Brian T. Niemiec

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Credit Suisse Securities USA) is the broker/dealer division of Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, an investment banking company headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded in 1998 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Credit Suisse (USA), Inc., ultimately owned by Credit Suisse Group AG (SWX: CSGN) in Switzerland. Credit Suisse Securities USA offers a suite of equities, solutions and credit products and services which includes global securities sales, trading and execution, prime brokerage and comprehensive investment research. Their clients include financial institutions, corporations, governments, institutional investors, such as pension funds and hedge funds, and private individuals around the world.

Matrix Asset Advisors, Inc. (Matrix) is an independent registered investment advisor headquartered in White Plains, New York. The firm was founded by David A. Katz in 1986. Matrix manages money for individuals, families, endowments, foundations, and retirement plans.

MUFG Union Bank, NA (dba Union Bank) is a private banking firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. The firm was founded in 1953 and in 2021 they became a subsidiary of MUFG Americas Holdings Corp., ultimately held by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (TYO: 8306) in Japan. Union Bank provides an array of financial services to wealthy individuals & families, executives, professional service firms, and mission-driven organizations.

Founded in 1993, Auerbach Grayson & Co. LLC is a broker/dealer/located in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of Auerbach Grayson Holdings LLC. Through their worldwide network of broker partners, the firm offers research, execution and clearance in equities, derivatives and fixed-income instruments. They also provide and implements hedging and arbitrage strategies. Auerbach Grayson & Co. is a member of FINRA and the SIPC. They employ bottom-up research to identify undervalued, under-represented and misunderstood companies. The firm covers a broad range of small-cap, mid-cap and emerging market equities.

JPMorgan Securities LLC (JPMS) is a securities brokerage firm headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded in 1985 and is a subsidiary of JPMorgan Broker-Dealer Holdings, Inc., ultimately held by JPMorgan Chase & Co., Inc. (NYSE: JPM). JPMS provides research on fixed income, credit, derivatives, emerging markets, foreign exchange, structured finance, technical analysis and bond indices. Their equity analysts cover equities throughout North America, EMEA, Asia/Pacific and the emerging markets. The firm's fixed income team formulates trading and portfolio recommendations for investors in global bonds and other fixed-income markets based on valuations, analytics and market dynamics.

Corebridge Institutional Investments (US) LLC (CII) is a SEC-registered investment advisor headquartered in New York City. They are an indirect subsidiary of Corebridge Financial, Inc. (Corebridge) (NYSE: CRBG). The firm was formerly known as AIG Asset Management (US) LLC and changed their name to Corebridge Institutional Investments (US) LLC in 2023 as part of Corebridge’s continued separation from American International Group, Inc. CII provide investment management services to Corebridge, its affiliates, and unaffiliated institutional clients. The firm also manages investment portfolios of private funds and other pooled investment vehicles in which affiliated and unaffiliated parties are investors. CII also serves as a sub-adviser to affiliated investment managers, in the management of their institutional affiliate client accounts.

Neuberger Berman BD LLC is a SEC-registered investment advisor and mutual fund manager headquartered in New York City. It is directly owned by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers LLC, which is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Neuberger Berman Group LLC, which is owned by NBSH Acquisition LLC. The firm traces their origin back to the 1939 founding of Neuberger & Berman, its predecessor firm. In 1950, Neuberger Berman became one of the first firms to offer a no-load mutual fund to individual investors. Neuberger Berman BD manages a range of equity, fixed income, private equity and hedge fund strategies on behalf of institutions, advisors and individual investors worldwide.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC (GS&Co.) is a securities brokerage firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1927, the firm is a subsidiary of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS). GS&Co. provides services to help hedge funds manage risk, monitor portfolios, maintain liquidity and build their businesses. They offer clients access to global equity and derivatives markets, as well as foreign exchange, commodities, European Lefts, rates and credit across the Americas, Europe and Asia. The firm proactively monitors capital markets, searching for pockets of liquidity and news that may require changes to those strategies. Integration with the Goldman Sachs network gives clients access to the firm's sectored block trades and their insights into price discovery. Their electronic trading program provides clients with tools to manage their trades from pre-trade analytics to post-trade analysis.

Kardan Technologies Ltd. operates as venture capital arm of Kardan Israel Ltd. It focuses in investments in technologically advanced companies and in high risk capital funds. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Moody's Investors Service, Inc. is a credit rating and investment research firm headquartered in New York City. They are a subsidiary of Moody's Corp. (NYSE: MCO). The firm performs international financial research and analysis on commercial and government entities and provides a variety of analytic tools for assessing credit risk. Their clients include creditors, investment banks and commercial banks.

Fitch Ratings, Inc. is a global rating agency and investment research firm headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded by John Knowles in 1913 as Fitch Publishing Co. They are a subsidiary of Fitch Group, Inc., ultimately owned by The Hearst Family Trust. Fitch Ratings seeks to provide independent and prospective credit opinions, research and data to the world's credit markets. Their approach is based on a foundation of local market experience that covers capital markets in over 150 countries. The firm's ratings analysis and rating decisions are based on established criteria, methodologies and ratings definitions which they apply in a consistent manner. Fitch Ratings provides coverage of the following markets: Economics, Banks, Insurance, Sovereigns, Corporates, Structured Finance, Public Finance – International, Public Finance – US, Infrastructure & Project, and Finance.

Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. (Broker) (Oppenheimer-Broker) is the global full-service brokerage division of Oppenheimer & Co., Inc., an investment boutique headquartered in New York City with additional offices nationwide. Founded in 1975, the firm is owned directly by Viner Finance Inc., an indirect subsidiary of Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. (NYSE: OPY). Oppenheimer-Broker offers a full array of brokerage services to retail, institutional, and corporate clients.

Fordham University provides college and university. It offers undergraduate colleges and graduate & professional schools. The company was founded in 1841 and is headquartered in Bronx, NY.

Founded in 1958, Merrill Lynch Piece Fenner & Smith, Inc. is an SEC registered broker/dealer located in New York City. The firm is a subsidiary of BAC North America Holding Co. and their ultimate parent is Bank of America Corp. (NYSE BAC).

Cornell University is an educational institution that offers undergraduate and post graduate programs. It was founded in 1865 and is based in Ithaca, NY.

AllCloud BSD provides cloud computing solutions. It offers cloud platforms, cloud architecture workshop, business applications, vertical solutions, and professional and managed services. The company was founded by Yosi Frenkel and Lahav Savir in 2014 and is headquartered in Rosh Haayin, Israel.

ClearForest, a Thomson Reuters company, provides text-driven business intelligence solutions that supply the analytical bridge between two previously disconnected worlds of information--unstructured text and enterprise data. Their award-winning solutions offer manufacturers, publishers, federal, chemical & financial service organizations critical links to situational context buried in text for use in Business Intelligence [BI] systems. Adding this situational context to enterprise data systems empowers organizations to: uncover hidden relationships, evaluate events, discover unforeseen patterns and facilitate problem identification for rapid resolution. Applying this intelligence enables organizations to avoid loss of profit margins due to preventable write-offs, customer churn, legal settlements, warranty claims or inefficient product development cycles. In short, they enable Global 5000 companies to make better business decisions by turning large volumes of contextually-based information into proactive business intelligence.