John J. Bruggemann

GMT Capital Corp. is a private, SEC-registered investment advisor and hedge fund manager headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. It was founded in 1993 by Thomas Claugus. The firm provides discretionary and non-discretionary investment advisory services to their advisory clients, which are private investment vehicles and separately managed accounts, by recommending, or managing and directing, the investment and reinvestment of their assets.

Founded in 1946, R.F. Lafferty & Co., Inc. is a brokerage firm and registered investment advisor located in New York City. The firm's research focuses on small- and mid-cap companies.

Rice, Voelker LLC is a broker/dealer headquartered in Covington, Louisiana. The firm serves customers such as hedge funds. They specialize in private placements. The firm was funded in 1995.

Founded in 1981, Wall Street Access, formerly Wall Street Clearing Corp., is a broker/dealer headquartered in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of Wall Street Access Corp.. They offer a full array of investment services to corporations, hedge funds, pension funds, trust banks, investment advisors, money managers, mutual funds and high net-worth individuals. They focus on healthcare, mergers & acquisitions, oil & gas, electricity, natural gas, machinery/agribusiness, small-cap equities and special situations sectors. The firm's merger arbitrage research platform enables investors to track both historic and real-time deal information. Wall Street Access offers best-in-class execution through their fixed-income trading platform that creates aggressive, two-sided markets on a large inventory of fixed-income securities. The firm also provides their clients with traditional sales coverage. They provide execution services for investment grade corporate bonds, U.S. Treasuries and U.S. Agencies to a network of over 2,000 global customers. Wall Street Access' approach creates both market transparency and liquidity in a marketplace that has historically not been served with these essentials. The firm seeks to provide best-in-class trade execution and generation of trading ideas. They actively assess and manage risk while executing innovative transactions in a fast-paced and constantly changing global market. Wall Street Access provides superior service, expertise and speedy execution in equities, options, bonds and currencies. The firm seeks to achieve superior execution through electronic connectivity to multiple exchanges combined with their access to significant pools of liquidity. Wall Street Access is an agent, managing trading volumes and finding liquidity in a discrete manner for their institutional clients. The firm's Prime Brokerage division serves small and medium sized hedge fund clients. Wall Street Access maintains a large institutional equity and options desk, as well as a 35-person fixed-income desk. The firm acts as an introducing broker to Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing LP. , L.P., so your investors can be confident their assets are safe and secure at a leading custodian. Wall Street Access is a member of NYSE, ISE and NASDAQ OMX, as well as other exchanges.

Founded in 1988 by Richard Messina, the Benchmark Co. LLC is a full-service broker/dealer headquartered in New York City. The firm provides equity research, sales and trading services for institutional and private clients. They focus on the media, energy, enterprise software, infrastructure software, biotechnology, specialty pharmaceuticals, REITs, Internet and communications sectors. The Benchmark Co.'s clearing agent is JP Morgan Clearing Corp.

Founded in 2002, Maxim Group LLC is a registered broker/dealer located in New York City. The firm provides an array of financial services including: investment banking, equity research, private wealth management, structured products and global institutional equity, fixed-income and derivative sales and trading to a diverse range of corporate clients, institutional investors and high net-worth individuals. Maxim Group's niche is emerging-growth companies in a variety of sectors including healthcare, technology, retail and others. They utilize a fundamental, bottom-up approach to investment recommendations. The firm combines rigorous financial analysis of specific companies and industries with due diligence that includes frequent consults with suppliers, customers, competitors and senior management. The firm focuses on under-covered, small- to-mid-cap companies where valuation levels may be out of sync with fundamental trends. Maxim's coverage universe often represents attractive niche industries where stocks tend to be inefficient. This research coverage fills a void created by the downsized research ranks and shrinking coverage of small- to mid-cap stocks by large investment banks. Maxim Group is a member of FINRA, the MSRB, the SIPC, the ISE, NASDAQ and NYSE Arca.

Founded in 2006, Empire Asset Management Co. is a full service brokerage firm located in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of Empire Investment Group Holdings LLC. They specialize in providing investment strategies for institutions, corporate clients and high net-worth individuals. The firm provides comprehensive solutions to their clients on mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, investment banking, and wealth management.

Founded in 1946, R.F. Lafferty & Co., Inc. is a brokerage firm and registered investment advisor located in New York City. The firm's research focuses on small- and mid-cap companies (market-cap less than $2.5 billion).

The Araca Group provides retail stores that specializes in apparel, accessories, gifts and music. The company was founded by Matthew Rego, Michael Rego, and Hank Unger in 1997 and is headquartered in New Yrok, NY.

Merida Capital Holdings LLC (Merida Capital Holdings) is a private equity firm founded in 2016 by Mitchell Bryan Baruchowitz and Kevin Gibbs. The firm is headquartered in New York.

Family Office Networks LLC operates as a global community for families to share information and intelligence. It works with a select group of investment managers and sponsors who offer substantial families to access to stellar investment opportunities in areas such as real estate, venture capital, private equity, and hedge funds. The firm also offers personal introduction, alternative investment consulting, fund formation, concierge and family office service. The company was founded by Andrew P. Schneider and Steven Saltztein in 2012 and is headquartered in West Palm Beach, FL.

Blaylock Van LLC engages in the provision of investment banking and financial services. It includes debt and equity capital markets; research; sales and trading such as domestic equity, international equity, and taxable fixed income; and municipal finance. The company was founded by Eric Van Standifer in 1991 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

Water Tower Research LLC is a modern investor relations platform that creates, delivers, and maintains information flow to build and preserve relationships between companies and their stakeholders and investors. The private company is based in Chicago, IL and has subsidiaries in the United States. Water Tower Research is a shareholder communication and engagement platform powered by senior industry experts with significant Wall Street experience. The company's foundation is built on Wall Street veterans using open digital distribution strategies that are accessible by everyone. The company's mission is to help companies take control of their IR program and proactively reach investors while bringing investors a consistent flow of quality information to help them understand their clients' businesses, industries, and the investment opportunities they present. Founded by Timothy Gerdeman and Shawn M. Severson, Timothy Gerdeman has been the CEO since incorporation.