Ulysses Management LLC

Ulysses Management LLC is a diversified investment firm led by Joshua Nash with over $1 billion in capital under management. We follow a variety of investment strategies in pursuit of superior investment results over the long term. The majority of the capital we manage belongs to our General Partners and their families, creating an uncommonly close alignment of interests in our investments with founders, entrepreneurs and management teams.

Who we are

Founded over 20 years ago and managed by Joshua Nash, Ulysses is the successor firm to Odyssey Partners, LP, where Mr. Nash was a general partner. Odyssey Partners LP, was the pioneering Investment Partnership formed in 1982 by Jack Nash and Leon Levy. Odyssey was an innovator in the public, private, and alternative investment markets and made some of the earliest private equity investments almost 40 years ago when they were known as "boot strap" investments. This tradition of investment innovation continues within the Ulysses investment areas.

Guiding Principles

Long-Term Investors

We are Long-Term Investors. We build conviction by having a firm understanding of a company’s "reason to exist." We are attracted to businesses with defensible, proven business models, enduring free cash flow, motivated management teams, and deep customer relationships. A central corollary to this philosophy is the avoidance of excessive borrowing or financial engineering to generate high-risk equity returns.

Partnership

We believe strongly in the benefits of partnership. We often deploy our capital alongside other like-minded investors, believing in the wisdom of multiple perspectives and the resiliency derived from additional human and capital resources.

Business Building

The power of compounding and thus longer term investment horizons is critical to our investment philosophy. This allows us to focus on real company building rather than financial engineering or quick flips. As a result, we prefer to measure our success in terms of return on invested capital rather than only internal rates of return.

Operational Focus

An operational focus is critical to creating sustainable value in businesses. We routinely rely on a network of operating executives to develop proprietary insights into our investment opportunities. Through many years of experience building businesses and our ability to draw on the talents and knowledge of our operating executives, we can help companies enhance their core advantages and transcend their historical limitations.

Alignment of Interests

Ulysses is an unusual investment firm in that our General Partners and their families have contributed the majority of our capital under management and it represents a meaningful portion of their net worth; we subscribe to the notion of "eating your own cooking." We have the ability to hold investments as long as we are the logical owner; there is no artificial or external pressure caused by fundraising cycles.

Value Creation

We work in close partnership with exceptional management teams and provide capital, vision, and operating resources to help build and strengthen the companies in which we invest. We are particularly focused on adding greater intelligence to the companies we invest in, which we define as (1) creating a data-driven culture; and (2) increasing the technology quotient of our products and services to improve the customer experience.

Investment Strategies

01
Public Markets

Our investing process is rooted in rigorous fundamental analysis with focus on valuation, barriers to entry, long-term sustainability of business model, sound financial structure, and a strong management team.

Our discipline seeks to identify companies that we believe may be mispriced or undervalued by the market and which our research supports the potential for exceptional earnings, revenue, and/or asset growth.

We also seek opportunities in emergent trends, disruptors, or turnaround situations and look to identify a proper inflection point in development for timely investment to capitalize in the growth trajectory as it accelerates.

We employ strict risk control through asset allocation and derivatives where appropriate. Our investments are primarily in, but not limited to, US public markets.

Investment Team

Joanne Whittier

Managing Director of Trading

Adam Hurwich

Senior Portfolio Manager

Sam Steinman

Senior Portfolio Manager

02
Hedge Fund & Managed Account

The goal of the Ulysses Hedge Fund/Managed Accounts group is to manage capital and exposure utilizing hedge fund and other investment strategies. We endeavor to generate superior long-term returns with less risk than the market at large. First and foremost, we are fundamental investors with a hunger to succeed focused primarily on long-term capital appreciation.

We seek to achieve this objective by investing in a portfolio of investment partnerships, managed accounts, and other investment vehicles that employ a variety of investment styles and strategies. Over time, we have sought to assemble and maintain a strategically diversified portfolio that, in the aggregate, is relatively balanced. We prioritize obtaining equity rates of return with reduced risk.

Our investments are not limited by geographic parameters. We seek managers investing in geographic areas that best suit their particular style, knowledge base, and skill set.

Above all, we believe in investing in the people behind the opportunity. We seek to align ourselves with strong managers who possess a proven track record and specific expertise in a given area. As such, each opportunity is rigorously vetted to evaluate compatibility of the management team with our investment philosophy and existing portfolio. We endeavor to identify investment opportunities across the market capitalization spectrum that offer risk- adjusted returns and will enhance our portfolio as a whole.

Investment Team

Ken Danczewski

Senior Vice President

03
Real Estate

We believe that significant opportunities exist to acquire undervalued or mismanaged real estate assets or real estate that is under-performing due to inefficient ownership, as well as to develop or rehabilitate real estate product to meet demand in certain markets with attractive risk-adjusted returns. Ulysses has been able to successfully pursue this approach by focusing on three guiding investment philosophies: investment quality, value creation, and timing.

First, we feel that, over time, investment in quality properties in core, high-growth markets with supply constraints will produce superior returns. Second, we believe in value creation and that the willingness to assume an acceptable degree of risk to create a new product or to enhance an existing product is often rewarded with significant returns.

Finally, we regard timing as a crucial element to any investment, as real estate is a cyclical industry, with windows of opportunity in which to buy, develop, hold, or sell investments. Such cyclical timing is both market and product specific, and is impacted by both real estate fundamentals (supply and demand), and capital market ebbs and flows. While the nature of opportunities may change over time, we believe we can produce excellent real estate returns through all phases of real estate cycles.

The real estate investing philosophies outlined above are implemented using the following strategies:

Market Research and Timing
We focus on asset types and geographic regions to identify broad areas of opportunity, and then begin developing specific investment strategies to take advantage of these opportunities. By anticipating changes in market conditions, we strive to gain a competitive advantage in acquiring and developing assets and formulating attractive exit strategies.

Local Entrepreneur Network
Over time, we have cultivated relationships with an extensive network of local entrepreneurs throughout the nation who assist us in locating, pursuing, and investing in opportunities, often before they are widely marketed. We benefit from the management expertise and, in certain cases, the significant infrastructures of our operating partners. Through these affiliations, we are able to position and control opportunities on attractive terms and take advantage of local entrepreneurs’ extensive knowledge of local market conditions. We also believe that local knowledge and management can add significant value and generally seek to align our local entrepreneurs’ interests with our own by requiring them to invest alongside us, rather than simply participating in the profit of the project.

Investment Team

Adam Brodbar

Managing Director of Real Estate

Capitalizing on Market Inefficiencies

We believe that we are able to identify market inefficiencies which create the potential for significant appreciation, such as inefficiency in the relative pricing of prime versus commodity properties. We believe that capital strategically deployed into prime assets should earn above-average returns.

Real Estate Expertise

We apply the extensive real estate expertise of our principals to formulate strategies that maximize the value of its real estate investments and to become as involved in the management of such investments as necessary to implement those strategies. Ulysses has the capacity in-house to oversee the management and repositioning of real estate assets, the ability to implement capital market strategies and, ultimately, the expertise to execute strategies for the disposition of assets.

Co-investment

We have co-invested with other major equity investors in order to share risk in larger transactions. Our intent is to implement this strategy in the future, should we or another equity source generate an opportunity in which we might otherwise be unable to participate due to investment concentration considerations.

Typical Size of Investment

$5 million to $15 million, but can be higher or lower depending on the specifics of the situation

Product Types

Focused on the traditional real estate product types, including multi-family, office, hotel, and industrial, but will consider all product types

Target Returns

Value-add and opportunistic

Typical Holding Period

Three to seven years

Geography

Primarily US

04
Private Equity

Our private equity group has a broad and flexible investment mandate to pursue attractive opportunities as a sponsor, co-investor, or limited partner. We invest in profitable, well-established companies with tangible competitive advantages. Our investment philosophy is to seek out opportunities born through change – change created by fundamental industry trends, economic cycles, technology, or specific company circumstances.

Frequently, our investment serves as a catalyst to manage the transition from founder/entrepreneur leadership to a professional management team. As a sponsor, we seek to partner with management to drive expanded market presence, improved profitability, enhanced capabilities through technology, and a steepened growth trajectory in our portfolio companies.

We invest across a broad range of industries and geographies. Our goal is to help management teams build long-term value that benefits all stakeholders. We structure our private equity investments based on each company’s circumstances and generally seek to invest in established businesses, typically requiring equity capital of between $10 and $50 million. For larger transactions, we have co-invested in partnership with other family offices or like-minded sponsors.

Investment Team

Paul D. Barnett

Senior Managing Director

Toby Rando

Managing Director

Sanjeev Thakrar

Principal

Stephen Clough

Senior Operating Executive

Fred Thiel

Senior Operating Executive

Niraj Patel

Senior Operating Executive

Roman Molino Dunn

Senior Operating Executive

Portfolio
Investment Criteria
Team Bios
Includes investments led by Ulysses professionals at previous funds.
Metric
Criteria
Size of Investment
Up to $50 million equity investment, with the willingness to co-invest in partnership with other like-minded investors for larger transactions
Size of Target Company
> $10 million of EBITDA for platforms, no minimum for add-ons
Control
Highly preferred
Investment Stage
Primarily profitable, established businesses
Transaction Types
LBOs, recapitalizations, growth equity, acquisitions, and public equities (in rare cases)
Typical Hold Period
Long term (3-15 years)
Geography
Primarily U.S.
Paul D. Barnett
Senior Managing Director

Mr. Barnett heads the Private Equity Group of Ulysses Management LLC. Prior to joining Ulysses, he was a founder and managing principal of Odyssey Investment Partners, LLC, a private equity firm with more than $4 billion under management. From 1993 to 1997, he was a principal in the private equity group at Odyssey Partners, LP. Prior to Odyssey, Mr. Barnett was a managing director at Mancuso & Co. and an investment banker at Kidder, Peabody & Co. He received his BA in economics from McGill University in 1984.

Toby Rando
Managing Director

Mr. Rando joined Ulysses in 2005. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Rando was an associate at JP Morgan Partners, where he managed middle market private equity investments. Prior to JP Morgan Partners, he was an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in the Leveraged Finance Group, where he focused on financings and advisory services for corporate and financial sponsor clients. Mr. Rando received his BA in history from Harvard University in 1998.

Sanjeev Thakrar
Principal

Mr. Thakrar joined Ulysses in 2017. Prior to joining the firm, he was at Harvest Partners, where he invested in middle market companies in the business services and industrials verticals. Prior to Harvest Partners, Mr. Thakrar was an Associate at Graham Partners, a middle market private equity firm based in Philadelphia. He received his BBA degree in Finance and Accounting with highest distinction from Emory University, where he was a member of the varsity men’s tennis team.

Stephen Clough
Senior Operating Executive

Mr. Clough provides insight into the operations of Ulysses’ investment opportunities. He has served as CEO of several manufacturing businesses including Fairfield Manufacturing, Motorcoach Industries, and New World Pasta. From 1987 to 1998, he served as CEO, President, and COO of Kaydon Corp. (NYSE:KDN), a custom engineering company. Mr. Clough was responsible for growing Kaydon from a small $20mm company into a public company valued at over $1 billion. Mr. Clough received his B.Eng (honors) in production engineering from Brunel University in London in 1975 and is a Chartered Engineer.

Fred Thiel
Senior Operating Executive

Fred Thiel is an experienced public/private company CEO, board member, strategic advisor, private equity firm principal, and senior advisor/operating partner with 30+ years’ experience building high-performance businesses. He has created over $500 million in shareholder value and raised >$150 million through both public (IPO and secondary offerings) and private capital sources. Fred has led multiple successful corporate transformations resulting in highly accretive exits; built high-output agile product development organizations; and established corporate innovation groups resulting in the creation of new product businesses. His experience includes serving as Executive Chairman of B&B Electronics, CEO of Lantronix, and as Founding Partner of Triton Pacific Partners.

Niraj Patel
Senior Operating Executive

Niraj Patel is an accomplished business and technology strategist who has launched and exited over 10 firms in technology, BPO and financial services. He is a nationally-recognized authority in fields of advanced analytics, platforms, and artificial intelligence. Niraj is currently a member of Goldman Sachs & Co.’s Digital Advisory Council. Previously, he co-founded ISGN and raised more than $90 million as a part of a roll-up strategy in Fintech; acquired 7 companies comprised of corporate carve-outs and private emerging companies; and scaled a company to $140 million in revenue in 4 years. Currently, Niraj is the practice head for platforms and AI at DMI. His prior roles include CIO of lending platforms at IBM, Strategy Officer at Selex, and CIO at GMAC Commercial Holding. At GMAC he led the startup, scaling-up, and exiting of six different divisions in technology and services that were focused on commercial real estate.

Roman Molino Dunn
Senior Operating Executive

Roman Molino Dunn is a nationally-recognized music technologist, award-winning composer, Billboard-charting music producer (Electropoint), and co-owner of Mirrortone Studios in New York City. He has composed and produced music for advertising agencies and corporations, television commercials, TV shows, short films, feature films, radio, and internet campaigns. As a music software developer and founder of The Music Transcriber, Roman has developed a number of plug-ins purchased by some of the leading music software developers in the world. Roman sits on the Creative Advisory Board of Antares Audio Technologies. He graduated with an accelerated BA/MA from Hunter College in New York City, attaining both his undergraduate degree in music theory and his Master’s degree in music composition in 4 years.

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T. 212.455.6200
F. 212.455.6281
info@ulyss.com