THE SEAPORT GROUP, LLC’S BUSINESS CONTINUITY AND DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN DISCLOSURE
The Seaport Group, LLC (the “Firm”) is responsible for creating and maintaining a business continuity plan for its business. In the event of a major business disruption, the Firm has plans designed to allow it to continue operations of critical business functions, such as entering client orders and completing securities transactions. Seaport will accomplish this in part by:
- Relocating impacted businesses to designated recovery locations.
- Using redundant processing capacity at other locations.
- Designing its technology and systems to support the recovery processes for critical business functions.
- Adopting a communications plan to ensure that Seaport’s personnel receive emergency notifications and instructions from a variety of sources, including in-building announcements, telephone contact and website.
- Testing its recovery procedures.
As part of the Firm’s plans, it has identified systems or component parts of systems that are critical to each of its business activities. These applications are implemented in separate production and recovery data centers using industry-standard practices for data replication. Based on the level of criticality of the specific system or component part of that system, recovery times can range from real time recovery to next day. Here are a few examples of what might occur if the Firm were to experience a business disruption of varying magnitude:
- If the Firm had an internal disruption such as a fire, flood or power failure within its building, management would relocate affected personnel to alternate locations and service its clients from those locations for the duration of the disruption.
- In the event that Seaport’s primary data center became unavailable for any reason, the Firm would transition to a separate back-up location.
- The Firm’s registered representatives will continue to take customer orders or instructions via telephone if service is available and, if the Firm Web site is available, Seaport will post customer service numbers to our Web site (www.theseaportgroup.com) for customers to contact our representatives.
With regard to client assets, nearly all market-traded securities are held in central depositories (such as the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. in the U.S.) or with custodian banks, rather than in physical certificates. Ownership of the securities is reflected on a book-entry record-keeping basis with Seaport’s clearing agent Broadcort®, a division of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fernner & Smith Incorporated.
Although Sea Port Group Securities, LLC has taken significant steps to develop and implement sound business recovery plans, it cannot guarantee that systems will always be available or recoverable after a disaster or significant business disruption. However, the Firm believes that its planning for such events is sound and consistent with industry best practices. If you have further questions regarding Seaport’s business continuity plan, please contact the Firm at 212-616-7700.