The Bear Cave #311

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

Feb 01, 2026

Welcome to The Bear Cave! Our last premium articles were “The Best Stock Research Tools for 2026” and “Problems at Aduro Clean Technologies (ADUR)” and our next special investigation for paid readers comes out this Thursday, February 5.

New Activist Reports

Hunterbrook Media published on Ubiquiti (NYSE: UI — $33.4 billion), a Wi-Fi router company. Hunterbrook alleged that “[Ubiquiti’s] networking gear is powering Russian battlefield communications in Ukraine” and found that “Ubiquiti networking equipment is so essential to Russia’s war effort that vendors selling Ubiquiti devices sent us letters they said were from the Russian military and its supporters thanking them.” Hunterbrook also posed as a Russian buyer and found that Ubiquiti distributors were willing to ship Ubiquiti products to Russia, in violation of sanctions. In 2014, Ubiquiti agreed to settle charges of violating U.S. sanctions for allowing its products to be sold in Iran.

Hunterbrook Media also published on Richtech Robotics (NASDAQ: RR — $770 million), a company building automated robots primarily for the food service and hospitality sectors. Hunterbrook alleged that Richtech’s recent market-moving announcement of a Microsoft “partnership” was actually just a “standard customer engagement… [with] no commercial element,” according to a Microsoft spokesperson. Hunterbrook noted that Richtech raised money from investors the day after its frivolous Microsoft “partnership” announcement.

In October 2025, Capybara Research called Richtech “a China hustle riddled with fraud.”

Gotham City Research published on Carvana (NYSE: CVNA — $87.3 billion), an online platform for buying and selling used cars. Gotham City alleged that Carvana’s “2023-2024 earnings are overstated by $1 billion+ and far more dependent on related parties than disclosed.” Gotham published the 2024 annual report for the related party, DriveTime, and alleged that money-losing related parties “fuel over 73% of Carvana’s EBITDA.”

Snow Cap Research published on Patria Investments (NASDAQ: PAX — $2.33 billion), a Latin American asset management firm. Snow Cap alleged the company may be “overstating performance and concealing losses within its flagship private equity and infrastructure funds.” Snow Cap also highlighted that in December 2025 Patria’s CFO resigned (effective April 2026) and in April 2025 Patria switched auditors from Deloitte to KPMG.

Fugazi Research published on Sidus Space (NASDAQ: SIDU — $183 million), a “zero-profit satellite company in which the CEO is the landlord, lender, supplier, main shareholder, and main customer.”

Spruce Point Capital published on Resideo Technologies (NYSE: REZI — $5.13 billion), a home security solutions company. Spruce Point raised concerns about the company’s accounting and said its plan to split into two separate publicly traded companies fails to address “weakening competitive positioning [and] diminished growth vectors.”

Recent Resignations

Notable executive departures disclosed in the past week include:

CFO of The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD — $14.6 billion) was “terminated” with immediate effect after five months. The company has had five CFOs in the last ten years.
CFO of Genesco (NYSE: GCO — $312 million) resigned after one and a half years “to pursue opportunities outside the retail industry.” The footwear retailer switched auditors last year from Ernst & Young to Deloitte.
CFO of Americold Realty Trust (NYSE: COLD — $3.45 billion) departed with immediate effect after two years. In August 2025, the company’s CEO “entered into a Retirement Agreement” after three and a half years and also departed the board.
CEO of First Financial Bankshares (NASDAQ: FFIN — $4.56 billion), F. Scott Dueser, “entered into the Transition Agreement” after 25 years of leadership. During his tenure, the bank had a total return of 2,439% compared to 728% for the S&P 500.

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

News of the Week

“Former Senior Bank Executive, Edward Gene Smith, Pleads Guilty To Sexual Assault, Child Pornography, And Obstruction Of Justice Offenses” (DOJ)

“Between approximately 2015 and June 2024, SMITH, who was during that approximate time period a senior executive of major financial institutions, planned to drug, attempted to drug, and/or drugged numerous women with the intent to incapacitate them and/or render them unable to consent to sexual activity. SMITH did, in fact, engage in sexual activity with multiple of these women, and, in at least some cases, surreptitiously took videos or photographs of his criminal sexual activity.”

“SEC Charges ADM and Three Former Executives with Accounting and Disclosure Fraud” (SEC)

“The SEC’s complaint against Luthar alleges that he directed ‘adjustments’ to Nutrition’s transactions with other ADM business segments when Nutrition was falling short of its operating profit targets for fiscal years 2021 and 2022. According to the complaint, the adjustments included retroactive rebates and price changes not customarily available to ADM’s third-party customers that were essentially one-sided transfers of operating profit to Nutrition, with the goal of making it appear that Nutrition was meeting the 15% to 20% per year operating profit growth Luthar and other ADM executives projected to investors.”

“Former Opec chief enjoyed ‘life of luxury’ in UK thanks to bribes, court told” (FT)

“A former president of Opec enjoyed a ‘life of luxury’ in the UK including chauffeur-driven cars and a personal shopper at Harrods thanks to bribes she received from oil tycoons while she was a minister in Nigeria’s government, a London court has heard…”

“Wall Street’s Stamp of Legitimacy Fuels Suspected Pump-and-Dump Schemes” (Bloomberg)

“The schemes are so common that Edwin Dorsey, author of an investing newsletter The Bear Cave, built a website that crowdsources thousands of WhatsApp screenshots and attempts to warn the public about bad investments.”