Mikael M. van Loon

Founded in 1998 by Kurt Hovan and Lisa Hovan, Hovan Capital Management LLC, formerly EH2 Capital Management LLC, is a hedge fund manager located in Belvedere, California. The firm is a subsidiary of HCM Group LLC. Hovan Capital Management provides investment advice and portfolio management services to individually managed accounts for high net-worth individuals, investment companies and other pooled investment vehicles. The firm manages the HCM Multi-Manager Fund LP, the HCM Multi-Manager Fund Ltd., HCM Domain Public Equity Partners LP, the HCM Healthcare Venture Fund LP, the HCM Hegemony Fund LP, the HCM High Yield Opportunity Fund LP, the HCM Market Neutral Fund LP and the HCM Offshore Market Neutral Fund Ltd.

Quantitative BioEquities Management LLC is a hedge fund manager located in San Francisco. They manage the Quantitative BioEquities BVI Fund Ltd.

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Banc of America Securities (BAS) is the investment banking subsidiary of Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC). The firm provides both the domestic and international equity and investment banking markets, and pursues a strategy pioneered by Citigroup that combines corporate lending with investment banking advice and services. They provide high-yield debt underwriting and leveraged finance, in addition to industry coverage groups such as healthcare, media and telecom, financial institutions, real estate and gaming. BAS also does a significant amount of work for Financial Sponsors, or private equity firms, often financing leveraged transactions. Following the strategy of Goldman Sachs, the firm lacks a standalone mergers and acquisitions department, instead employing mergers and acquisitions senior bankers throughout the industry coverage groups. The firm is registered as a broker/dealer with the SEC, is a member of the NYSE, and the NASD. The use of Banc in the BAS's name is indicative of the fact that the company is not a bank, and their deposits and other holdings are not insured by the FDIC.

C.K. Cooper & Co. is a full-service investment banking and broker/dealer headquartered in Irvine, California. The firm was founded in 1982 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of C & K Capital Corp., and a sister company to Paladin Capital Partners, Inc. The services provided by C.K. Cooper & Co. were expanded in 1996, when a management team led by Alexander G. Montano purchased the firm. In 2001, C.K. Cooper & Co. began to offer brokerage services to individual investors. The firm is a member of the NASD. C.K. Cooper & Co. focuses on the oil and gas sectors. Their primary focus within the oil and gas sectors is the exploration and production sub-sector. The core thesis of the firm's research is based on what they refer to as the feeding frenzy, suggesting that there are constant business cycles within the E&P sector. These cycles are predicated on the need for larger oil and gas companies to acquire smaller exploration and production companies to maintain rates of growth.