The Bear Cave #328
New Activist Reports, Recent Resignations, and Tweets of the Week
Welcome to The Bear Cave! Our last premium articles were “Problems at Kinsale Capital Group (KNSL)” and “Problems at Ethos Technologies (LIFE).” This week, The Bear Cave will publish our opinions and observations from inside the courtroom of the Andrew Left trial.
New Activist Reports
Morpheus Research published on Innventure (NASDAQ: INV — $448 million), a technology investment company. Morpheus called Innventure “the latest iteration of a decades-long grift” and specifically raised concerns about its liquid cooling startup Accelsius. Morpheus alleged that Accelsius’s “landmark agreement” with AI data center developer DarkNX is “a complete fabrication and that Accelsius has booked zero significant commercial deals.” Morpheus wrote, in part,
“DarkNX was incorporated just 12 months before Accelsius’s deal announcement out of a single-family home in a Toronto suburb, according to Ontario corporate records. It has no discernible presence in the data center industry or commercial operations of any type. It has just 9 employees on LinkedIn who have no visible experience in the data center industry, and many of whom appear to have other full-time jobs.”
Innventure fell ~20% this week and is down ~50% since its October 2024 SPAC merger.
Sunlight Partners published on Babcock & Wilcox (NYSE: BW — $2.74 billion), an energy and environmental technologies company. Sunlight Partners alleged that Babcock & Wilcox’s technology is obsolete, the company is overstating claims related to power generation for AI data centers, and its largest shareholder, B. Riley, is dumping stock.
Recent Resignations
Notable executive departures disclosed in the past week include:
CFO of Digital Turbine (NASDAQ: APPS — $1.06 billion) resigned “to seek another opportunity” after a little over one year. The company’s Chief Technology Officer also departed in January after three years and its Chief Accounting Officer departed in February 2024 after two and a half years. The mobile advertising company is audited by Grant Thornton LLP.
CFO of Hub Group (NASDAQ: HUBG — $2.54 billion) departed with immediate effect after two and a half years. The company’s Chief Operating Officer also departed after one and a half years. In June 2025, the company’s Chief Accounting Officer departed after a little over one year “to pursue another opportunity.”
CFO of Bitdeer Technologies (NASDAQ: BTDR — $4.26 billion) resigned after three years with immediate effect “due to personal reasons.” The Singapore-based bitcoin mining company is up ~75% since its April 2023 SPAC merger and is audited by MaloneBailey, LLP.
CFO of Rollins (NYSE: ROL — $22.9 billion) resigned after three years “to pursue another opportunity.” In October 2023, Spruce Point Capital published on the company and highlighted accounting concerns, including a 2022 SEC settlement alleging “that it engaged in improper accounting practices in order to boost its publicly-reported quarterly earnings per share to meet research analysts’ consensus estimates.”
Chief Accounting Officer of Microvast Holdings (NASDAQ: MVST — $516 million) “ceased to be employed as Chief Accounting Officer” after four months. The lithium-ion battery company has had six 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.”
Chairman of BP (NYSE: BP — $109 billion), Mr. Albert Manifold, was unanimously voted out by the board after eight months following “serious concerns raised to the Board related to important governance standards, oversight and conduct.” Mr. Manifold denied the allegations and wrote, in part,
“Is it possible that in my determination to drive change on costs, performance, the balance sheet and shareholder communications, I pushed hard and challenged people directly? Yes, it is… But there is a considerable distance between driving an organization with urgency and the characterization of my conduct that is now being put about.”
In September 2023, BP’s CEO resigned “with immediate effect” after three and a half years after BP said that it received allegations relating to the CEO’s “conduct in respect of personal relationships with company colleagues.”
Data for this section is provided by VerityData from VerityPlatform.com
News of the Week
“Short sellers reap more than $2.3bn profit betting against gambling companies” (FT)
“Hedge fund short sellers have made at least $2.3bn this year betting against online gambling companies, which are under pressure from both the rapid rise of prediction markets in the US and steep tax increases in the UK.”
“Bill Gates Spent Years Crafting His Image. Now It’s Cracking.” (WSJ)
“Gates usually hosts a dinner at his home in Washington state tied to the tech giant’s annual CEO summit. Weeks before the May event, though, his team received word it would be better not to do it this year, according to people familiar with the matter…
In early May, Gates didn’t attend the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the company Buffett led for decades where Gates had been a board member until 2020. While he wasn’t barred from attending, some people advised Gates not to go. It was the first time he didn’t attend in many years.”
Tweets of the Week
Until Thursday,
The Bear Cave