Natasha B. Koprivica

In 1915 Charles Edward Merrill founded Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER) with Edmund C. Lynch in Baltimore, Maryland. The modern Merrill Lynch was formed in 1940 through mergers with E.A. Pierce & Cassatt and, soon after, Fenner & Beane. In 1973, Merrill Lynch adopted a holding company format, with Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. as the parent and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith as the operating subsidiary. Merrill Lynch Asset Management, Inc. (MLAM) was created as an integral business unit in the Merrill Lynch family in 1976. Fund Asset Management, doing business as Mercury Asset Management, was acquired in December 1997. In 2000, MLAM and Mercury were combined under the name Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. MLAM manages the Merrill Lynch family of mutual funds, as and acts as sub-advisor to other mutual funds.

National Financial Services is an operating division and the institutional trading arm of National Financial Services LLC. The firm is a broker/dealer headquartered in Boston. They execute equity and fixed-income securities trades on behalf of institutional clients as well as several Fidelity businesses. Their ultimate parent is FRM LLC. National Financial Services maintains a team of principal traders in New York that make markets in several hundred NASDAQ securities. The firm also has specialists on the Boston Stock Exchange. Their fixed-income operation is a principal dealer in a wide range of taxable and tax-exempt securities. They also underwrite municipal and government agency debt

Venus Capital Management, Inc. (Venus Capital) is an independent hedge fund management firm headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm was founded by Vikas Mehrotra in 1994. Venus Capital advises private funds invested in a variety of asset classes focused on India. It also serves as an investment adviser to pension funds, endowments, institutions and family offices, as well as high-net-worth individuals.