Business Continuity Plan (BCP)
I. Emergency Contact Persons
Our firm’s two emergency contact persons are: Gregory Bartko, gbartko@capstonepartnerslc.com, phone: (866) 844-7422 and Glen E. Smith, Jr., glenzo@capstonepartnerslc.com, phone: 954-274-3919. These names will be updated in the event of a material change, and our Executive Representative will review them within 17 business days of the end of each quarter.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3520.
II. Firm Policy
Our firm’s policy is to respond to a Significant Business Disruption (SBD) by safeguarding employees’ lives and firm property, making a financial and operational assessment, quickly recovering and resuming operations, protecting all of the firm’s books and records, and allowing our customers to transact business. In the event that we determine we are unable to continue our business, we will assure customers prompt access to their records or information. Since our firm does not hold customer funds or securities, we have not made arrangements for safeguarding such items in the event of a SBD.
A. Significant Business Disruptions (SBDs)
Our plan anticipates two kinds of SBDs, internal and external. Internal SBDs affect only our firm’s ability to communicate and do business, such as a fire in our building. External SBDs prevent the operation of the securities markets or a number of firms, such as a terrorist attack, a city flood, or a wide-scale, regional disruption. Our response to an external SBD relies more heavily on other organizations and systems outside of our control or influence.
B. Approval and Execution Authority
Gregory Bartko, Chief Executive Officer, a registered principal, is responsible for approving the plan and for conducting the required annual review. Gregory Bartko, Chief Executive Officer has the authority to execute this BCP.
C. Plan Location and Access
Our firm will maintain copies of its BCP plan and the annual reviews, and the changes that have been made to it for inspection. An electronic copy of our plan is located on www.capstonepartnerslc.com and is also located on backup storage media that is located on and offsite from the firm’s business premises.
III. Business Description
Our firm conducts business primarily in investment banking and corporate finance advisory work in equity and fixed income private placements. Our firm is an introducing firm and does not perform any type of clearing function for itself or others. Furthermore, we do not hold customer funds or securities. Our investment banking activity is on behalf of both private and public companies and typically includes acting as placement agent on behalf of an issuer at the conclusion of our investment banking activities.
IV. Office Locations
A. Office Location #1
Our main office is located at 3475 Lenox Road, Suite 400, Atlanta, GA. 30326. The main telephone number at that location is 404-238-0550. Our employees may travel to that office by means of foot, car, MARTA train and bus. All functions of our firm take place at this main location except the work performed by our FINOP principal, Glen E. Smith, who performs that function at the non-registered office location described below. The only registered person that works from this main office location is Gregory Bartko.
B. Office Location #2
We have a non-registered office location where our FINOP Glen E. Smith performs his function as our financial operations principal. The address of this location is 1608 Nanette Court, Lake Worth, FL. And the telephone number for Mr. Smith is 954-274-3919. Mr. Smith works as a consultant from his home office location and does not have to travel to and from an office location, but can travel to his location by means of foot, car and bus.
V. Alternative Physical Location(s) of Employees
In the event of an SBD, we will move our office to the home office of Gregory Bartko, located at 4060 Berkeley Lake, GA. 30326. The main telephone number at that location is 678-957-9270.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(c)(6).
VI. Customers’ Access to Funds and Securities
Our firm does not maintain custody of customers’ funds or securities, nor do we conduct any securities business that requires a clearing agreement with a clearing firm.
If SIPC determines that we are unable to meet our obligations to our customers or if our liabilities exceed our assets in violation of Securities Exchange Act Rule 15c3-1, SIPC may seek to appoint a trustee to disburse our assets to any clients. We will assist SIPC and the trustee by providing our books and records identifying customer accounts subject to SIPC regulation
Rules: FINRA Rule 3510(a); Securities Exchange Act Rule 15c3-1; 15 U.S.C. 78eee (2003).
VII. Data Back-Up and Recovery (Hard Copy and Electronic)
Our firm maintains its primary hard copy books and records and its electronic records at 3475 Lenox Road, Suite 400, Atlanta, GA. 30326. Gregory Bartko, our chief executive officer is responsible for the maintenance of these books and records. Mr. Bartko’s alternative phone number where he can be reached on a 24/7 basis is 404-272-6855
Our firm maintains its backup records onsite at our main office location, at Mr. Bartko’s home storage site located at 4060 Berkeley View Drive, Berkeley Lake, GA 30096, and also with a third party access person. These records are in electronic and paper copy form. Mr. Bartko, our chief executive officer, is responsible for the maintenance of these back-up books and records. Our firm backs up its paper records by copying and taking them to our back-up site. Our firm backs up its electronic records onsite through a mirrored hard drive recording system, commonly referred to as RAID 1, at Mr. Bartko’s home storage site on a rewritable drive media, and also through a write once read many (WORM) tape media held by our designated third party access person. We back up our records bi-weekly.
In the event of an internal or external SBD that causes the loss of our paper records, we will physically recover them from our back-up site. If our primary site is inoperable, we will continue operations from our back-up site or an alternate location. For the loss of electronic records, we will either physically recover the storage media or electronically recover data from our back-up site, or, if our primary site is inoperable, continue operations from our back-up site or an alternate location.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(c)(1).
VIII. Financial and Operational Assessments
A. Operational Risk
In the event of an SBD, we will immediately identify what means will permit us to communicate with our clients, employees, critical business constituents, critical banks, critical counter-parties, and regulators. Although the effects of an SBD will determine the means of alternative communication, the communications options we will employ will include telephone voice mail and secure email communications. In addition, we will retrieve our key activity records as described in the section above, Data Back-Up and Recovery (Hard Copy and Electronic).
Rules: FINRA Rules 3510(c)(3) & (f)(2).
B. Financial and Credit Risk
In the event of an SBD, we will determine the value and liquidity of our assets to evaluate our ability to continue to fund our operations and remain in capital compliance. We will contact our bank and our clients to apprise them of our financial status. If we determine that we may be unable to meet our obligations to those counter-parties or otherwise continue to fund our operations, we will request additional financing from our bank or other credit sources to fulfill our obligations to our clients. If we cannot remedy a capital deficiency, we will file appropriate notices with our regulators and immediately take appropriate steps.
Rules: FINRA Rules 3510(c)(3), (c)(8) & (f)(2).
IX. Mission Critical Systems
Our firm’s “mission critical systems” are those that ensure prompt and accurate communications with our clients. More specifically, these systems include: telephone and internet access systems.
We have primary responsibility for establishing and maintaining our business relationships with our clients and have sole responsibility for our mission critical functions of telephone and internet services.
Recovery-time objectives provide concrete goals to plan for and test against. They are not, however, hard and fast deadlines that must be met in every emergency situation, and various external factors surrounding a disruption, such as time of day, scope of disruption, and status of critical infrastructure—particularly telecommunications—can affect actual recovery times. Recovery refers to the restoration of telecommunications activities after a wide-scale disruption; resumption refers to the capacity to continue to communicate with our clients after a wide-scale disruption.
A. Our Firm’s Mission Critical Systems
1. Order Taking
Our firm does not take orders, enter orders nor are we responsible for the execution of orders. Our mission critical systems include access to our electronically stored data, both onsite and our back up storage facilities and continuous telecommunications functions, both telephone, facsimile and internet access.
X. Alternate Communications Between the Firm and Customers, Employees, and Regulators
A. Customers
We now communicate with our customers using the telephone, e-mail, our Web site, fax, U.S. mail, and in person visits at our firm or at the other’s location. In the event of an SBD, we will assess which means of communication are still available to us, and use the means closest in speed and form (written or oral) to the means that we have used in the past to communicate with the other party. For example, if we have communicated with a party by e-mail but the Internet is unavailable, we will call them on the telephone and follow up where a record is needed with paper copy in the U.S. mail.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(c)(4).
B. Employees
We now communicate with our employees using the telephone, e-mail, and in person. In the event of an SBD, we will assess which means of communication are still available to us, and use the means closest in speed and form (written or oral) to the means that we have used in the past to communicate with the other party. We will also employ a call tree so that senior management can reach all employees quickly during an SBD. The call tree includes all staff home and office phone numbers. We have identified persons, noted below, who live near each other and may reach each other in person:
The person to invoke use of the call tree is: Gregory Bartko
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Caller
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Call Recipients
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Gregory Bartko
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Glen E. Smith
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Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(c)(5).
C. Regulators
We are currently members of the following SROs: FINRA. We communicate with our regulators using the telephone, e-mail, fax, U.S. mail, and in person. In the event of an SBD, we will assess which means of communication are still available to us, and use the means closest in speed and form (written or oral) to the means that we have used in the past to communicate with the other party.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(c)(9).
XI. Critical Business Constituents, Banks, and Counter-Parties
A. Business constituents
We have contacted our critical business constituents (businesses with which we have an ongoing commercial relationship in support of our operating activities, such as vendors providing us critical services), and determined the extent to which we can continue our business relationship with them in light of the internal or external SBD. We will quickly establish alternative arrangements if a business constituent can no longer provide the needed goods or services when we need them because of a SBD to them or our firm. Our major suppliers are: Corporate Office Centers, 3475 Lenox Road, Suite 400, Atlanta, GA. 30326. Our alternative vendor that would replace or substitute for the services we receive from Corporate Office Centers would be HQ Global Workplace, located at 3525 Piedmont Road, 7 Piedmont Center, Suite 300, Atlanta, GA 30305.
Rules: FINRA Rule 3510(c)(7).
B. Banks
We have contacted our bank to determine if they can continue to provide the financing that we will need in light of the internal or external SBD. The bank maintaining our operating account is: Wachovia Bank, N.A., 3465 Buckhead Loop Road, Atlanta, GA. 30326. The contact information at that location is through Kyle Jones: telephone number 404-995-8750 and fax number 404-995-8755. If our bank is unable to provide the financing, we will seek alternative financing immediately from Bank of America, with several locations in Atlanta, GA.
Rules: FINRA Rule 3510(c)(7).
C. Counter-Parties
We have contacted our critical counter-parties, such as other broker-dealers or institutional clients, to determine if we will be able to carry out our transactions with them in light of the internal or external SBD. Where the transactions cannot be completed, we will work with those counter-parties directly to make alternative arrangements to complete those transactions as soon as possible.
Rules: FINRA Rules 3510(a) &(c)(7).
XII. Regulatory Reporting
Our firm is subject to regulation by: the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the FINRA, the Georgia Securities Division of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. We now file reports with our regulators using paper copies in the U.S. mail, and electronically using fax, e-mail, and the Internet. In the event of an SBD, we will check with the SEC, FINRA, and other regulators to determine which means of filing are still available to us, and use the means closest in speed and form (written or oral) to our previous filing method. In the event that we cannot contact our regulators, we will continue to file required reports using the communication means available to us.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(c)(8).
XIII. Disclosure of Business Continuity Plan
We provide in writing a BCP disclosure statement to clients upon request. Our disclosure statement is attached. In the event of any SBD that effects our office location but does not effect the area of our office location on a city-wide or regional basis, our intentions would be to continue our business operations from our secondary location within two to three business days. Continuity of telecommunications services to our clients would not be interrupted for more than a few hours unless the SBD event was city-wide or more regional in scope. Access to our electronic and hardcopy backup storage locations is readily accessible through any means of connectivity to the internet and through the physical location
of our hardcopy backup storage location at 4060 Berkeley View Drive, Berkeley Lake, GA. 30326.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(e).
XIV. Updates and Annual Review
Our firm will update this plan whenever we have a material change to our operations, structure, business or location. In addition, our firm will review this BCP annually, on December 1, to modify it for any changes in our operations, structure, business, or location.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(b).
XV. Senior Manager Approval
I have approved this Business Continuity Plan as reasonably designed to enable our firm to meet its obligations to our clients in the event of an SBD.
Rule: FINRA Rule 3510(d).
Signed: _/s/ Gregory Bartko________
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Date: February 20, 2008.
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