Business Continuity Plan

Introduction 

Mesirow has developed Business Continuity Plans (“BCP”) on how it will respond to events that significantly disrupt its business. Since the timing and impact of disasters and disruptions are unpredictable, Mesirow Financial will have to be flexible in responding to actual events as they occur. With that in mind, we are providing you with this information on our business continuity plan.

The Business Continuity Planning Disclosure Statement summarizes Mesirow’s effort to mitigate risks inherent with unforeseen business disruptions. Mesirow Financial institutes best practices developed by industry organizations for creating practical and effective business continuity plans.

Organization

Mesirow has established a Business Continuity Planning (BCP) department, a dedicated team of professionals that oversees the firm's business continuity management strategy. The BCP Department works closely with business units and the Information Technology Department to employ a standardized framework for building, maintaining and testing business continuity plans. The plans are created using an “All Hazards” approach. Plans are designed to allow for continued operations of critical business functions, which include providing clients with prompt access to their funds and securities.

Incident Management

A Crisis Management Team (CMT) comprising senior management representing key areas of the Firm has been established to manage major incidents that might impact the Firm's associates and clients. The CMT will assess and direct the Firm's response to an incident, ensuring the safety and security of all associates and continuity of critical processes.                                        

Mesirow is committed to providing reliable, trustworthy service that represents the best interests of our clients. The firm has developed a business continuity plan to protect our clients and employees in the event of an emergency or significant business disruption. The plan is designed to quickly recover and resume business operations after a significant business disruption and respond by safeguarding its employees’ safety and firm property, making financial and operational assessments, promptly recovering and resuming operations, protecting the firm's books and records and allowing our clients access to their funds and securities. Mesirow’s business continuity plan addresses: data backup and recovery; all mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with customers, employees and regulators; alternate location of employees; critical suppliers, contractor, bank and counterparty impact; regulatory reporting; and assuring customers prompt access to their funds and securities if we are unable to continue our business.                                        

Our service bureau and market data vendors represent that nightly back-ups are performed and could be restored at a remote operating facility in a geographically separate area. While every emergency situation poses unique problems based on external factors, such as time of day and the severity of the disruption, we have been advised by our service bureau that its objective is to restore its own operations and be able to complete existing transactions and accept new transactions and payments with recovery time and resumption objectives: recovery time period within four hours; and resumption time of 48 hours. Orders and requests for funds and securities could be delayed during this period.                                                                     

Varying Disruptions

The business continuity plan considers various scenarios that range in severity from a limited firm or building only disruption to a broad emergency situation on a local or regional level. For example, in the event any Mesirow office locations are inaccessible, alternative locations are established and prepared to facilitate business operations. The firm has redundancies in place for its business-critical systems and believes that it can usually be able to resume business within the same day as the disruption. Our goal in all situations is to return to normal business conditions as soon as possible, with minimal impact on our clients and employees. Even in an extreme situation where continuing business may not be possible or practical, Mesirow has plans in place that provide clients with access to their funds.

Contacting Us

If after a significant business disruption you cannot contact us as you usually do, you should contact us via one of our alternate office locations or via the contact us links, both located on our corporate website mesirow.com. Should you have any questions about Mesirow’s business continuity planning, please contact our Business Continuity Team via email at bcpalerts@mesirow.com.                            

Mesirow’s Business Continuity Plan is subject to change at any time without notice. However, notwithstanding the above, Mesirow does not guarantee that for every disaster or business disruption, such plans will be successfully implemented or that such plans will be sufficient and appropriate to avoid, deter or mitigate the disaster or business disruption.