The Bear Cave #278

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

Jun 15, 2025

Welcome to The Bear Cave! Our last premium articles were “Problems at Two Paper Products Companies” and “More Problems at KinderCare (KLC).”

Editor’s note (6/17/25): Given the exchange holiday on Thursday, June 19, The Bear Cave will not be publishing our normally scheduled investigation. Our next investigation will be sent to paid readers on the normal date of Thursday, July 3. We will use the extra time to make the next one extra special.

New Activist Reports

Fuzzy Panda Research published on Tenet Healthcare (NYSE: THC — $15.3 billion), a Dallas-based hospital and healthcare company. Fuzzy Panda “uncovered >$167 million of excess Medicare outlier payments to Tenet” and highlighted that the company previously fell ~70% in 2002 over a similar overpayment scandal. Fuzzy Panda alleged the company benefited from recruiting undocumented immigrants to give birth in Tenant hospitals, provided sub-par medical care, derived about 25% of its revenue from Medicare and Medicaid, and is “the next United Healthcare.” Fuzzy Panda concluded,

“We think the opportunity to short Tenet today, near its all-time peak stock price, is like getting to go back in time so you can short Valeant Pharmaceuticals when the government announced they were going to crack down on price gouging drugs.”

Independent researcher Lauren Balik published on Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN — $1.35 billion), a coupon company. Ms. Balik alleged the company’s recent growth was driven by temporary surges in questionable discount offers for GLP-1 medications as well as one-time discounts for new Microsoft Office software. Ms. Balik concluded, in part,

“Groupon’s management team is willfully omitting the two biggest trends driving growth in the key North America Local segment. These two trends are full of liabilities, risks, and sketchy vendors operating in legal grey markets. Regardless of any enforcement from the FTC, state AGs, FDA, etc. these two trends of compounded GLP-1 treatments and MS Office 2024’s release cycle are over and wrapping up.”

Following Ms. Balik’s report, Groupon removed several of the vendors on its platform offering GLP-1 coupons.

Culper Research published a follow-up article on AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP — $123 billion), a mobile app monetization company. Culper called the company’s recent bid for TikTok “a ‘Hail Mary’ attempt to alchemize its stock promotion into something lasting” and said the company “has blatantly misrepresented the scope of both its Chinese shareholders and its Chinese operations.” Specifically, Culper said that Chinese national Hao Tang, “controlled up to 28% of AppLovin Class A shares ahead of the company’s 2021 IPO, and continues to control at least 9.8% of Class A shares” and alleged Mr. Tang has “numerous ties to the CCP, money laundering, illegal gambling, and human trafficking operations.”

NINGI Research published on GRAIL (NASDAQ: GRAL — $1.49 billion), a DNA sequencing and cancer detection company. NINGI alleged the company’s cancer detection test “is backed by data that is just enough to create investor hype, but far too weak to convince experts, regulators, or insurers of its clinical utility.”

Iceberg Research published a follow-up report on The Metals Company (NASDAQ: TMC — $1.57 billion), a deep-sea metals mining company. Iceberg wrote that the company is not relevant to the Trump Administration’s goal of gaining independent production of rare earth minerals. Two weeks ago, Iceberg raised concerns about the company’s non-economic mining prospects.

Abacus Global Management (NASDAQ: ABL — $587 million), a life settlements company, issued another response to Morpheus Research’s recent short report and disputed Morpheus’s claim that affiliate Lapetus was a meaningful input in the company’s valuation model. In a response rebuttal, Morpheus raised new allegations that the company “engaged in undisclosed related party dealings.”

New Europe-focused short activist HitHawk Research published on Douglas AG (Frankfurt: DOU — EUR1.17 billion), a large German perfume and beauty retailer. HitHawk called the company “a classic legacy retailer in decline” with “unsustainable debt, reliance on shrinking high-street traffic, [and] weak digital presence.” HitHawk further alleged that “the perfumery that became Douglas was likely seized from Jewish owners in 1936 and handed to a Nazi-approved businessman” and that the company faces a “reputational time-bomb” and potential legal claims for restitution. Follow HitHawk Research @HitHawk_ on X.

Douglas AG is down ~50% since its March 2024 IPO.

New substack publication Red Flag Research launched to highlight red flags and hidden risks in the microcap market. Follow them here.

Recent Resignations

Notable executive departures disclosed in the past week include:

CFO of Avis Budget Group (NASDAQ: CAR — $4.29 billion) resigned after one and a half years “to pursue another opportunity.” In January 2025, Avis Budget Group was on the SEC B7A FOIA exemption list, indicating a potential undisclosed SEC investigation.
CFO of Symbotic (NASDAQ: SYM — $16.5 billion) “will depart to explore other opportunities” after one and a half years. In February 2025, the company disclosed it “received a subpoena from the SEC relating to its November 2024 restatement of revenues for the year ended September 28, 2024 and certain other matters.” Symbotic is audited by Grant Thornton.
CFO of Onto Innovation (NYSE: ONTO — $4.63 billion) “agreed to mutually terminate employment effective immediately” after three years.
CFO of The Joint Corp (NASDAQ: JYNT — $176 million) “separated” effective immediately after six years. In October 2021, The Bear Cave published “Problems at The Joint Corp (JYNT)” and highlighted that the company “has been overseen by five different CFOs and three different auditors since Roth Capital took the company public in 2014 [and] The Joint’s audit chairman has also worked for other failed microcaps.” The company has since fallen ~90%.
Mr. Karl Brenza, Chairman of ScanTech AI Systems (NASDAQ: STAI — $19.6 million), resigned after just five months but “will continue to act as a consultant to the company pursuant to Mr. Brenza’s existing consulting agreement.” The AI security checkpoint company is down ~90% since its December 2024 SPAC merger.
Mr. Preston Grasty, a Senior Investment Leader at Partners Group, resigned from the board of KinderCare (NYSE: KLC — $1.19 billion), “effective immediately” after a little over one year. Swiss private equity firm Partners Group holds a roughly 70% stake in KinderCare. The Bear Cave published twice on KinderCare in “Problems at KinderCare” and “More Problems at KinderCare” and wrote, in part,
“KinderCare often fails to deliver the safe and nurturing environment it promises parents and taxpayers… In sum, The Bear Cave believes KinderCare is a broken business that harms the children and families it claims to help.”
The company is down ~65% from its October 2024 IPO.

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

News of the Week

Next Generation Stock Promotion

Herb Greenberg highlighted alleged stock promotion activities by China-based Ostin Technology (NASDAQ: OST — $750 million). Mr. Greenberg wrote, in part,

“These promoters buy ads using AI-generated images and deep fakes of people like Goldman Sachs chief strategist David Kostin, who in one video is seen welcoming people to join ‘my WhatsApp’ group to ‘learn more about quality stocks.’”

Disclosure Insight said that CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD — $120 billion) has an elevated risk of financial restatement following its disclosure of SEC and DOJ probes.
Anonymous X account @blondesnmoney published a list of New York City-focused real estate companies that could underperform if NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wins and enacts his proposal of widespread rent freezes.