UNITED-FIRST-PARTNERS

United First Partners ("UFP"), a leading Special Situations Investment & Advisory Group is pleased to announce it has entered into a strategic alliance with the Mariana Group (“Mariana”), a leading Derivatives and Structured Products brokerage group, which is fully FCA regulated and based in London. The combination of UFP and Mariana creates a mid-sized financial services group with a strong reputation in the Equities and Derivatives space. Consequently, Mariana’s regulated entity has been renamed Mariana UFP LLP (FRN 551170) and oversee in excess of 70 professionals in London covering a broad spectrum of value added financial products and services.

This strategic alliance will add to UFP’s current offering in Equities in Europe, as Mariana is a primarily Derivatives and Structured Products brokerage operation, with a strong reputation amongst its peers. UFP and Mariana anticipate significant synergies across business lines in relation to the regulatory challenges expected in the years to come.

UFP and Mariana have upgraded their facilities and entered into new clearing arrangements in order to give Mariana UFP the tools to compete at the highest level.

In the US, UFP LLC (SEC regulated and member of FINRA and SIPC) will continue to operate as a standalone entity, although UFP and Mariana have plans to significantly expand the existing scope of activities in the region, in particular in the Derivatives segment.

Michael Hadjedj, Co-founder of UFP commented: “We are very excited by the strategic alliance we have formed with Mariana. We believe that our industry needs consolidation and Mariana UFP wants to be at the heart of it. UFP’s strong niche research offering combined with Mariana’s cross-asset execution platform and large market share in the derivatives space is a powerful combination to seize opportunities in our industry.”

Daniel Hawkins, Co-founder and CEO of Mariana added, “We are very pleased to join forces with UFP, which brings to Mariana access to a strong research franchise to complement our existing Macro-Economic and Derivative Strategy offering. We are now working towards generating synergies across the group’s business lines, and leveraging on UFP’s presence in the US. We are also preparing actively for the transition to MIFID II in Europe and feel our enlarged group is well positioned.”

About United First Partners

United First Partners (“UFP”) is a global leading Special Situations Investment & Advisory Group, offering a wide range of merchant banking and investment advisory services to institutional and private clients. These services range from sale and purchase of strategic assets to corporate finance, debt and equity capital markets and wealth management.

Our strategy and core values allowed us to build an extensive customer base including leading hedge funds, private equity funds, long-only funds, corporates, sovereign wealth funds and family offices. Our achievements, independence, unique business model and strong reputation have enabled UFP to become an attractive and reliable partner for business associates and talented professionals.

Over the past 6 years, UFP has been recognised as the #1 independent Pan European Special Situations research by industry leading survey Extel.

For further details, please visit www.utdfirst.com

About Mariana Capital

Mariana Capital Markets is a diversified, independent financial services intermediary providing bespoke advisory and strategy services. The firm was founded in 2009 to create and distribute innovative, high performance investment solutions and provide the highest quality service to our clients.

From our headquarters in the City of London, we offer global financial solutions ranging from Market Strategy and Tax Advisory to Structured Products and Estate Planning Solutions.

These services complement our status as a market leading execution venue for Cash Equities, Equity Futures and Options, Commodities, and Fixed Income products.

For further details, please visit www.marianainvestments.com

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