My business continuity plan has undergone some minor changes and if you are a customer or prospect, you need to pay more attention to it!  To begin with, in December 09, the Principal and only employee of the B/D, turned 65.  Yes, I am on Medicare.  That does not mean I am going to retire or even thinking about it.  My pace-setter and Broker/Dealer hero is Bill Burnside of William C. Burnside & Company, Inc.  He just turned 84 and is a great torch bearer for me!  But when Heaven issues that margin call, I will have to meet it.  So read on.

After 9/11, we have implemented the following Business Continuity Plan.

Since we are still only a one person firm, the Principal is Bullish Bob Bagley.

His CRD # 10044 and the firm, Bullish Bob Bagley Securities, Inc, kinda like my hero above, CRD # 24761.  All of this can be seen thru www.finra.org.

Our firm conducts business in equity and fixed income securities.  Our firm is an introducing firm and does not perform any type of clearing function for itself.  We do not hold customer funds or securities, or accept them, which we means we do not take money or securities from you.  You have to mail it all in directly to our clearing firm, Sterne Agee.  Sterne Agee is our clearing firm and they are best one we have had.  We are now on our fourth clearing firm and hopefully the last!  We started out with a great little firm, Private Brokers Clearing here in Dallas, but the regulatory burden became so great for them that they sold out to MJKI in Minneapolis, MN.  MJKI prior to Madoff was the largest bankruptcy in SIPC history.  Southwest Securities made a bid for all the Broker/Dealers clearing thru MJKI and I accepted.  SWS then hired some hotshot guy from up North, paid him over a million dollars a year to come to Dallas and he ran me off.  If you want to know more about that, please do not hesitate to ask.  The hot shot has since been run off but, I am gone from SWS.  The sad thing about that is that my oldest son is their Director of Broker Services.  Now I prefer to think that SWS’s loss is Sterne Agee’s gain.  Grin…b³.

Sterne Agee is located at 813 Shades Creek Parkway #100B, Birmingham, AL, 35209-9658.  Their phone # 205.414.3300 and the President is a great man by the name of Dennis Ferguson.  I really admire him!  Should you ever have the need to question Sterne Agee about ANYTHING, the man you should call is Eric Warner, same address, but his # 800.778.6247.  His email address is ewarner@sterneagee.com.  He is also backed up by a nice lady by the name of Sue Burdette.  She answers the same phone line above, so don’t be surprised to get her.  Her email address is sburdette@sterneagee.com.  Please respect that this is for emergency contact purposes only.  Otherwise, you should call me first.  All transactions are sent to Sterne Agee via of their Ecustody website.  Sterne Agee only maintains your customer accounts, and only Sterne Agee can grant access to them for delivery of funds.  We used to deliver securities, but now with the Depository Trust charging an outrageous $600 per stock issue to get a certificate, it makes it outrageously expensive for you to gift a security to a grandchild, relative, or friend.  We only deal with individuals, no institutions at this time. 

The Principal of the firm drives to and from work in a Dodge 4X4 truck with a big 360 engine in it with a short bed.  We have bought shorter tires 245/70/16 to lower the truck for easier ingress and egress for our new Anti-Money Laundering Sniffer dog.  We also have installed Ranch Hand bumpers on both the front and rear of the truck.  On the front, we have the Bullnose Front Bumper and in the rear, we have the Cowboy Bumper with 10,000 pound towing capacity with a bolt in receiver tube.  There is ½” plate steel back there to protect the principal and it has been enhanced by a drop down ugly extended 2” chrome trailer hitch.  This truck is generally parked by a brick wall, which protects the Principal when he gets out of the truck and walks 20’ feet to a 48” high redwood gate mounted on 4x4 posts set in concrete.  The gate is of a double swinging nature with about 22” to the side.

Then the Principal walks another 30’ under a 20’+ tall yaupon holly to 17 concrete aggregate steps 36” wide with steel handrails on both sides, which takes him to the second floor of 2535 A Cedar Springs.  While he walks under the 20’+ yaupon holly for about 12’ and all 17 steps, he can be shit on by the birds.  Alas, we have never discovered a way to protect him from them.  We just wash it off!  The “A” stands for above or “Angel.”  The Principal uses the same method of entry as we were audited for in our Y2K audit.  Our landlord is Bob Spurgin, who can be reached around the corner of the building at 2521 Cedar Springs.  His phone # 214.871.3322.  Bob’s Dad, Ben Spurgin, built this building in 1950 and Bob shows no propensity for moving.  We have a month to month rental handshake agreement, which so far has worked for 21 years, come May 1, 2010.  You must enter the office through the back door upstairs.  We have a front entrance, but it is surrounded by bushes and there used to be a bus stop right out side our door.  Bus passengers would get off the bus and step inside our door to the stairs and urinate there.  We have locked the front door long ago.  We still find urine stains on our concrete porch because of the visibility afforded by the bushes.

Once we are in our office, we lock the door.  Please see our pending Anti-Money Laundering website.  Our office houses an office made computer by b³, his first and next to last homemade computer!  I made so many errors on this computer that I had enough parts leftover to build a backup computer for our offsite location, but we will not build any more!

The wonderful computer:

        Thermalake Tusnami black (for profitability) computer, my wife calls it “the toaster”

        AMD 64X2 4400 Toledo chip

        Really big power supply

        Really super duper video card

        4 gig of memory chip

        2 internal hard drives

        1 external hard drive

        2 19” LG fantastic monitors

        Windows 7 Ultimate

Financial and customer material like new account forms are only available at the office.  Copies are at Sterne Agee or via the hard drives at the office and offsite location.  We do not transport paper between the two locations.  The offsite location is 429 Country View, Garland, TX 75043. 972.681.2392.  The home computer is from leftover parts of the above effort and again, we will not build another one.  Grin….b³

The following will cover a Significant Business Disruption:

        Our main office is served by Simple Power.  They charge me $0.10100 per kWh.  We used to do business with TXU.  One bill with them charged me the outrageous price of $115.28 cents per kWh.  If you get nothing else from this reading, leave TXU for Simple Power, 817 Mesa Drive, Austin, TX 78759, 888.313.4747, www.simplepower.com, care@simplepower.com.

        Our off-site location is served by Garland Power Light.  They are really a nice company and municipally owned.

Now without electricity, we are out of business in both places.  The reason for that is that without electricity we have no internet.  Without an internet, we have no phones.  We do have a great respect and admiration for the USPS.

        For both sites, we use Time Warner Cable for internet service.  What is funny about that is that I pay $100 a month at the office for a 10+kBPS and at home I pay $45 a month for in excess of 30+kBPS.  They can be days to service you too.  I got so mad at Time Warner Cable once that I tried to sue them in the Dallas County Small Claims court, only to discover that they are only subject to Federal jurisdiction.  The nice thing about that was I recognized the senior attorney on the law firm masthead, who I had known for 40 years, and I called him and he got me the help I needed.

        For both sites, we use Vonage telephone service.  It is great.  I really like their prices.

        Our IP servor is J3 Web Service, 1103 Debco, Spicewood, TX 78669, 512.264.7138.  Please ask for Jenny Worthington.  She really knows her stuff.  Her email is jenny@j3webb.com.  Her zip code covers 75 square miles, so it is best to email or call her.  If you get lost looking for her, you could be a while.

        Our former CPA was Paul Willingham of Krempien & Willingham.  469.222.3990.  Mr. Willingham was the best CPA we have ever had.  Unfortunately, with the blow-up of the Madoff scandal, we are now required to have a PCAOB qualified auditor.  Mr. Willingham did not want to go thru the hassle for the peek-a-boo qualification.  He recommended a real nice man, married to a wonderful wife, by the name of Philip V. George, 4421 Wanda Lane, Flower Mound, TX 75022, 214.385.5150, phil@pvgeorge.com.  If you are looking for an affordable PCAOB auditor, he is very pleasant to work with.  As a customer or prospect, he does a great job for you too!  I have no idea how FINRA let Madoff get by, but Phil George will not let you get by.

        Lastly, our tech guru, is Trevor Tinsman of Techmedix, www.techmedixinc.com, ttinsman@techmedixinc.com, 469.682.6501.  If you are in the USA and need a good tech man, let me recommend Trevor and his brother Sean, who own Techmedix.  I worked with their Mother, Sue Tinsman, over 30 years ago, when she was a receptionist with one of my old firms, Eppler Guerin, & Turner.  Their Dad, Tim Tinsman is a contract employee for my wife’s firm here in Dallas.  They are a neat family!  Trevor and Sean are Microsoft Certified Techs.  They do all my backups and virus protections and are on call 24/7/365.  They will install a program on your computer that will allow them to operate your computer from where ever they happen to be.  It is awesome to watch them fly around in your computer.  This Windows 7 Ultimate package that they sold me seems to be very stable.  I suggest you follow their advice!

Our BCP is lot like what you have in mind for your Doctor, Dentist, Veterinarian, Lawyer, Barber, or Hair Stylist.  If you are like my wife, you are more concerned about who is going to color your hair than worried about your accounts with me.  Now let’s suppose I do get that big margin call to Heaven, my oldest son, Robert Michael Bagley, III, “Tres” will inherit my firm.  He has a key to the office.  He knows where all my passwords are.

He will shortly start his 11th year with SWS.  You are in better shape with me and my firm than you are with practically any other firm because not many professionals have their offspring licensed to take their place.   Grin…Tres is a Principal with FINRA already.  He has several other licenses as well, so your monies and accounts and information will adjust quickly to whatever you desire. 

Dallas just recently endured a record snowfall.  Power was out all over Dallas.  We had some friends we let into our home, because under the bridge was just so cold and besides, his wife wanted to wash her hair.  These BCP’s are for real. 

On the other hand, there is just so much my little one man shop can do.  Our monies and accounts, like yours, are with Sterne Agee and we too have total confidence in them and their ability to assure you access to your properties.  The employees of Sterne Agee are just delightful to do business with.  To describe them, you only have to use one word--they are “kind.”  This is a wonderfully managed firm.  For you Broker/Dealers reading this, their Ecustody trading system is the very best.  The one drawback that Sterne Agee has, in my opinion, is that they do not have Automated Clearing House transfer of funds.  On the other hand, reading about some of the lawsuits involving Bank of America and funds wired out in error and the banks refusing to accept the loss, makes you glad they send it by US mail.

I started in this business on September 01, 1968.  Every firm that I have been with is no longer in business.  Please re-read this BCP.  Also with the recent failure of Merrill Lynch, every firm that I ever interviewed with is no longer in business.  I actually interviewed Merrill when I was a senior in high school.  It took them a long time to go down.

After Madoff, as you can imagine FINRA has been undergoing some changes.  The District Director for my FINRA district, Ms Jennie Jans has retired.  She was very professional with me.  The head of member regulation, Robert Errico, will retire in March 2010.  My current FINRA District 6 contact is Robert Cantwell, FINRA, 12801 N Central Expressway # 1050, Dallas, TX 75243, 972.701.8554, Robert.cantell@finra.org.  Despite the bad publicity recently endured by FINRA, please let me assure you that they, especially Mr. Cantwell, are keeping a close eye on me, and indirectly then your monies and accounts.  When Mr. Cantwell calls me inquiring why my expenses increased by $10,000 in a quarter, and wants a printout of why, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is keeping a close eye on me.  You could easily infer that you are safer with the smaller Broker/Dealers than you ever will be with the big guys. 

In summation, one of my long time clients will be 75 shortly…she is still in business today, and she maintains that she only had two customers ever stiff her and that was not for much money and she still gets calls from one of the individuals, when that individual gets religion, claiming that she will pay her back.  She is not anticipating it.

With over 40 years in the business and now a son with over 10 years of business in this industry, a chastened FINRA and SEC, we are all working diligently to protect you and your assets.  We humbly thank you for the wonderful opportunity!