Founded in 1993, Woodbridge Group, Inc. also offers capital raising and valuation services. Woodbridge operates in North America, Europe, Asia, Mexico, and Brazil. Woodbridge Group isn't in the construction business, but it does build bridges between commercial buyers and sellers. The mergers and acquisitions firm helps buyers determine strategic fits, search for potential acquisition candidates, extend offers, negotiate prices, and close deals. It helps sellers (typically companies with $5 million to $100 million in revenues) develop marketing collateral, then discreetly market and sell their businesses. It serves clients worldwide in the areas of manufacturing and distribution, services, retail, and technology.

CME Group was founded in 1898 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. CME Group Inc. offers access to all asset classes for futures products from a single electronic trading platform, and on trading floors in Chicago and New York City. The Company offers markets in futures and options on futures contracts based on the United States interest rate yield curve, equity indexes, foreign exchange, agricultural commodities, energy, metals and alternative investment products. Its products are traded through the CME Globex electronic trading platform, its open outcry auction markets in Chicago and New York City or through privately negotiated transactions that the Company clears. It serves the risk management and investment needs of customers around the globe. As of December 31, 2009, the Company had approximately 140 clearing firms. In April 2009, the Company acquired the Carvill Hurricane Index from Carvill America Inc. and renamed it the CME Hurricane Index.

Wheeler/Frost Associates is more than happy to roll out all sorts of investment advice. Wheeler/Frost Associates provides a variety of investment planning and management service. Wheeler/Frost Associates' offerings include portfolio management (including active and passive investment strategies), retirement planning, equity compensation consulting, and charitable giving optimization.

Novastar Financial, Inc. was founded in 1996. NovaStar Financial, Inc. holds non-conforming residential mortgage securities. The company's majority owned subsidiary, StreetLinks National Appraisal Services LLC, is a residential mortgage appraisal management company. Advent Financial Services LLC (Advent), a majority owned subsidiary of the company, provides access to tailored banking accounts, small dollar banking products and related services to meet the needs of low and moderate income level individuals. The company’s portfolio of mortgage securities includes interest-only, prepayment penalty, and overcollateralization securities retained from its securitizations of nonconforming, and single-family residential mortgage loans. Its portfolio of mortgage securities also includes subordinated mortgage securities retained from its securitizations and subordinated home equity loan asset-backed securities (ABS) purchased from other ABS issuers.

Pinetree Capital Ltd. was born out of the ingenuity of Sheldon Inwentash, its Founder and current Chairman and CEO. The Company started in 1992 as a public shell that was formed to invest in technology companies. Pinetree raised initial funds of $2 million for its first venture capital investment. Using proceeds from successful early investments, Pinetree built a portfolio of early stage technology companies through the mid-to-late 1990’s. Typically taking a 20% to 40% interest in each company, Pinetree acted as an incubator to these early stage technology start-ups. Pinetree’s investment philosophy during the dot-com era was to select companies with solid business plans and novel and valuable intellectual property. As a result, Pinetree was exposed to, but survived when the technology bubble burst in 2000-2001.Anticipating that global growth would lead to an unprecedented demand for energy and resources, Pinetree switched its focus from technology and biotechnology to the resource sector in 2002. Today, Pinetree’s strategy is to identify companies with good potential properties and reserves and invest heavily in advance of the projects being developed. Due to numerous global economic and political factors, Pinetree expects the prices of resource and energy-related commodities to remain elevated in the future. With a finger on the pulse of the market and a proven track record of anticipating trends, Pinetree consistently invests ahead of the cycle.

iStar Financial Inc. operates as a finance company focusing on the commercial real estate industry. iStar Financial Inc. provides custom-tailored financing to high-end private and corporate owners of real estate. iStar Financial Inc. financing products include senior and mezzanine real estate debt, senior and mezzanine corporate capital, corporate net lease financing, and equity. iStar Financial Inc. also involves in corporate tenant leasing business, which provides capital to corporations and others who control facilities leased primarily to single creditworthy customers. As of December 31, 2008, iStar Financial owned 362 office, industrial, entertainment, hotel, and retail facilities in 39 states. iStar Financial Inc. qualifies as a REIT for federal income tax purposes. As a REIT, it generally would not be subject to federal corporate income taxes if it distributes at least 90% of its taxable income to its stockholders. iStar Financial Inc. was founded in 1993 and is based in New York, New York.

Weeden & Co. works to weed out information so it can provide clients with institutional equities trading, fixed income sales and trading, and research services. Weeden & Co. LP specializes in difficult-to-execute transactions, serving some 1,500 institutional clients. Weeden's research division, which includes The Leuthold Group, produces a variety of analytical reports on equity and fixed-income markets. Research affiliates cover such sectors as technology, health care, biotechnology, and REITs. Brothers Frank and Norman Weeden founded the company in 1922, and the company has been employee-owned (more than 80%) since 1986. Weeden & Co. LP has offices in Boston; Chicago; Greenwich, Connecticut; Minneapolis; and San Francisco.

Smedvig Capital is a London based private equity firm formed in early 1996 by John Hewett and Peter Smedvig. Over that time, the firm has committed approximately £350 million to more than 40 investments. About a third of that sum has been invested directly with Smedvig as lead investor, typically in small buy outs and development capital deals. Direct investment size ranges from £2 million to £10 million of equity, although larger sums can be financed in collaboration with our strategic partners. The remainder has been invested with a small number of third party private equity funds where there is a strong affinity with the investment philosophy of the general partner. The most established of these relationships is Bain Capital. Whilst Smedvig Capital does not focus exclusively on any specific sectors, over time it has built expertise in a number of areas including information management, financial services, consumer goods, retail and support services.

ISIS Equity Partners LLP is a private equity firm specializing in replacement capital, management buy-out, secondary buy-out, management buy-in, and development capital in lower mid-market companies. It seeks to invest in business services; consumer markets including retail, consumer products, and leisure; financial services; healthcare and education; and information technology and media. The firm primarily invests in the companies that are based in the British Isles. It typically invests between £2 million ($3.96 million) and £30 million ($59.5 million) in companies valued between £5 million ($9.91 million) and £75 million ($148.69 million). The firm does not invest in start up and early stage investments.

GAM Holding isn't afraid to gamble on risky bets. The asset management firm offers private clients, institutional investors, and intermediary clients such investment vehicles as equity, fixed income, private-label funds, and alternative investment funds, as well as portfolio management. GAM Holding was spun off in late 2009 from Swiss private banker Julius Baer. Now its own separate, public entity, GAM Holding comprises GAM, Swiss & Global Asset Management, and a 28% stake in Artio Global Investors. (Swiss & Global focuses on traditional investments, while GAM is known for alternative and absolute-return strategies, such as hedge funds). GAM Holding has assets under management of CHF$124 billion ($119 billion).

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