By Irwin Speizer
Photographs by Jonathan Sprague
When Jeff Osher was in college & developing a keen interest in the stock market, his father gave him a modest sum to invest. Osher scouted for an opportunity, ultimately settling on Xircom, a maker of modem technology. Seeking an edge, he badgered the company's chief executive mercilessly, ultimately gaining an audience by finding a mutual interest in the leisure pastime of fantasy football.
Says Osher: "I'm convinced the only reason he took my calls was so we could swap stories on fantasy sports."
Now running his own hedge fund, $321 million Harvest Small Cap Partners, which is part of his uncle's JMP Group, Osher still relies on his knack for burrowing inside companies in search of nuggets of information that can inform his investments. While he no longer has to use fantasy sports as an entrée, he has found other ways to get...