Vickers Stock Research is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Argus Research Group. The Argus Group also includes Argus Research Corporation, Argus Investors' Counsel, Inc, and Argus Vickers American Equity Research LTD.

Vickers Stock Research Corporation
In 1977 Argus acquired Vickers. The subsequent purchase of Stock Research Corporation in 1983 led to the creation of Vickers Stock Research Corporation. Combining the talents of Stock Research, a respected analyzer of insider trading, with Vickers expertise in tracking the holdings of institutions, enables Vickers to provide the most up-to-date information on transactions and holdings of corporate officials, significant shareholders and institutions. Data is provided electronically, on-line, via the internet, hard copy publications and newsletters.

Data Sources: The principal sources of data are documents filed with the SEC, portfolios furnished directly to Vickers by US and international investors.

Quality Control: Quality control requires a tremendous amount of vigilant attention and is the responsibility of every member of the Vickers team. The stringent quality assurance procedures include: editing, double key-entry for all paper filings and testing by proprietary programs designed to identify any unusual entries. Only after passing each of these checkpoints is the data updated and made available to clients.

Customer Service: A call to our Client Services department begins a chain reaction. A member of the staff will respond to your request immediately. It is their job to get you an accurate answer as quickly as possible, and every member of the Vickers team is ready and waiting to support them in their endeavor.

Argus Vickers American Equity Research Ltd. (Institutional and Individual UK Equity Ownership)
Argus Vickers specializes in identifying the Beneficial Share Holders and Fund Managers behind Nominee Accounts (The Nominee Book) and Directors share movements (The Directors). The Owners is the flagship service, it contains the most comprehensive and timely ownership data available on small to mid-cap UK stocks and covers the FTSE, FTSE all share, AIM quoted companies and Investment Trusts. Free-float data can also be made available.

The reporting requirements in the UK differ from those in the US and the rest of the world. In the UK, Public Limited Companies (plc's) report the names of their shareholders on their share registers, as opposed to the US where portfolio managers report their stock holdings on their N30D and 13F filings. However, the UK system of reporting is complicated by the fact that the registers of the various plc's often show holdings as nominee accounts. The intelligence that Argus Vickers provides is the identification of the Fund Mangers and the Beneficial Owners hiding behind these names and the ability to show very accurate coverage of trading activity.

Argus Vickers analyses the registers of over 2,200 plc's every 4 - 12 weeks and by utilizing its unique nominee database, identifies where possible, real share ownership. Every day Section 212 inquiries are issued and approximately 50 companies are updated on the Owners Service, which discloses between 85-95% of the issued share capital making The Owners the most current and comprehensive UK share ownership service available.

Argus Research Company
Argus Research is a forward-thinking, long-standing independent investment research firm that offers forecasts and ratings on the U.S. economy, interest rates and hundreds of leading blue chip companies. We employ a rigorous six-point framework to analyze the companies in our Universe of Coverage, including meetings with their senior managers, and we provide continuous analysis via the Internet, our daily notes service, in-depth reports, and conference calls and consultation.

Argus Investors' Counsel Inc.
Argus Investors' Counsel, Inc. is a money management firm that was incorporated in 1960. Following the same investment strategy since 1967, our team of portfolio managers invests U.S. listed, large capital equities. Using a bottom-up stock selection process, portfolio diversification is achieved by making equally weighted investments in one established, financially strong, leading company in 40 to 50 different industries. Argus' investment approach may be characterized as an "investing" as opposed to a "trading" approach with a long-term investment horizon. Our stock selection, industry weightings and rebalancing enables Argus to capture the long-term positive trend of the market, while taking advantage of short-term market volatility.