Concept Capital Hires Washington Research Group, Institutional Sales and Trading Desk.

New hires add analysts, sales and trading personnel to significantly expand Concept Capital's institutional sales and trading business

NEW YORK -- Concept Capital, a leading institutional broker and total solutions provider for global investment managers, today announced that the firm has hired the principals of the Washington Research Group (WRG) and its affiliated institutional sales and trading team.

The team hire adds policy analysts, sector analysts, traders, salesmen and sales trading staff to Concept Capital's institutional sales and trading business. The expansion enables the firm to greatly enrich its proprietary research offering and broaden its institutional sales and trading effort. The Principals of Concept Capital have more than 100 years of experience in research, sales and trading, and have made building out a traditional brokerage model, which provides clients with true value added research and high quality customer service, a key strategic initiative for the firm in 2009.

Washington Research Group (WRG), founded 35-years ago, is a 15-member policy analyst team providing institutional investors with insights about the impact of Washington policy on their investment decisions. The team aims to be the professional investor's "one stop shop" for all things Washington, and its clients include the largest mutual funds and hedge funds in the country. The team covers a broad range of sectors, including health care, financial services, defense, national security, international trade, media/telecommunications, agribusiness, biofuels, tobacco, and corporate tax. The team has consistently ranked in the top three groups for Macro/Washington research in the Institutional Investor magazine's All-American Research Team poll.

Also joining Concept Capital as Head of Equities is Rich Parker. Mr. Parker has been with the WRG team for several years serving in the role of Head of Sales and Trading. "Concept Capital has shown a huge commitment to this platform by bringing aboard the sales and trading team to support it. This is a premiere institutional research and sales product, and providing that backed by the staff that understands how our clients use it is vital," said Mr. Parker.

The additional staff members will join Concept's institutional sales, trading and research team, in several of their offices including New York, N.Y.; Greenwich, Conn.; Garden City, N.Y.; and Boca Raton, Fla. Additional expansion for both equities and fixed income are planned for later this year.

"Concept Capital has made growing its institutional sales and trading business a top priority in 2009 as we see tremendous opportunity to grow our business and fill the institutional service gap created by the collapse of a number of the bulge bracket firms," said Robert E. Moore, Managing Director at Concept Capital. "We are delighted to have the opportunity to bring on this well-established and well-respected institutional trading and research team."

About Concept Capital: (www.conceptcapital.com)

Founded in 1995, Concept Capital is a leading institutional broker and total solutions provider for global investment managers. Concept Capital provides a full suite of prime brokerage, proprietary research, fund administration, and real-time risk management services. Concept Capital also provides an industry leading institutional trading platform for traditional buy-side customers, hedge funds, and registered investment advisors. Concept Capital specializes in providing clients with experienced, in-depth market knowledge combined with advanced proprietary systems, enabling clients to quickly launch their businesses in the most cost effective manner possible. Concept Capital is headquartered in New York City and has offices in Greenwich, Conn., Garden City, NY, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago and Boca Raton, FL. Concept Capital is currently a division of SMH Capital, Inc., member FINRA, SIPC. Concept Capital is forming an independent broker-dealer and, once approved, will operate as an independent company, of which Sanders Morris Harris Group Inc. will be a minority shareholder.