10:00 – 11:00 - The Ever-Crowding "Middle-Market"

David W. Dupree

Managing Director & CEO

The Halifax Group

Mr. Dupree became a director on October 17, 2003.  He is the Chief Executive officer and a Managing Director of the Halifax Group, which he co-founded in January 1999.  From 1992 to 1999, Mr. Dupree was a Managing Director and Partner with The Carlyle Group, a global investment firm located in Washington, D.C.  Prior to joining The Carlyle Group, Mr. Dupree was a Principal in Corporate Finance with Montgomery Securities and prior to that, he was Co-Head of Equity Private Placements at Alex Brown & Sons Incorporated.  Mr. Dupree earned a B.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his M.B.A. from the Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University, where he was past Chairman of the Board of Visitors.  Mr. Dupree served as a Trustee for St. Patrick’s Episcopal School in Washington, D.C. where he was past Chairman of the Finance Committee.  Mr. Dupree currently serves on the Board of Directors of Whole Foods Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ: WFMI), Papa John’s United Holdings, Inc., IASIS Healthcare, Inc., North American Video, Inc.,  and EFO Capital Management, and serves on the Board of Trustees for Wake Forest University.  In recent years, Mr. Dupree served on the Boards of Meineke Car Care Centers, Inc., Soil Safe, Inc., National Packaging Solutions Group, Insight Health Services Corp., and Pharmaceutical Research Associates International, Inc.

R. Marshall Merriman, Jr. (Marsh)

Managing Director

BlackRock Kelso Capital

Prior to joining BlackRock Kelso Capital, Mr. Merriman was a Managing Director with Harris Williams & Company, an investment bank providing mergers and acquisitions and financial advice to middle market companies in the United States and Western Europe. During the last two years of his tenure at Harris Williams, Mr. Merriman headed the firm’s Corporate Finance and Restructuring Group, which advises healthy and distressed companies seeking to raise capital or restructure their balance sheets.  Prior to joining Harris Williams in 1998, Mr. Merriman was a partner at the law firm of McGuireWoods LLP, where he represented public and private companies and private equity firms in mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance transactions.  Mr. Merriman received a B.A. in Commerce from Washington & Lee University, summa cum laude, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.  Mr. Merriman is a director of Al Solutions, Inc.

D. Neal Morrison (Neal)

Partner

Wachovia Capital Partners

Mr. Morrison joined Wachovia Capital Partners in 1996.  His investing efforts are focused in the Healthcare Industry.  Mr. Morrison is actively involved as either a Board Member or Observer with the following portfolio companies: American Renal Associates, Greenway Medical Technologies, Prometheus Laboratores, Inc., and US Radiosurgery.  Prior to joining Wachovia Capital Partners, Mr. Morrison was a Director within the Healthcare Finance Group at First Union National Bank.  He has over 20 years of healthcare focused middle-market investing and leveraged finance experience with Wachovia.  Mr. Morrison received his BA from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MBA from The Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University.

John W. Pollock

Managing Director

Edgeview Partners

Mr. Pollock is a veteran of more than 70 investment banking advisory assignments, including sales, buyside transactions, private placements, initial public offerings, leveraged financings and strategic advisory assignments. Although a generalist, he has significant experience in the building products, health care, business services and industrial sectors. At Edgeview, he leads the firm’s Health Care practice.  A native of Norfolk, Va., Mr. Pollock earned a bachelor of arts degree in English from Hampden-Sydney College. He holds a master’s degree in business administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. Mr. Pollock worked in business positions at Fortune, Sports Illustrated and Spy magazines in New York and in banking at Merrill Lynch & Co.  He subsequently worked for Bowles Hollowell Conner & Co. (BHC), one of the nation’s top middle-market investment banking firms. There, he founded the firm’s building products M&A group and reached the office of Managing Director.  Following BHC’s purchase by First Union Corp. (later Wachovia Corp.) in 1998, Mr. Pollock focused on coverage of private equity groups, served as head of Wachovia’s health care M&A group, oversaw health care private placements and was responsible for coverage of the medical technology sector.

Jeff Sangalis

Managing Partner

Capital Point Partners

Jeffrey P. Sangalis is a founding partner of Capital Point Partners and has extensive experience as a mezzanine and equity investor in middle market companies. His background includes more than twenty years of experience in the commercial, investment and merchant banking fields with a particular emphasis in the mezzanine and private equity asset classes. Prior to forming Capital Point Partners, Mr.Sangalis was a founder and Managing Partner of RSTW Partners and its predecessor entities Rice Sangalis Toole & Wilson and Rice Capital. Founded in 1989, RSTW specialized in mezzanine capital for middle market companies. Mr. Sangalis previously was a Vice President with First Texas Merchant Banking Group, a subordinated debt lender, and a Vice President with Bankers Trust Company (now Deutsche Bank). Mr.Sangalis was also employed with Bank of America and its predecessors in various commercial lending capacities. Mr. Sangalis currently serves or has served as a director or advisory director of more than 25 portfolio company boards. He is also currently President and a board member of the Association for Corporate Growth Houston Chapter and board member and past two term president of the Houston Private Equity Association. Mr. Sangalis received a B.S. from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, an M.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation from the CFA Institute.

Moderated By:

Michael Becker

Principal

Plexus Capital

Michael Becker is a Principal with Plexus Capital and works in the Raleigh office. From 2003 to 2004, Michael worked with Triangle Capital Partners, where he invested in middle market companies in the Southeast. Michael began his career in 1997 with Townsend Frew and Company, an investment boutique in Durham, NC, and subsequently worked with RBC Centura Capital Markets as a Vice President.  Mike holds a BSBA and MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.