 Amherst Securities Group LP (“Amherst”) is committed to safeguarding the interests of our clients and customers in the event of an emergency or significant business disruption. Amherst has developed a Business Continuity Plan in order to respond to events that significantly disrupt our business. Since the timing and impact of disasters and disruptions is unpredictable, we will have to be flexible in responding to actual events as they occur. With that in mind, we are providing you the following information regarding our business continuity plan.
Contacting Us
If after a significant business disruption you cannot contact us as you usually do, you should go to our web site at www.asglp.com for information. The web site also has a list of various telephone numbers throughout the Amherst system under the “Contact Us” tab. If you cannot access us through either of those means, you should contact our clearing firm, Pershing LLC. You may contact Pershing LLC at (201) 413-3635 for recorded instructions or go to their web site at www.pershing.com for information regarding processing liquidation transactions, cash disbursements, and security transfer transactions for your account. If you cannot access the instruction from the web site or the previously noted telephone number, Pershing may be contacted at (213) 624-6100, extension 500, as an alternate telephone number for recorded instructions.
Our Business Continuity Plan
We plan to quickly recover and resume business operations after a significant business disruption and respond by safeguarding our employees and property, making a financial and operational assessment, protecting the firm’s books and records, and allowing our customers to transact business. In short, our business continuity plan is designed to permit our firm to resume operations as quickly as possible, given the scope and severity of the significant business disruption.
Our business continuity plan addresses: data back up and recovery; all mission critical systems; financial and operational assessments; alternative communications with customers, employees, and regulators; alternate physical location of employees; critical supplier, contractor, bank and counter-party impact; regulatory reporting; and assuring our customers prompt access to their funds and securities if we are unable to continue our business.
Our clearing firm Pershing LLC maintains a business continuity plan, including redundant data centers and alternate processing facilities, to address interruptions to its normal course of business. These plans are reviewed annually and updated as necessary. The plans outline the actions Pershing will take in the event of a building, city-wide, or regional incident, including relocating technology and operational personnel to preassigned alternate regional facilities. Technology data processing can also be switched to an alternate regional data center. All Pershing operational facilities are equipped for resumption of business and are tested several times per year. Pershing’s recovery time objective for business resumption, including those involving a relocation of personnel or technology, is four (4) hours. This recovery objective may be negatively affected by the unavailability of external resources and circumstances beyond our control.
Varying Disruptions
Significant business disruptions can vary in their scope, such as only our firm, a single building housing our firm, the business district where our firm is located, the city where we are located, or the whole region. Within each of these areas, the severity of the disruption can also vary from minimal to severe. In a disruption to only our firm or a building housing our firm, we will transfer our operations to a local site when needed and expect to recover and resume business. In a disruption affecting our business district, city, or region, we will transfer our operations to a site outside of the affected area, and recover and resume business. In either situation, we plan to continue our business operations or transfer operations to our clearing firm if necessary, and notify you through our web site at www.asglp.com.
Disclaimers
Amherst’s Business Continuity Plan is designed to be prepared for significant business disruptions and to resume our business operations as quickly as possible if an event did occur. The information contained within is a summary of that plan. Because of the confidential nature of much of the plan, it is not possible to distribute the entire plan to clients, customers or other external entities.
Recovery-time objectives provide concrete goals to plan for and test against. They are not, however, hard and fast deadlines that must be met in every emergency situation, and various external factors surrounding a disruption, such as time of day, scope of disruption, and status of critical infrastructure—particularly telecommunications—can affect actual recovery times.
The Business Continuity Plan Disclosure is subject to change without notice. We may modify this disclosure at any time with such modifications becoming effective upon posting to our web site. You may obtain a current copy of this disclosure by accessing our web site at www.asglp.com. Alternatively, you may obtain a hard copy of this disclosure by mail upon request.
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