William J. Sheppard

SMH Capital, Inc. (SMH) is the primary broker subsidiary of Sander Morris Harris Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SMHG). The firm is headquartered in Houston, Texas with additional offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. SMH provides a full range of asset and wealth management and investment banking services. The firm also offers institutional equity sales, trading, and research, as well as prime brokerage services for hedge funds and fixed-income securities sales and trading. SMH's research effort is attuned to the Southwest, yet takes a broad, global perspective. The analysts cover companies in six broad sectors, including business services, energy, entertainment and media, financial services, specialty retail-softlines, and technology. They look at industries in a bottom-up way, and get to know company managements in depth, to understand their growth philosophy and their views of how their company fits within their group. SMH's growth strategy is to expand asset management and fiduciary activities and related business by increasing assets under management through acquisitions, internal growth and better coordination between their subsidiaries.

Madison Williams & Co. LLC The firm was founded as the result of a management buyout of the principal capital markets business of Sanders Morris Harris Group (NASDAQ: SMHG). Madison Williams & Co. provides investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, trading and research services to institutional and corporate clients throughout the US. Their research efforts focus on the following sectors: oil & gas exploration and production, engineering and construction, business services, healthcare services and various master limited partnerships (MLPs). The company was founded in 2010 and was headquartered in New York, NY.