Walter Altherr

Nomura Securities Co., Ltd. (NSC) is a wholly-owned brokerage subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Inc. (TSE: 8604; NYSE: NMR). Headquartered in Tokyo, the firm was founded in 1925. NSC places a strong emphasis on research, both fundamental and quantitative. In addition to stock and bond underwriting, their activities include IPO and M&A advisory, wealth management, separately managed accounts, fund wrap services, prime brokerage and structured equity finance. Their clients include institutions, hedge funds, private banks and private equity funds as well as corporate clients and retail investors.

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.

A subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Lehman Brothers, Inc. is a broker/dealer headquartered in New York City. They provide global equity and fixed research. The equity research department covers more than 100 sectors. They use a fundamental, quantitative, strategic and tactical research approach. In addition to these Lehman has also developed special products, such as 10 uncommon values and 10 uncommon eurovalues.

Barclays Capital, Inc. is a registered broker/dealer headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded in 1997 and is a subsidiary of Barclays Group US, Inc., ultimately owned by Barclays plc (LON: BARC) in Great Britain. Barclays Capital provides large corporate, government and institutional clients a full spectrum of prime brokerage services which includes equities and fixed income financing, OTC Clearing, Futures and Foreign Exchange Prime Brokerage and access to industry insights and analytics from their Strategic Consulting team.

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.

CLSA Securities Japan Co., Ltd. (CLSA Japan) is the Japan-based brokerage subsidiary of CLSA Ltd., itself a subsidiary of CITIC Securities Co., Ltd. (SH: 600030; HK: 6030; PK: CIIHY) in China. The firm was established in 2004 as Calyon Securites Ltd. They subsequently became Credit Agricole Securities Asia B.V., Tokyo Branch and changed their name to CLSA Securities Japan Co., Ltd. in 2013 when they merged with CLSA Japan Co. Headquartered in Hong Kong, CLSA Japan provides brokerage services including Japanese & Asian research and European equities. The CLSA Japan team works closely with the global sales teams in London, NY, Hong Kong and Singapore.