Newmark Group chairman Howard Lutnick announced Monday that he has a “highly treatable” non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Lutnick’s diagnosis was announced in a video in which he said his physicians expect him to be cancer-free in four months. The company also included the news in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He will have six chemotherapy treatments beginning Oct. 18 and running through the end of January 2022.
“I am not going anywhere,” said Lutnick, 60, on a 4-minute video posted on YouTube. “I’m still going to be working. I’m still going to be running the company.”
Lutnick’s video was titled, “My Greatest Challenge Since 9/11.”
Lutnick was the chair of the bond trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald when the firm occupied five floors at the top of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. He was at his son’s first day at kindergarten when the planes struck, killing 658 Cantor employees.
Lutnick joined Cantor in 1983 right after graduating from Haverford College. He was appointed president and CEO in 1991, and helped rebuild the firm after the terrorist attack 10 years later.
Lutnick is also chairman and CEO of BGC Partners, a brokerage and financial technology company. In 2011, BGC bought Newmark, which is now one of the largest commercial real estate brokerage firms in the country.
In the video, Lutnick pointed out that his mother-in law had the same type of cancer three and a half years ago, when she was 85, and survived.
“If dad can’t do better than grandma, then come on,” said Lutnick.
Referring to the chemotherapy, and perhaps to reassure company staff and investors, Lutnick said the most difficult part is going to be the loss of the wisps of hair he has been clinging to for years.
“I always joked I am going to be a bald guy,” he said, “and now I am.”