The Bear Cave #285

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

Aug 03, 2025

Welcome to The Bear Cave! Our last premium articles were “Problems at 130 Long-Term Underperformers” and “Problems in Chinatown” and our next special investigation comes out Thursday, August 7.

On Tuesday, The Bear Cave published “Problems at Pheton Holdings (PTHL)” and alleged the company “is being manipulated by overseas stock manipulation groups and is at risk of a near-term, severe stock collapse.” Later that day, the stock fell ~95%. The company issued a statement that read, in part,

“Over the past few days, shares of Pheton have experienced an extraordinary and unexpected decline in its share price, which the company believes may have been triggered by a speculative article published by The Bear Cave on July 29, 2025. The article asserts that Pheton’s share price may have been influenced by false rumors of a potential acquisition by Gilead Sciences.”

The Bear Cave stands by its reporting and will continue to send out timely alerts about other U.S.-listed Chinese stock promotions we believe are near collapse.

New Activist Reports

Bleecker Street Research published a pair trade of short United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR — $13.3 billion) and long Liquidia (NASDAQ: LQDA — $1.51 billion), an incumbent and new entrant for pulmonary arterial hypertension treatments. Bleecker Research highlighted the new drug from Liquidia, Yutrepia, is on the market after years of legal challenges and is beginning to take share from United Therapeutics’s blockbuster drug Tyvaso. Bleecker Street said it “conducted a survey of 18 Tyvaso prescribers” and found that “Yutrepia has already taken 5% market share from United Therapeutics within two months of launch” and wrote that “prescriber expectations for Liquidia were high: on average, they estimated that Yutrepia would seize 50% market share, with several ranking Yutrepia first choice due to better tolerability.” Bleecker Street also noted that United Therapeutics insiders have sold roughly $179 million in stock over the last twelve months.

Recent Resignations

Notable executive departures disclosed in the past week include:

CEO of Aspire Biopharma (NASDAQ: ASBP — $18 million) resigned “effective immediately” after just six weeks. In addition, three board members resigned this week, including one who “was resigning as a result of irreconcilable differences with the company’s policies and direction.” The early-stage biopharmaceutical company is down ~96% since its February 2025 SPAC merger and the company recently pivoted to launch direct-to-consumer pre-workout caffeine packets.
CFO of Microvast Holdings (NASDAQ: MVST — $983 million) “ceased to be employed as Chief Financial Officer” after just three months. The lithium-ion battery company has had five CFOs in the last three years and, in June 2025, Grizzly Research alleged that “the company is fabricating a significant part of its business and capabilities.” In November 2023, J Capital Research also published on the company and alleged that ~57% of its revenue “may be fake” because the company’s Chinese factory “shows almost no activity.”
CEO of Boston Beer Company (NYSE: SAM — $2.28 billion) stepped down after one and a half years “for personal reasons.”
CFO of AirSculpt Technologies (NASDAQ: AIRS — $368 million) retired after a little over four years. In addition, the company’s Chief Accounting Officer also resigned with three days’ notice after just nine months. In February 2024, Fuzzy Panda Research called the company “a Liposuction Chop-Shop” and said its former Director of Safety “lost his medical license due to gross negligence resulting in a patient death.” The company is audited by Grant Thornton.
CFO of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH — $216 billion) resigned after a little over nine years. In May, the company’s CEO “decided to step down for personal reasons” after a little over four years. The Wall Street Journal later reported the Justice Department “is investigating UnitedHealth Group for possible criminal Medicare fraud.” In December 2024, Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group’s insurance division, was shot and killed outside an investor conference.
NWTN Inc (NASDAQ: NWTN — $412 million) “proposed to remove independent directors Alain Batty, Joseph Levinson, and Michael S. Cashel, and executive director Aaron Huainan Liao from the board of directors of the company” at its upcoming August 13 shareholder’s meeting in Dubai and announced its corporate rebranding as Robo.ai Inc. Last month, the company’s CFO resigned “for personal reasons” with immediate effect after just six months. The UAE-based electric vehicle company has had five CFOs in the last two years. In May 2025, the company’s CEO resigned with four days’ notice after nine and a half years. In December 2024, three board members resigned and cited “concerns regarding corporate governance practices, transparency in communications, and challenges related to financial leadership.” In January 2025, the company switched auditors from Marcum Asia to ASSENTSURE PAC. The company is down ~85% since its November 2022 SPAC merger.
Chief Legal Officer of International Money Express (NASDAQ: IMXI — $261 million) “entered into a separation agreement” and departed effective immediately after a little over one year.

Editor’s Note: This week, The Bear Cave highlighted the departure of Five9’s CEO, Mike Burkland, as a “notable departure.” However, The Bear Cave omitted that Mr. Burkland’s departure was for health-related concerns around his previously disclosed cancer diagnosis. As such, The Bear Cave has removed the resignation from this week’s list and apologizes for our oversight.

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

News of the Week

“How a Short Seller Succeeds: The Blueprint for Strategy and Survival” (Steve Eisman podcast)

Steve Eisman interviewed Brad Safalow, founder of the respected long/short idea generation service PAA Research. The interview discusses Brad’s background, research process, and three of his top short ideas:

Freshpet (NASDAQ: FRPT — $3.21 billion), a dog food company that faces a secular headwind from peak pet ownership in the U.S., as well as fewer avenues for growth because the company has saturated its retail channels (11:55).
Trupanion (NASDAQ: TRUP — $1.98 billion), a pet insurance company that “has a financial model that doesn’t work” and is “in an insurance rate death spiral” as it needs to raise insurance rates on existing pets to offset higher claims as pets age. This dynamic deters new pet owners from purchasing Trupanion pet insurance and creates adverse selection among its insured pets, in which only customers with sick pets will pay the inflated rates (23:52).
Kinsale Capital Group (NYSE: KNSL — $10.4 billion), a specialty insurance company that trades at an inflated valuation and allegedly overcharges small businesses for watered down property and casualty insurance, leading to low client retention, high levels of litigation, and superior loss ratios that are, at least temporarily, viewed positively by the investors (36:06).

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

“Chinese Stock Loses 90% in Minutes After Pump-and-Dump Warning” (Bloomberg)

“Pheton Holdings Ltd., a Nasdaq-listed Chinese health care company, lost 90% of its market value in a matter of minutes on Tuesday, hours after a Bear Cave research report said it may be the target of a pump-and-dump scheme…
Over the course of Tuesday afternoon, Pheton resumed trading and was halted at least eight more times, as it extended its decline to 95%. The shares ended the day at $1.65, with a market capitalization of $40.8 million, down from $765 million on Monday.”