Joel I. Katz

Founded in 1962, Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE: RJF) is a diversified holding company headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida. The firm provides services to individuals, corporations and municipalities through their wholly-owned subsidiaries: Raymond James & Associates, Raymond James Financial Services and Raymond James Ltd. Raymond James operates through eight segments: Private Client Group (PCG); Capital Markets; Asset Management; Raymond James Bank (RJ Bank); Emerging Markets; Securities Lending; Proprietary Capital; and Other. The Private Client Group segment provides securities transaction and financial planning services to client accounts through the branch office systems of the company's subsidiaries. The Capital Markets segment's activities consist primarily of equity and fixed income products and services. The Asset Management segment provides asset management services for individual investment portfolios and mutual funds. The RJ Bank segment provides corporate, residential and consumer loans, as well as Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insured deposit accounts, to clients of the company's broker-dealer subsidiaries and to the general public. The Emerging Markets segment operates securities brokerage, investment banking, asset management and equity research businesses. The Securities Lending segment conducts its business through the borrowing and lending of securities from and to other broker-dealers, financial institutions and other counterparties. The Proprietary Capital segment consists of the company's principal capital and private equity activities, including various direct and third-party private equity and merchant banking investments. Raymond James' capital markets reach within the financial institutions segment focuses on community and regional banks and thrifts including equity research, sales, trading and investment banking resources and services. Raymond James is one of the largest research organizations in the brokerage industry and serves institutional investors domestically and abroad. The firm's capital markets activities are based on insightful, timely and comprehensive equity research. They publish research on over 1,000 companies in their core industries. Raymond James seeks attractive niches within broader industries and then covers these sectors deeply to develop differentiated sector expertise and relationships. Although their focus is mid- and small-cap companies, their coverage includes large, medium and small companies across each sector. Raymond James' Institutional Trading division is organized into 3 specialty departments: Sales Trading, Principal trading and Agency Trading. Their Sales Trading division covers over 800 domestic and 1,300 international financial institutions throughout North America and Europe. The firm's Principal Trading division consists of industry-focused teams and their OTC Principal Trading department makes markets in over 680 domestic stocks, 85% of which are covered by Raymond James Institutional Research department. Their Agency Trading department services the trading needs of over 5,500 financial advisors located in 2,500 retail offices across the US.

Founded in 1988, Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP is a broker/dealer headquartered in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of Sandler O'Neill & Partners Corp. and their ultimate parent is SOP Holdings LLC. Sandler O'Neill & Partners' Equity Sales & Trading team seeks to enhance liquidity, execute complex transactions, distribute securities and provide institutional investor exposure for hundreds of financial institutions. Sandler O'Neill is a market maker for over 425 NASDAQ financial stocks and trades equities on all active exchanges including the NYSE, NASDAQ, OTC Bulletin Board and Pink Sheets. They work with CEOs, CFOs and management teams on corporate buybacks, portfolio valuations, rebalancings and liquidations. Sandler O'Neill publishes detailed equity research on approximately 270 financial services companies. They primarily cover small- and mid-sized companies that are not widely followed by large Wall Street firms. Their research coverage focuses on the following industries: (1) banks and thrifts (2) specialty finance and credit card companies (3) asset management (4) e-Finance (5) investment banking firms and broker/dealers (6) REITS (7) mortgage REITs and (8) insurance.