B. Daniel Evans

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.

Part of The Hearst Family Trust, Fitch Investor Service LP is an American company that provides credit ratings. Fitch Investor Service was acquired by F. Marc de Lacharrière (Fimalac) SE from Van Kampen Group on October 16, 1997 for $175 million.

Fidelity Management & Research Co. (FMR) is a SEC-registered investment advisor headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm was founded in 1946 and is a subsidiary of FMR LLC, also known as Fidelity Investments. FMR provides investment supervisory services, which include sub-advisory services, to Fidelity's family of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, qualified tuition programs, privately offered unregistered investment funds, separately managed account clients, and various other institutional accounts.

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.