Richard William Mele

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is a registered broker-dealer subsidiary of Morgan Stanley Domestic Holdings, Inc., ultimately owned by Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) in the US. Headquartered in New York City, the firm was founded in 1987 and provides debt and equity services including underwriting, M&A advice, securities dealing and brokerage and trade execution. Their client base ranges from large global institutional investors to hedge funds at the cutting edge of innovation in the industry.

Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc. is a global investment banking, securities trading and brokerage firm located in New York City with additional offices in Dallas, Boston and San Francisco. The firm is a subsidiary Bear Sterns Cos., Inc. (NYSE: BSC). Their equity research team consists of senior analysts located throughout the world. In addition to domestic coverage, they have research teams focusing on Latin America, Asia and Europe. The analysts use a bottom-up approach to stock selection. The Bear Stearns fixed-income research department provides coverage of every sector of the fixed-income universe. The financial analytics and structured transactions group (F.A.S.T) provides investment research, fixed-income portfolio management and analytical systems, trading technology and general financial expertise. The group also provides a broad range of services to financial institutions including asset-liability management, balance sheet restructuring, receivables-based financing analysis, security and portfolio analysis, peer analysis, and historical and real-time market-based information.

Founded in 1996 by Stanley Diller and Rick Huang, PolyPaths' goal was to utilize the founders' vast experience in actively-used sell-side systems to create a new, versatile, easy to use product with uncompromising analytical rigor. The resulting system, which combines the modeling rigor and user control of a single sector trader with the universality of a general portfolio manager, has been used for specialized tasks such as evaluating complex embedded options and stress-testing a combined CMO and corporate portfolio. The system continues to expand along both the intensive and extensive margins. PolyPaths is the market leader in fixed income analytics. Ranging from trade analysis to pricing to risk management to hedging, PolyPaths systems meet a wide variety of needs for bond traders, risk managers, and portfolio managers. PolyPaths' Desktop System, network-based Distributed Processing System, and the Database-driven Enterprise System can be scaled to meet the needs of small hedge funds as well as major market dealers. PolyPaths' systems have robust models, corresponding to those of major dealers, which incorporate the latest advances in interest rate and current coupon modeling for structured mortgage products and exotic derivatives. The tremendous versatility of PolyPaths' System does not come at the expense of analytic rigor or any other measures of quality or effectiveness: PolyPaths develops each application to exacting specifications. They regularly stay in close contact with their customers, continuously monitoring and incorporating their perceptions of evolving industry trends.

Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. (DBSI) is a SEC-registered broker/dealer headquartered in New York City. The firm was founded in 1971 and is a wholly-owned investment banking and brokerage arm of DB U.S. Financial Markets Holding Corp., ultimately held by Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB, FRA: DBK) in Germany. DBSI provides securities brokerage and investment advisory services to domestic and international private clients and institutions. They are also a primary dealer in US government securities as designated by the Federal Reserve.