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The Bear Cave #330

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Jun 14, 2026 · 15:28

<p>Welcome to The Bear Cave! Our last premium articles were &#8220;<a href="https://thebearcave.substack.com/p/problems-at-ethos-technologies-life">Problems at Ethos Technologies (LIFE)</a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href="https://thebearcave.substack.com/p/the-unjust-prosecution-of-andrew">The Unjust Prosecution of Andrew Left (Part 1)</a>&#8221; and our next special investigation comes out this Thursday, June 18.</p><h2><em><strong>New Activist Reports</strong></em></h2><p>Hunterbrook Media <a href="https://x.com/hntrbrkmedia/status/2063993132912418849?s=20">published</a> on <strong>Ensign Group</strong> (NASDAQ: ENSG &#8212; $8.73 billion), a large nursing facility roll-up. Hunterbrook alleged that Ensign&#8217;s &#8220;numbers are a mirage&#8221; and that understaffing at its facilities leads to positive financial results and negative patient outcomes. Hunterbrook wrote, in part:</p><blockquote><p>&#8220;In just 5 months where data was available, Ensign shorted residents 5M+ hours of nursing care. It seeks out the sickest patients for higher reimbursement from the government, then staffs below what that payment is calibrated to support.&#8221;</p></blockquote><p>Hunterbrook estimated that insufficient staffing &#8220;saved Ensign about $386M (annualized) in 2024 &#8212; more than its entire reported net income that year of $298M&#8221; and also alleged that Ensign&#8217;s quality metrics &#8220;beat the average on the numbers it self-reports with no documentation procedures imposed by CMS &#8212; and falls below it on many of the numbers the government verifies.&#8221;</p><p>Following the investigation, Ensign stock fell ~8% and Hunterbrook released a <a href="https://x.com/hntrbrkmedia/status/2064045232669265990?s=20">long-form video about the alleged misconduct</a>.</p><p>Three days after Hunterbrook, Muddy Waters Research <a href="https://x.com/muddywatersre/status/2065127144468971858">published</a> on <strong>Ensign Group</strong> and alleged the company &#8220;rents Administrator licenses to deceive CMS&#8221; and that proper compliance would &#8220;cut 2027 EBIT ~35% vs consensus.&#8221; As part of its research, Muddy Waters made unannounced visits to 57 Ensign facilities and &#8220;obtained the consulting agreement Ensign apparently uses to rent licenses&#8221; at many of its facilities. Muddy Waters also &#8220;independently corroborated billing for therapy never rendered.&#8221;</p><p>The Muddy Waters report included a &#8220;Left Disclosure&#8221; referencing the <a href="https://thebearcave.substack.com/p/the-unjust-prosecution-of-andrew">recent criminal prosecution of Andrew Left</a> for trading around reports. The disclosure <a href="https://muddywatersresearch.com/research/2026/mw-is-short-ensg/">stated</a>:</p><blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8216;Left Disclosure&#8217;: As of the time and date of this report, Muddy Waters is short the securities of, or derivatives linked to Ensign Group, Inc. (ENSG). Upon publication, we intend to begin covering a substantial majority &#8211; possibly all &#8211; of our short positions. As we elaborate below, our risk reduction is not a reflection of a lack of conviction in our opinions or the facts presented; rather, it has to do with managing risk in a manner that is prudent for a fiduciary of our investors&#8217; money.&#8221;</p></blockquote><p>Fuzzy Panda Research published <a href="https://x.com/FuzzyPandaShort/status/2064743040175194355?s=20">two</a> <a href="https://x.com/FuzzyPandaShort/status/2065092273357136294?s=20">updates</a> on <strong>T1 Energy</strong> (NYSE: TE &#8212; $2.37 billion), a clean battery solutions company formerly known as FREYR Battery. Fuzzy Panda claimed it received documents from a whistleblower showing that T1 has extensive ties with Trina Solar, a company recently added to the U.S. Department of War&#8217;s list of Chinese military companies operating in the United States.</p><p>Viceroy Research <a href="https://x.com/viceroyresearch/status/2065041426270822893?s=20">published</a> on <strong>Abaxx Technologies</strong> (Toronto: ABXX &#8212; CAD$1.76 billion), a Canadian financial infrastructure company building a futures exchange in Singapore for physically-deliverable contracts for energy, battery metals, carbon credits, and precious metals. Viceroy alleged that Abaxx&#8217;s exchange volume &#8220;is comprised of wash-traded churn sustained by incentives, which collapses the moment incentives are switched off&#8221; and speculated that exchange volume is driven, in part, by undisclosed related parties. Viceroy also said that CBOE walked away from its &#8220;strategic investment&#8221; in Abaxx.</p><p>On Twitter, Abaxx CEO and founder, <a href="https://x.com/JoshCrumb">Josh Crumb</a>, called the report part of a &#8220;short and distort conspiracy&#8221; and <a href="https://x.com/JoshCrumb/status/2065394105857790084">alleged</a>, in part:</p><blockquote><p>&#8220;~half of all volume for better parts of full months is short selling and bid whacking, stuffing PR opens and failing to deliver etc, but price doesn&#8217;t go down much, so they solicit Canadian bank sales desks and the HF street in a flimsy &#8216;idea&#8217; to join the short, focusing a lot of the pitch on personally attacking the CEO.&#8221;</p></blockquote><p>Mr. Crumb also <a href="https://x.com/JoshCrumb/status/2065795605968851325?s=20">raised concerns</a> about the conduct of &#8220;bad actors&#8221; in the activist short space.</p><h2><em><strong>Recent Resignations</strong></em></h2><p>Notable executive departures disclosed in the past week include:</p><ol><li><p>CFO of <strong>Grocery Outlet</strong> (NASDAQ: GO &#8212; $948 million) is retiring after one and a half years. In addition, the company&#8217;s Chief Merchandising Officer is departing after one year. The company has had three CEOs and four CFOs in the last five years.</p></li><li><p>CFO of <strong>Credit Acceptance</strong> (NASDAQ: CACC &#8212; $5.73 billion) &#8220;decided to retire&#8221; at the age of 52 after two and a half years. The subprime auto lender is audited by Grant Thornton.</p></li><li><p>CEO of <strong>Perrigo</strong> (NYSE: PRGO &#8212; $1.52 billion) resigned after nearly three years and departed the board following &#8220;a determination by the board that certain personal conduct was not consistent with the company&#8217;s code of conduct and core values.&#8221;</p></li><li><p>CFO of <strong>Adobe</strong> (NASDAQ: ADBE &#8212; $82.4 billion), Daniel Durn, &#8220;is departing the company to pursue a new professional opportunity&#8221; after nearly five years. Mr. Durn is becoming the new CFO of Marvell Technology (NASDAQ: MRVL &#8212; $245 billion), where he has served on the board for the last two years. In March, Adobe announced its CEO would step down after 18 years once the company identifies a successor. That search remains ongoing.</p></li><li><p>CFO of <strong>Summit Hotel Properties</strong> (NYSE: INN &#8212; $672 million) resigned &#8220;effective as of June 15, 2026&#8221; after five years and entered into a separation agreement that includes &#8220;a consulting fee of $25,000 per calendar month&#8221; for the next three and a half months. The REIT has a <a href="https://totalrealreturns.com/n/INN,SPY">total return</a> with dividends reinvested of +19% since its February 2011 IPO vs +635% for the S&amp;P 500.</p></li><li><p>CFO of <strong>Cannae Holdings</strong> (NYSE: CNNE &#8212; $634 million) resigned with immediate effect after nearly six years. In May 2025, the Las Vegas-based holding company switched auditors from Deloitte to Grant Thornton. Today, the company is overseen by a 14-person board.</p></li><li><p>Mr. William Dabbs Cavin, board member of <strong>Open Lending Corp</strong> (NASDAQ: LPRO &#8212; $258 million), resigned &#8220;effective immediately&#8221; after just five days. Mr. Cavin had been appointed s in connection with &#8220;a cooperation agreement&#8221; between Open Lending and Palogic Value Management. The company has had four CEOs and four CFOs in the last five years.</p></li><li><p>Chief Operating Officer of <strong>AGNT Inc</strong> (NASDAQ: AGNT &#8212; $761 million), formerly eXp World Holdings, departed with immediate effect after nearly four years. In April 2022, The Bear Cave <a href="https://thebearcave.substack.com/p/problems-at-exp-world-holdings-inc?s=w">raised concerns</a> about the company&#8217;s &#8220;dubious accounting, regulatory snafus, an SEC subpoena, high insider selling, and a questionable recruiting pipeline promoted by a prominent Scientologist.&#8221; The company has since fallen ~75%.</p></li></ol><p><em>Data for this section is provided by VerityData from <a href="http://verityplatform.com/">VerityPlatform.com</a></em></p><h2><em><strong>News of the Week</strong></em></h2><p><em>&#8220;The 24-Year-Old AI Wiz Who Counts Jane Street as an Investor&#8221;</em> (<a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/the-24-year-old-ai-wiz-who-counts-jane-street-as-an-investor-1c30d751">WSJ</a>)</p><blockquote><p>&#8220;Situational Awareness has gained about 270% after fees this year through May and is up more than 1,000% after fees since inception, one of the people said. One of the fund&#8217;s most successful bets is a stake in Anthropic that today accounts for about one-fifth of its assets, the person said.&#8221;</p></blockquote><h2><em><strong>Tweets of the Week</strong></em></h2><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><div class="twitter-embed"></div><p class="button-wrapper"><a class="button primary" href="https://thebearcave.substack.com/subscribe?"><span>Subscribe now</span></a></p><div><hr /></div><p>Until Thursday,</p><p>The Bear Cave</p><h5><strong>New? </strong><em><strong><a href="https://thebearcave.substack.com/">Sign Up Here</a></strong></em></h5><h5><strong>Got Feedback? Just Hit Reply</strong></h5><h5><strong>The Bear Cave is Not Investment Advice. 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