Joel D. Luton

Westlake Securities LLC is a private company that has been providing a variety of services to middle market companies for 20 years. The company is based in Austin, TX and was founded in 2003. The company offers fractional/interim CFO services to reduce risk, reduce financial surprises, and maximize a company's value. The company also provides operational advice and strategic alternatives to manage through a downturn in financial performance. Westlake Securities assists middle-market companies in selling their business and provides sell-side advisory services. The company also offers buy-side advisory services for middle-market companies with enterprise values of $10mm to $250mm.

Headquartered in Austin, APS Financial Corp., a subsidiary of APS Investment Services, Inc., is a full service securities, research and investment banking firm. APS offers a range of services including trading of debt and equity securities, high-yield and distressed research, private debt and trade claims sourcing and clearing, investment banking and asset management. APS focuses on fixed-income securities, specializing in high yield, including distressed debt, as well as investment grade debt securities. Their research includes a wide range of industries including healthcare, media/telecommunications, metals & mining, energy, automotive suppliers, consumer products and retail. APS is a member of the NASD. They were founded in 1981.

Founded in 2003, Westlake Securities LLC is a middle-market investment banking firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. The firm's research arm provides institutional clients with unique insights. Their analysts typically investigate under-followed and complex situations to find investment opportunities across the capital structure (both debt and equity) that are likely to outperform the market, in both long and short recommendations. Westlake Securities takes a bottom-up approach toward specific investment opportunities and provides heavily value-oriented recommendations that consider both the upside potential as well as downside risk of potential investments. Their research effort includes a rigorous analysis of the company's fundamentals through an assessment of industry dynamics, corporate and capital structure, leverage, liquidity, cash flows and cash needs. The firm also assesses the strength of a company's management and competitive position through frequent interaction with various managements and other industry participants. Westlake Securities' research focuses on the energy and industrial sectors.

Founded in 1997, RBC Alternative Asset Management, Inc. is a hedge fund manager headquartered in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of Royal Bank Holding, Inc. and their ultimate parent is Royal Bank of Canada (TSX: RY). RBC Alternative Asset Management specializes in the construction of multi-manager fund-of-hedge-fund portfolios. The firm manages a variety of RBC sponsored fund-of-hedge-funds and provides discretionary and non-discretionary custom advisory services.

Founded in 2008, Odeon Capital Group LLC is an independent full-service broker/dealer located in New York City. The firm provides advice and execution on fundamental value and catalyst-driven situations through sales and trading, research, investment banking and asset management services. Odeon Capital Group provides services related to fixed-income securities including corporate securities, ABS, RMBS, Auction Rate securities and other structured products. The firm serves institutional clients. Odeon Capital Group is a member of FINRA, the SIPC and the MSRB. Odeon Capital Group has expertise in both traditional and esoteric assets. The firm has placed both large and small volume transactions in every asset class. They seek to maximize value for their clients through in-depth analyses of sectors, asset classes and individual securities that are hard to value or trade. The firm's Structured Products and Corporate Groups focus on institutional sales, trading and analytics of secondary structured products, esoteric assets and special situations.