Brent Herndon

Herndon Plant Oakley Ltd. (HPO) is an independent, SEC-registered investment advisor and broker-dealer firm headquartered in Corpus Christi, Texas. It was founded in 1998 by Brent Herndon, Phillip Plant and Ted Oakley. The firm’s broker-dealer activities comprise approximately 70% of their business activities with the remaining 30% estimated to be spent on investment advisor activities. HPO provides a full array of trading and execution services for their clients.

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. (MLPFS) is the SEC-registered broker/dealer subsidiary of Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., ultimately held by Charlotte-based Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC). The firm was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in New York City. In 2010, Banc of America Securities LLC merged with MLPFS and the firm uses the trade name Bank of America Merrill Lynch. MLPFS's global strategy and economics team serves institutional and individual investors using a wide range of macroeconomic disciplines. Their analysis of global issues provides clients with investment ideas, market forecasts, macro overviews and specific sector recommendations across asset classes, regions and disciplines. Their equity research team conducts fundamental analysis on companies globally and provides institutional and retail clients with industry-specific and in-depth research and analysis on numerous industries. The firm's global fixed-income and equity-linked research focuses on fixed-income and equity derivatives, fixed-income strategy, convertibles, commodities, high-yield, mortgages, municipals and global foreign exchange.