Joanna M. Makris

Mizuho Securities USA LLC is the US-based securities broker/dealer and futures commission merchant arm of Mizuho Americas LLC, ultimately held by Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (TYO: 8411, NYSE: MFG) in Japan. Headquartered in New York City, the firm was founded in 1994 and provides institutional and corporate clients access to commodity and financial markets around the world. Mizuho Securities USA covers the following industries: Consumer, Energy, Financial Institutions, Financial Sponsors, Healthcare, Industrial & Diversified Industries, Power, Utilities & Infrastructure, Real Estate, and Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT). The firm and their affiliates hold memberships on all major futures and options exchanges worldwide.

Founded by Louis Miscioscia, Brigantine Advisors is an independent equity research firm located in New York City. The firm seeks to provide timely analysis of market trends by identifying major technology shifts. Within the macro environment, they seek to identify profitable investment opportunities with a focus on both the financial and technical capabilities of the companies they analyze. Brigantine Advisors follows the technology, healthcare, information technology services, business services, supply chain, enterprise infrastructure, Internet/entertainment and semiconductors sectors. Within the enterprise infrastructure sector, they focus on storage and managed services, hardware/EMS and communications industries. Within the semiconductors sector, the firm focuses on the analog, solar and communications IC industries. In the area of the Internet and entertainment, most of their research is on the digital media industry and within the healthcare sector, they tend to focus on medical devices.

Brean Capital is an independent investment bank and registered broker/dealer headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded in 1973 and provides equity research, corporate finance and advisory investment banking, equity institutional sales and trading, and asset management to institutional investors and corporate clients. Their fixed income business provides sales, trading, research and banking services on a wide range of mortgage and asset-backed, US Treasury and government agency securities, structured products, corporate bonds, and municipal debt. The fixed income sales team employs a highly analytical approach to bond selection, trade execution, and overall bond portfolio management. Under the guidance of fixed income strategists, the fixed income team uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses to create custom investment portfolios and develop targeted, executable bond trading strategies to complement their clients? balance sheets.

Canaccord Adams, Inc. is an independent financial services firm and broker/dealer headquartered in Boston with additional offices in New York City, San Francisco, Evanston, Illinois and Houston, Texas. The firm provides research to help clients make informed investment decisions. Their analysts seek to identify opportunities and expose risk with a focus on emerging and small- to mid-cap growth companies. Canaccord Adams focuses on seven sectors, clarifying current events and anticipating market trends in high-quality daily, weekly and monthly research products. The seven sectors they focus on are: metals and mining, energy, technology, life sciences, real estate and gaming, consumer and industrial growth. Canaccord Adams is a subsidiary of Vancouver-based Canaccord Financial, Inc. They are a member of the NASD and the SIPC.

Yankee Group Research, Inc. provided consulting and marketing research services. The company was founded in 1970 and was headquartered in Boston, MA.