The Bear Cave #265

New Activist Reports, Recent Resignations, and Tweets of the Week

Mar 16, 2025

Welcome to The Bear Cave! Our last premium articles were “Problems at AppLovin (APP)” and “Problems at Gorilla Technology Group (GRRR)” and our next special investigation comes out this Thursday, March 20.

At 4:10pm ET on Wednesday, The Bear Cave will interview John Gavin, the founder of Disclosure Insight/Probes Reporter, who has decades of experience analyzing SEC filings. John will share his views on how the SEC is changing under the Trump Administration and his tips for analyzing public company disclosures. You can listen live on X here and a recording will be available in The Bear Cave next week.

New Activist Reports

Culper Research published on OSI Systems (NASDAQ: OSIS — $3.10 billion), which primarily makes screening technology for airports. Culper alleged the company is pulling forward revenue in its contract with Mexico’s Ministry of Defense to present the illusion of growth and is “burying two active DoJ probes” into potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations. Culper also wrote,

“In May 2024, OSIS Chairman & CEO Deepak Chopra announced retirement by year-end. The same month, he set up a 10b5-1 plan and has since sold stock both inside and outside of that plan. Insiders have sold $70M in the past 2 years. We’re short and think shares head lower.”

Kerrisdale Capital published on IonQ Inc (NYSE: IONQ — $5.41 billion), an upstart quantum computing company. Kerrisdale alleged the company has scaling challenges, “nowhere close to producing a commercially viable product,” and based on 20 interviews with industry participants found that “the company excels more in promotional hype than in genuine technology leadership.” Kerrisdale concluded,

“While IonQ is off highs, it remains +300% since traders began flocking to quantum computing as the next big thing. Even after pullback, IonQ still trades at a staggering 43x 2027E revenue. As momentum fades for cash-burning spec bets, IonQ’s valuation doesn’t compute.”

In May 2022, Scorpion Capital called the company “a hoax with staged Nikola-style photos.”

Spruce Point Capital published on Remitly Global (NASDAQ: RELY — $3.94 billion), an international remittance and money transfer company. Spruce Point alleged the company faces “short- and long-term disruption risks” from crypto stablecoins and tighter U.S. immigration policy. Spruce Point also said it used a reverse image search tool and found Remitly “used stock images of customers [and] presented them as if they are genuine.”

Hunterbrook Media published on both Remitly Global (NASDAQ: RELY — $3.94 billion) and Western Union (NYSE: WU — $3.61 billion) and wrote:

“Remittance companies face a triple threat: slowing growth, rising competition, and now federal scrutiny of transfers by cartels designated as terrorist groups.”

Iceberg Research published an update on BigBear AI Holdings (NYSE: BBAI — $888 million), an AI analytics and consulting company. Iceberg alleged that “many of BBAI’s contract announcements are highly misleading if not outright fraudulent.” For example, Iceberg highlighted a BigBear press release about a $2.4 billion FAA contract and wrote:

“In reality, the FAA awarded the contract to 14 prime contractors, including Concept Solutions, that in turn has 12 subcontractors, BigBear being one of them. Based on this, we calculated that the likelihood of BigBear getting revenue over the 10 years is just 0.6% (1/12 x 1/14), or roughly $1.4m in annual sales.”

Iceberg first raised concerns about BigBear in January 2023 and wrote, in part,

“Archived versions of these entities’ websites suggest the portfolio companies were mostly focused on data analytics and other IT consulting services, but for the SPAC merger, they were rebranded as AI-focused.”

Grizzly Research published on XP Inc (NASDAQ: XP — $7.89 billion), a Brazilian financial services company. Grizzly alleged funds affiliated with XP, Gladius and Coliseu, have achieved outsized returns largely by selling “predatory investment products that XP pushes aggressively on its Brazilian retail clients.”

In January, two accounts on X, @unemon1 and @pennycheck, highlighted screenshots from the Hindenburg Research website showing Hindenburg uploaded around 20 images of alleged misconduct concerning XP, largely centered around the Gladius and Coliseu funds. Hindenburg never formally published on XP.

In August 2023, The Bear Cave, which has no affiliation with Grizzly Research, also published on XP and highlighted “infuriated brokers, a broken sales culture, and meddling management among the company’s many problems.”

On Friday, Morpheus Research, a new activist short firm, tweeted that it would share its “first report dropping soon.” Nate Anderson, the founder of recently disbanded Hindenburg Research, also tweeted about Morpheus Research: “This is a great team that I have known for a long time and includes some Hindenburg alumni.”

Recent Resignations

Notable executive departures disclosed in the past week include:

CFO of Sterling Infrastructure (NASDAQ: STRL — $3.73 billion) “ceased serving without cause… to pursue other opportunities” after just ten months. The company is audited by Grant Thornton LLP and the company’s Board Chair retired in December after five years. In January, Red Dog Capital tweeted a short thesis on the company.
CFO of AllianceBernstein (NYSE: AB — $4.21 billion) “mutually agreed to a separation” after just one year. The asset management firm has had six different CFOs in the last five years.
CFO of Helport AI (NASDAQ: HPAI — $205 million) was “terminated” after a little over one year. The Singapore-based AI customer service company is down ~45% since its August 2024 SPAC merger.
CEO of Udemy (NASDAQ: UDMY — $1.20 billion) entered a separation agreement after two years. The company’s Chief Product Officer and Chief Technology Officer departed last year and the company is down ~70% since its October 2021 IPO.
CFO of Omnicell (NASDAQ: OMCL — $1.53 billion) will step down “effective September 15, 2025 or until a successor is named” after about two and a half years. In March 2024, the company’s Chief Accounting Officer also resigned after six years.
CFO of Ibotta (NYSE: IBTA — $1.16 billion) departed “to pursue an external opportunity” after four years. The grocery cash back and discount technology company is down ~60% since its April 2024 IPO.

Data for this section is provided by VerityData from VerityPlatform.com

News of the Week

“With Its Independence Removed, the SEC is Now Being Rapidly Dismantled.” (John Gavin)

“The changes we list for you below go much further than the SEC now reporting up to the White House. The related executive order that took away its independence was quickly followed by a series of debilitating cuts in personnel and facilities. Picture this: If the SEC were an automobile, you’d have a car that still looks the same but sputters and barely drives because so many of its systems and parts got removed.”

“Private Credit Pioneer Dragged Down by Insults and Indecision” (Bloomberg)

“Interviews with more than 30 people who either work or have worked at Prospect, or have done business with it, described a culture so toxic and dysfunctional that it’s deepening the financial problems at the firm’s $7.2 billion private credit fund.”