Gregory Bylinsky and Jefferson Gramm

New York-based Bandera Partners was founded by Greg Bylinsky and Jefferson Gramm in 2006. Bandera Partners is a value-oriented activist hedge fund. Previously Bylinsky was a portfolio manager at Lime Capital Management, focusing on value investing and special situations. Between 1998 and 2000, he worked at Tower Research Capital. Bylinsky has a B.A. from Yale and a J.D. from Harvard Law (1994). After graduation Bylinsky practiced law for four years at Kaye Scholer LLP.

Prior to joining Bandera, Jefferson Gramm was employed as an analyst at HBV Capital, a distressed debt hedge fund in New York. Jeff Gramm graduated from Columbia Business School, where he attended renown investor Joel Greenblatt‘s Security Analysis Classes and where he is currently also teaching Applied Value Investing.

Gramm and Bylinsky founded Bandera in 2006 with a focus on micro-cap companies. The fund’s first investment was UCI Medical Affiliates, in which the fund became the second-largest shareholder and in 2011 negotiated its sale for $65 million, or $6.50 per share, which represented a 141% premium to the stock price before the announcement. Another bet was Peerless Systems Corp. (PRLS), which the fund acquired at a big discount to cash. Bandera joined the board and pushed the company to return capital to shareholders.

Bandera Partners is a highly-concentrated, long biased fund with regulatory assets under management of around $196 million. The fund focuses on long-term investments in companies that are priced significantly below their intrinsic value and invests in special situations such as reorganizations and spin-offs.