Rex Clinton Whiteside

Duke University is an academic university that offers undergraduate, graduate and professional programs. It also has publications and research services. The university was founded in 1838 and is headquartered in Durham, NC.

Wedbush Securities, Inc. is a full-service investment bank and brokerage firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The firm was founded in 1955 as Wedbush Morgan Securities, Inc. They are a subsidiary of Wedbush Financial Services LLC, which is owned by Wedbush, Inc. Wedbush Securities provides a wide range of securities brokerage, wealth management, and investment banking services to private and institutional clients. Their research focuses on providing coverage of small and mid-sized companies in the following industries: (1) consumer products and services (2) technology (3) entertainment and media (4) life sciences and (5) industrial growth and clean technology.

Avondale Partners LLC is an independent broker/dealer headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee with additional offices across the US. The firm was founded by Robert Shepherd and Philip Krebs in 2001. Avondale Partners provides financial advisory services as well as equity and fixed income underwriting and private placement services to public and private companies throughout the US, Canada and Europe. They focus on middle-market companies in the healthcare sector.

Piper Sandler & Co. (Broker) (PSC-Broker) is the full-service brokerage division of Piper Sandler & Co., a financial service firm headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They are a subsidiary of Piper Sandler Companies (NYSE: PIPR). The firm was founded in 1969 and previously known as Piper Jaffray & Co. They became Piper Sandler & Co. when Piper Jaffray Companies and Sandler O’Neill & Partners, L.P. merged to become Piper Sandler Companies in 2020. PSC-Broker provides brokerage and investment banking services to financial institutions, corporations and other financial investors. Their core focus sectors are Agriculture, renewables & cannabis, Business services, Chemicals & Materials, Consumer, Diversified industrials & services, Energy, Financial services, financial sponsors, Healthcare, and Technology.

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.

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. is a broker/dealer located in New York City. The firm provides a comprehensive range of equity execution services exclusively to institutional clients worldwide. Their clients include private banks, mutual funds, hedge funds, independent asset managers and investment advisors and other brokers.

Piper Sandler & Co. operates as an investment company, which engages in the provision of securities brokerage and investment banking services. The company is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.

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.

Wells Fargo Securities LLC (WFS) is the broker/dealer subsidiary of EVEREN Capital Corp., ultimately owned by Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC). Headquartered in New York, WFS delivers a comprehensive suite of banking, capital markets and advisory solutions, such as a full complement of sales, trading and research capabilities, to corporate, government and institutional clients.

Carnegie Mellon University is an American school that operates as a college or university. It is located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Southern Methodist University is a private university near the center of Dallas, SMU offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs through seven schools in the humanities and sciences, business, the performing, visual, and communication arts, engineering, education and human development, law, and theology.

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.

Founded in 1972 by Candace King, C.L. King & Associates, Inc. is a self-clearing, service-oriented broker/dealer and investment bank located in Albany, New York with additional offices in Boston and New York City. The firm delivers investment research, equity and fixed-income sales and trading, prime brokerage, investment advisor and clearing services to institutional and high net-worth clients and to other broker/dealers. For corporations, they underwrite securities and provide strategic advice in connection with mergers, acquisitions, strategic alternatives and valuation. C.L. King & Associates is a member of FINRA and the SIPC. C.L. King & Associates follows 120 names in 9 sectors. They seek to discover uncovered investment opportunities by seeking out companies that may be ignored by other Wall Street research providers and by identifying value and growth that may be unrecognized by institutional equity investors. The firm provides comprehensive trading services including capital commitment, market making and listed block positioning for their institutional equity clients. C.L. King & Associates' fixed-income group focuses on trading fixed-income securities, primarily in the secondary market. They offer a broad cross section of agencies, convertibles, investment-grade corporates, mortgage-backed securities, municipals, CDs and preferred stock to other broker/Dealers and institutional investors. The firm's investment banking group provides strategic M&A advice and capital raising services to emerging and mid-cap companies, both public and private. In addition, they act as a WBE underwriter in stock and bond offerings by large corporate issuers. C.L. King & Associates' corporate services group offers specialized services to assist corporate clients and their executives in handling delicate stock holding matters. Their services include guiding clients through restricted stock/rule 144 transactions, developing customized rule 10b5-1 trading plans and managing corporate share repurchase programs. The firm's equity research is based on a fundamental, value-oriented approach that focuses on small- and mid-cap companies. The firm offers research on the following sectors: special situations, building materials companies, specialty retail/apparel/footwear, industrials/cyclicals, restaurants/franchising, business services/staffing companies, telecommunications equipment and medical technology/devices/supplies.

Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) (CGMI-Broker) is the broker/dealer division of Citigroup Global Markets, Inc., an investment bank headquartered in New York City with additional offices across the US. The firm was founded in 2004 and is a subsidiary of Citigroup Financial Products, Inc., ultimately held by Citigroup, Inc. (NYSE: C). CGMI-Broker covers all market capitalizations of the major global indices and provides macro and quantitative analysis of global markets and sector trends. Their core focus of the group is to help investing clients make informed decisions by providing value-added, independent, insightful analysis.

Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP (SFG) is an institutional broker-dealer headquartered in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. The firm was founded in 2002 and is a direct subsidiary of SFG Holding LLC, which is owned by Bodel, Inc. SFG offers a full range of order execution and trading flow services, with a focus on delivering innovative trading strategies and execution services to institutional clients.

Knight Capital Group, Inc. is a global financial services firm, which provides access to the capital markets across multiple asset classes to a broad network of clients, including buy and sell side firms, dealers, brokers, institutions, and corporations. It operates business through four segments: Market Making, Institutional Sales and Trading, Electronic Execution Services and Corporate and Other. The Market Making segment consists of market making in global equities and listed domestic options. It includes client, and to a lesser extent, non-client electronic market making activities in which they operate as a market maker in equity securities. The Institutional Sales and Trading segment includes global equity, exchange traded funds and fixed income sales and trading; reverse mortgage origination and securitization; capital markets; and asset management activities. Its business consists of execution and facilitation equities and fixed income transactions as agent on behalf of institutional clients, and they commit capital on behalf of its clients when needed. The Electronic Execution Services segment offers access via its electronic agency-based platforms to markets and self-directed trading in equities, equity options, fixed income, foreign exchange and futures contracts. The Corporate and Other segment invests in strategic financial services-oriented opportunities, allocates, deploys and monitors all capital, and maintains corporate overhead expenses and all other income and expenses that are not attributable to the other segments. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Jersey City, NJ.