Westlake Securities is a regionally focused investment bank serving emerging growth companies. We believe that being a trusted advisor to successful companies means focusing on the long-term best interests of management and shareholders.

In addition to our transaction-based corporate finance engagements, we provide financial advisory services to a broad range of companies seeking an outside perspective on valuation, financial strategy or the fairness of an acquisition or capital markets transaction. The depth of our client relationships in corporate finance engagements and the breadth of companies we serve with financial advisory services are mutually reinforcing characteristics of our business, enabling us to provide an unmatched quality of advice to companies in our target industries based on an exceptional level of exposure to current private capital markets.

Westlake Securities, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Westlake Group, LLC, is a member of FINRA and of Securities Investor Protection Corporation.

We are engaged as an M&A advisor by a diverse group of clients. The nature of these projects consistently involves providing advice and assisting in managing the process of:

	conducting sell-side transactions involving an owner seeking to negotiate with a specified buyer or carry out a broader auction process.
	buy-side transaction evaluation for a public company or private equity fund. We can either serve as a supplemental resource or as a completely outsourced M&A department.
	executing an ongoing acquisition strategy. We can provide the financial analysis to support Board decisions regarding which strategies are likely to enhance the value of a core business.

Westlake Securities' M&A advisory engagements typically involve transaction values between $10 million and $200 million.

We act as a placement agent for equity and debt capital markets transactions for a select group of companies run by management teams we believe are capable of creating compelling investment returns. While the majority of our clients are profitable, growing companies with at least $5 million in revenues which are seeking expansion capital, we selectively take on earlier stage companies when our due diligence indicates that these companies have the potential to penetrate a significant addressable market. We typically structure equity placements for companies of $5 million to $20 million and debt placements of at least $10 million.

Conducting capital markets and merger/acquisition transactions are specialized processes. Our ability to help companies most effectively achieve their intended objectives for such transactions is greatest when we have the opportunity to work with management in a collaborative planning process. Through this process we identify key stakeholders and their respective goals in order to understand the optimal corporate finance strategy. We do not advocate a one-size-fits-all approach to our clients' corporate finance issues, instead we seek to create solutions which best meet the needs of each individual client.

The transaction planning process typically includes many or all of these elements:

	Identify key stakeholders and their objectives.
	Study the company and benchmark its corporate finance strategy against that of successful competitors.
	Provide management with insight into potential receptivity by capital markets to the company.
	Inform management decisions and priorities during the period preceding a transaction.
	Identify key sensitivities in the capital markets towards the company and position its offering appropriately.
	Plan scope and timing of transaction process capable of resulting in the optimal outcome for company stakeholders.