Wedbush Morgan Securities Appoints Co-Heads of Capital Markets and New Investment Banking Chief; Wedbush to Accelerate Its Push into Capital Market Services in 2005

Business Wire, March 9, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- Wedbush Morgan Securities, one of the largest brokerages based on the West Coast, announced today the appointments of Michael G. Gardner and Gary Wedbush to Co-Heads of Capital Markets and Mark J. Salter to Head of Investment Banking at Wedbush Morgan Securities.

"We are delighted to have excellent and respected executives lead us in accelerating our growth in 2005 in the capital markets and investment banking areas of our firm," said Ed Wedbush, President and CEO of Wedbush Morgan Securities.

Michael G. Gardner and Gary L. Wedbush have been promoted from senior vice presidents to executive vice presidents at Wedbush Morgan Securities and both will oversee investment banking, public finance, institutional sales and trading, professional trading, taxable fixed income, syndicate and research activities for the firm.

"We are excited about the tremendous opportunity to accelerate our growth in the Investment Banking and Capital Markets arena. To capture this opportunity Wedbush Morgan will significantly expand its Capital Market efforts and we will continue to serve emerging growth and middle market companies and the investors that focus on these companies," said Michael Gardner.

Michael G. Gardner is a CFA and has been with Wedbush Morgan for more than a decade while also serving on the senior management committee since joining the firm. For the past 8 years he has been a division manager, and prior positions at the firm include director of research, head of investment banking and head of technology investment banking. He received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Salem State College, a Master of Science in Management Information Systems from Claremont Graduate University, and an MBA in Strategic Management with Beta Gama Sigma honors from the Peter F. Drucker Center at Claremont Graduate University.

"We've experienced significant and profitable growth in our Capital Markets operations and are now poised to take the business to another level. We may hire as many as 30 professionals in banking, sales and research in 2005," said Gary Wedbush.

Gary Wedbush has been with Wedbush Morgan since 1998 when he joined the firm as Manager of the Trading Division and a Member of the Senior Management Committee. Prior to that, Wedbush was a Principal and the Director of Convertible Securities of the former Montgomery Securities in San Francisco, now Banc of America Securities. He also served as an institutional trader in the Convertible Securities department at Lehman Brothers in New York. He received an undergraduate economics degree from UCLA and an MBA in finance and management from the Kellogg School of Northwestern University in Chicago.

Additionally, Mark J. Salter has been promoted to Head of Investment Banking at Wedbush Morgan. Previously, Salter served as a managing director, investment banking and head of Technology Investment Banking at Wedbush since 2003. From 1995 to 2002, Salter worked at Robertson Stephens in technology investment banking where he served as Group Head of commerce Software and Services Investment Banking. Mark received his AB from Dartmouth College, cum laude, a BSEE from Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

About Wedbush Morgan Securities

Celebrating its 50th year in business in 2005, Wedbush Morgan Securities is headquartered in Los Angeles and is a member of the New York Stock Exchange and other principal exchanges. The firm provides a full array of corporate finance, research, trading, institutional sales, correspondent clearing and retail brokerage services.