquisition of Ecco. We have focus across a variety of our products. As you saw this quarter, BGC is growing and we are focused on supporting that BCG growth around the world.
Those initiatives plus our intellectual property are the kinds of things that we will form our foundation of growth on. Our guidance is based on the business that we have in front of us, and all of that then couples with the fact that we think the core U.S. Treasury market will double by 2008, and then we have built our business to handle that kind of volumes and those kinds of business. We have modified our system to embrace that kind of change and we think that kind of doubling of the business will start to drive our growth.
So, our guidance is based on what we see, but we do all day is work on everything else.
Rich Repetto
I guess one quick follow up on what you said on this Ecco. With the sort of the movement now, the NYC based [indiscernible] and talk about the spot and maybe derivative products trade them the same like they do in Europe. Could you just explain a little bit more how Ecco in the future -- I know you said it impacted the software from unrelated product. Can you just explain a little bit more the impact on how Ecco fits in to the eSpeed platform and the business?
Kevin Foley - President
Yes, Rich. Kevin Foley again. As we said at the time that we acquired Ecco, they have a great product. They have great people and focused on building a product that traders like to use, but its front end software that is used to trade directly in the futures market. And its business modeled to monthly subscription for desktop. And you combine their expertise and their technology with [federal] eSpeed innovation, but our sales effort in our distribution out to all the major banks, investment banks in the world, and we think we have a powerful model for growth. And we saw some of the effects of this marriage in the first quarter. We feel optimistic that the number of desktops using Ecco software to trade in the markets is going to grow.
Operator
Raj Sharma of Merriman. You may ask you question.
Raj Sharma - Analyst
I had a question on operating expenses. So I just missed the first part. Had gone up for the year, your guiding operating expenses, are they directly because of the -- because of you updating the revenue guidance? The revenue guidance went from 150 to 155. The operating expenses have gone up about 2 million, 2 ½ million over the year. Is that all interrelated?
Jay Ryan
Yes, Raj. It’s Jay. The increase in the quarter of 500,000 that we spoke of was directly related to that line item and we believe that becomes a new part of our expense base, so continues over the balance of the year.
Raj Sharma - Analyst
Then, the next question I have is on your acquisition of -- Or Cantor’s] acquisition of Maxcor Financial. How does that – what does that mean for eSpeed, if you could comment in general terms, and Howard, I just wanted to follow -- ask a follow up question to that. How does – What is the overall strategy related to the acquisition of several [voice brokers] by [Cantor] and then, how does that play into eSpeed?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
Cantor has separated the business of voice brokerage into a separate company called BGC, and so BGC is a voice brokerage business. BGC, as we mentioned in the call, has been growing. You saw our voice numbers, voice-assisted numbers were up 28% sequentially. That was based on BGC’s growth. BGC has been hiring and growing its business and that is good for eSpeed because we provide the technological support for BGC and we get paid for that technological support. So as BGC grows, that’s good for us.
With respect to BGC’s potential acquisition of Maxcor Euro Brokers, the basic way to look at it is that’s more growth for BGC, and growth by BGC is good. So, how that will impact our business in particular I think is -- will take a significant amount of work and, once they close that transaction, we will be closely working with the people from BGC to make sure we are providing them the technology they want, and I think that will only accrue to the benefit of eSpeed. So, the simplest way to say it is as BGC grows, that’s just good for us.
Raj Sharma - Analyst
So, you provide software solutions to BGC, you get paid for that as well as any voice-assisted transactions that come through BGC, you get paid for that, right? A certain percentage?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
That’s correct. We provide them services, technological services that we provide them. For example, assisting them technologically in their administration, and with respect to their brokers, we provide them brokerage systems that they use for their brokerage, and we receive a percentage of their revenues for providing those brokerage services.
Raj Sharma - Analyst
So, I want to get a sense of how many voice brokers did BGC have? Do they have now and what does this acquisition mean for them? So I can get a sense of going forward after you integrate the acquisition and you work with BGC, what could that possibly mean in voice transactions?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
Well, I think BGC’s hired significantly in Asia. Their acquisition of Maxcor Euro Brokers has not yet closed, so I think for us who supports technologically these businesses, I think we wait for, as they come on line, they ask us to do the kind of things they want to do. What kind of system they want, what kind of services they want, and so how it will impact us will depend on the types and kinds of services, the types and kinds of technology that BGC wants to provide to these brokers. The kind of technology they have now, and the kind of technology they want to migrate to. And so those are really a process that we’ll go through once BGC purchases Maxcor, and its BGC purchasing Maxcor not eSpeed . We’re just -- They are a big customer. They’re a great customer of ours and as -- whenever one of your great customers grows, it’s beneficial to us.
Operator
[Aaron Kidell] of [Indiscernible]Capital.
Aaron Kidell - Analyst
Just a follow up to that. Would you -- that BGC would - - is pretty much complete in it’s intention to add more voice brokers to close the Maxcor deal in addition to the hiring that BGC has done outside the acquisition, i.e., in the Singapore and other places from I Cap and Collin Stewart, or is there still more to come on that front?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
I guess the best way to answer that is I don’t know. I mean, we are here to support them and to assist them in -- as they grow their business. And so, I think that’s for the people at BGC to decide, but we are ready, willing, and able to support them in their growth. And since their growth is good for us, certainly we wish them all power to continue to grow. How much they’ll grow and when they’ll grow, is really a driving force by the executives at BGC.
Operator
[OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS]: Alan Schein, Jay Goldman.
Unidentified Speaker
He’s been disconnected. Can we go to the next question please?
Operator
Alan Schein, your line is open.
Alan Schein - Analyst
Hi. I just had a quick question about how you’re evaluating some of the new initiatives right now. Is this -- Are you considering it something that you need to reevaluate in terms of how much you’re spending in all these new initiatives, or how do you consider evaluating this -- given that you’d expect at this point in the lifecycle of all of these new initiatives for them to be still growing pretty dramatically and they did shrink.
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
We remain confident with respect to our prospects in foreign exchange. As Kevin mentioned, the particular movement of any particular market maker should not have an overall impact on the business, and as we add more market makers that type of movement will have less and less impact to eventually no impact at all. Because some will be more aggressive and some will be less aggressive at any given point in time. But we think that since we remain confident of the business and the foreign exchange market is the largest financial capital market in the world, we are committed to that business and we are excited about our prospects.
So, while we did have a set of factors that caused us to do less volume in the first quarter, we do know what the issues were. We are clear in what actions we will take to move forward and grow past them, and we are taking those actions currently, and I think the results - - it’s our job to drive positive results, which is what we’re working on right now.
Alan Schein - Analyst
So, it obviously sounds like you’re still committed. At what point do you reevaluate? Is there sort of a timeline for this to realize value to the Company?
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
Sure. The systems, the major source of investment for this business is a sales force. I mean, the technology sales on our platform, which does not carry significant marginal costs, so it’s really a sales and management effort, and doing more business with the same banks and investment banks that we do business with across our platform is something that accrues to our benefit. So, this is a long-term strategy to extend the scale of our system across our same client base and so we think that each step we take in that direction will accrue a benefit to us and since we do not have material incremental cost with respect to our technology in our systems, the marginal cost, the true marginal cost of operating this business is widely less than it would be for companies that just tried to do this alone and not leverage the massive scale of EC’s technology currently.
Alan Schein - Analyst
But having said that, is the significant incremental cost that you’re incurring -- if it is on the sales force then that’s what it is, but just relative to the cost of the business absent initiatives the existing operating expenses are significantly higher. What your saying, I guess, is that it would be even higher if you could not leverage platform, but at some point there is very, very significant incremental costs that you have to evaluate if they are worth incurring at this point that you are fully committed to incurring those costs?
Kevin Foley - President
Yes, this is Kevin. With respect to the costs, we had said that we invested in experienced foreign exchange sales force and that would be an investment associated with revenue that would be a lag, where you get the cost before you get the revenue, to bring these guys online. The thing that I would say is that we have taken action and we’ll continue to take action to make sure that we realize the return on that investment.
Operator
Charlotte Chamberlain, Jefferies & Co.
Charlotte Chamberlain - Analyst
Yes. First of all you referred that initially you were very strong in the 30-year. I was wondering if that stays strong prior to 9/11 or is that subsequent and could you give us a sense of what that’s based on? I was wondering with respect to pricing, it sounds as if the new pricing team -- the volume discounts kick in at lower levels. I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about that. And then finally I was wondering if you could conceptually talk about whether eSpeed can be separated from Cantor Fitzgerald in other words, is it even conceptually possible to think about a sale of these eSpeed to a 3rd-party? Thank you.
Jay Ryan
With respect to the 30-year, historically the 30-year has been a strong issue for us where we have done a significant percentage of the turnover in that product. That was both before 9/11 and since 9/11.
With respect to our pricing, we have a customized pricing model that is different across our customer base. Some customers have only a fixed component to their contract, meaning they have no variable component. They pay one price and they and they can trade unlimited volume. Other customers have some fixed component and some variable component, and then some clients have strictly a variable component with a volume discount. So, that is different across our product base, however, in our customer repricing, which we said we would substantially complete by the end of the 1st quarter, which we did do. We increased the amount of our fixed component and reduced the amount of the variable component, which created a more substantial revenue base that was not based on market volume, so therefore, as market volumes grew, our average revenue/million would decline because of that increase in the fixed component. With respect to could eSpeed be separated from Cantor and sold separately, the answer to that is yes.
Charlotte Chamberlain - Analyst
Okay. With respect to the 30-year when you said that you were strong enough before 9/11, can you give us a sense of how much was voiced and how much was electronic prior to 9/11?
Jay Ryan
Prior to 9/11 the volumes were increasingly electronic, but the business was a hybrid business, but I don’t remember the exact percentages that they were increasing on a quarterly basis electronically post-9/11. Obviously the business of benchmarking of treasuries went entirely electronic and the 30-year bond was, is, and has been darkly our instrument. So, the re-introduction of a 30-year bond auction will mean there will be more volume in that particular instrument, and with respect to that there will be more volume in NY Treasury volume because of that issuance. So, it is good for the business overall and good for us in particular.
Charlotte Chamberlain - Analyst
Are there any costs that you did not incur in the sense of restructuring your keyboards for 30-year bonds?
Jay Ryan
No.
Operator
Now I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Howard Lutnick.
Howard Lutnick - Chairman & CEO
Thank you everyone for joining us for our call. We appreciate your time and your attention. We look forward to speaking to you again next quarter. Thank you all and have a very good day.