Brandon Groeger

Founded in 2005, The Vertical Trading Group LLC (Member FINRA) is a registered broker/dealer located in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of RAS Holdings LLC. Their institutional equities trading desk provides their clients with timely information and high-quality execution. They make markets in approximately 2000 securities and handle securities on all major exchanges, crossing networks and electronic trading platforms. Vertical's agency-only trading desk leverages the firm's advanced multi-asset electronic trading suite to help clients identify and capitalize on event-driven trading opportunities. They seek to help assess and capitalize on the mispricings of securities triggered by anticipated major corporate events and catalysts that arise as a result of corporate restructurings, recapitalizations, mergers and acquisitions, relative value disparities/stub trades, finance trades (synthetic stock loans) and index revisions.

BB&T Securities LLC, doing business as BB&T Capital Markets, is the broker/dealer subsidiary of BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT). The firm is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. They offer a full array of investment, trading and execution services to middle-market companies. BB&T Capital Markets' sales and trading arm is comprised of 2 groups: Debt Securities Sales & Trading and Equity Sales & Trading. The Debt Securities Sales & Trading group focuses on: (1) Government and agency securities (2) corporate bonds (3) municipal bonds (4) asset-backed securities (5) mortgage-backed securities (6) preferred securities and (7) money market desk (short-term securities including BB&T funding). The Equity Sales & Trading group focuses on: (1) institutional block execution services (2) institutional distribution of proprietary research (3) providing proprietary access to industry leading conferences and management teams (4) serving as a NASDAQ market maker for over 250 securities (5) stock buybacks including 10b-18 and 10b5-1 trading plans and (6) 144 stock sales, individual 10b5-1 trading plans (buy and sell) and employee cashless stock option programs. BB&T Capital Markets provides research coverage of the communications, defense and government services, energy, financial services, furnishings and consumer durables, healthcare, industrial services, retail/consumer durables and transportation services sectors.

Founded in 1958, Merrill Lynch Piece Fenner & Smith, Inc. is an SEC registered broker/dealer located in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of BAC North America Holding Co. and their ultimate parent is Bank of America Corp. (NYSE BAC).