Ralph Anthony DeCesare

TDAM USA, Inc. is an investment advisory firm headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded as Waterhouse Asset Management, Inc. in 1995 and do-business-as TD Asset Management. They are a wholly-owned subsidiary of TD Bank US Holding Co., which is wholly-owned by the Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE, TSE: TD), a Canadian chartered bank. TDAM USA provides discretionary investment management services to corporations and certain affiliates, such as TDAM and TD Bank, N.A. They also offer services to pension plans, endowments and foundations, but do not directly offer their services to high net-worth or retail clients.

Standard & Poor's Financial Services provides financial market intelligence services. It offers credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research and data to the financial decision-makers. The company was founded in 1860 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

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.