Fiat Lux Partners @FiatLuxPartners Twitter profile

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Fiat Lux Partners

2 months

Since we’ve become the Hunterbrook foil, people have been asking for our thoughts on its activist short report on $HIMS. This will be lighter-touch from us, but we once again take issue with its content and tact. Some of its $HIMS claims are oversold.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Today we are issuing a critique of Grizzly Research’s recent short activist report on $SGML. We find it so full errors, oversights, elementary accounting mistakes, and general faults that we have no choice but to see the report as utterly non-credible.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

A new, sad discovery re: Grizzly Research’s $SGML report, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse: it appears, from metadata left in the report, that Grizzly simply copied & pasted whole sections of its report from an email from its financial backer.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

We think Hunterbrook uses provocative language to oversell its thesis. It describes $HIMS's compounded GLP-1s as “counterfeit” “knockoffs” taking advantage of an “FDA loophole.” We think this frames compounded GLP-1s to be legally subversive when this is not actually the case.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

When we criticized Hunterbrook Capital / Hunterbrook Media’s business model yesterday, we said that “we have nothing to say about the report for now.” Now we do. We can confidently say its $UWMC report is so poorly fact checked that it borders on deceptive, in our view.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

As we've said before, that's a cardinal sin for short sellers. We're not journalists, so we don't know what their attitudes are towards taking rhetorical liberties to add flare. Short sellers cannot be this loose, both for the sake of investors and, ultimately, for themselves.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

We could go on. Much of the recent insider selling among $HIMS executives is tied to long-standing 10b5-1 plans. Insiders still own 15% of the company. And selling prescriptions through remote telehealth consultations is not uncommon at this point.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

$HIMS is not evading the letter or spirit of the law by selling compounded GLP-1s. To intimate that these are “counterfeit” drugs being sold under legally dubious circumstances is simply incorrect. Short sellers absolutely cannot take these kinds of liberties with their language.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

This isn’t the report's only instance of aggressive or erroneous framing. The very first paragraph cites two Reddit users who reportedly fell ill after consuming $HIMS's compounded GLP-1s. But *BOTH* took 2x the appropriate dose. Hunterbrook said this was the case for only one.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

Hunterbrook’s description of “knockoff” GLP-1s as “counterfeit” also carries explicit connotations of illegality. But compounded drugs are not uncommon and, again, are explicitly permitted by the FDA under certain circumstances, including the current GLP-1 shortage.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Short-seller Grizzly Research has issued a partial retraction of some claims in its $SGML short report after errors were highlighted by Fiat Lux. GR calls it an “honest mistake.” But we call on GR to address the litany of other flaws which we highlighted in our critique.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

Merriam-Webster defines “loophole” as “an ambiguity or omission in the text through which the intent of a statute, contract, or obligation may be evaded.” This is not what is going on here. Compounded GLP-1s are explicitly permitted by the FDA to address the ongoing shortage.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

We have no view or position on $HIMS, but we take issue with a short seller using loose rhetoric that frames its compounded GLP-1s as subverting the law or FDA. Its rhetoric and Reddit citations don't reflect well on how Hunterbrook handles its responsibility to sticking to facts

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Activist short seller Hunterbrook Capital / Hunterbrook Media published a short report on $UWMC. We have nothing to say about the report for now. But we do have a comment on Hunterbrook: it should own the fact that it is an activist short seller. It is otherwise being deceptive.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

If Grizzly Research is going to address one careless error in its $SGML report, we think it must address all of them. It’s not fair to investors to create confusion about what’s right and what’s potentially wrong in an extremely accusatory short report.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Float your cursor over these links. You’ll see that they don’t direct straight to the cited articles. Rather, they are MS Outlook “Safe Links” URLs. Microsoft adds this layer of protection to links placed in Outlook to combat phishing. BUT THEY CONTAIN THE SENDER’S EMAIL ADDRESS.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

The final two links in the section titled “Divorced Co-CEOs are not a Good Sign,” and all links in the section titled “CFO Track Record Littered with Regulatory Issues,” contain metadata tying the work to the Outlook email address of an analyst at Anson Funds

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Good short activism is crucial to policing markets Bad short activism threatens its credibility The only way to preserve it is to police the lowest-quality policemen As short activists, that's what we'll do Learn more:

Why a Secretive Short Seller Is Challenging Reports Made by Peers

Is Fiat Lux Partners trying to clean up the industry or just eliminate its competition?

www.institutionalinvestor.com

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 months

@BreakoutPoint @StockJabber @matt_levine @AlderLaneEggs @muddywatersre @SpecialSitsNews @DataDInvesting @kateduguid @csreinicke @John__Hyatt

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

We believe that short activism serves a critically important role in keeping bad actors in corporate America in check. That's why it's important that we keep the bar for short activism high: it can't lose its credibility.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Grizzly Research claims that $SGML's LinkedIn page shows just one full-time employee, and three total. Yet Grizzly mistakenly identified has the WRONG SIGMA LITHIUM.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Meanwhile, Grizzly might've missed it, but $SGML announced on its elusive LinkedIn page that it received its operating license, which Grizzly said “might take up to an indefinite period.” So much for that. Maybe GR should retract some of its other errors while it has the chance.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

For an activist short-seller who claims to do “in-depth due diligence” to simply copy work fed to him by someone else is, to us, a cardinal sin.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 years

Great points by @JehoshaphatRsch . The activist space needs more of this - the public can't appreciate good work like @JehoshaphatRsch 's on $PGNY if it gets lumped in with the shoddy work of others.

Jehoshaphat Research

@JehoshaphatRsch

2 years

@StockMarketNerd , you and @BreakoutPoint say that Spruce Point's $PGNY report was largely a copycat version of ours. Of course it was. But we don't want to be associated with the false/hyperbolic claims of the SP report. @BearCaveEmail @FiatLuxPartners

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

We recently wrote longer threads on Hunterbrook’s structure and $UWMC report, but we couldn’t ignore another major omission in its $SOC report. We think Hunterbrook takes critical financial information out of context, significantly mischaracterizing $SOC's Santa Ynez deal.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

We'll continue to issue critiques of short activist reports in the interest of protecting the credibility of short activists who do good and thoughtful work.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

@StockJabber @AlderLaneEggs @BreakoutPoint @ActivistInsight @ActivistShorts @Alpaca_Capital @Pete__Panda @Orangeman1992 @TheWealthMiner @5hadowart @Edark94 @latinmines @JehoshaphatRsch @Upper20sStCap @TharsisQuad @explorercheck @unemon1 @Keubiko @DonutShorts

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

Yesterday NINGI Research published an activist short report on $ODD. We have no view on the company or the stock, but we observe many errors in NINGI’s report that we think render its arguments unpersuasive and erroneous.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

We object to sloppy short-sellers being content to copy someone else’s work without conducting independent research, while they free-ride on the goodwill built up by thorough and thoughtful short-sellers who actually do their homework, and do it well.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

You can also see this by viewing the website’s source code (accessed via CTRL+Shift+I). Click in the source code and perform a search (CTRL+F) for “Anson.” You will find six instances, revealing that these links came from an employee of Anson Funds.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Look folks. We’re short sellers. We don’t object to short selling. We don’t object to Grizzly writing reports. We don’t object to someone funding them. We don’t object to people being incented to expose corporate malfeasance. Otherwise frauds like Valeant and Nikola live on.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Was it also an “honest mistake” when GR used a completely careless and erroneous back-of-the-envelope calculation to be able to lob accusations of child labor & worker underpayment at $SGML? Did it just not understand basic accounting around capitalizing labor tied to PP&E?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

We have no choice but to conclude that Grizzly simply copied & pasted these parts of its $SGML report from an email without reviewing the material & links. Had Grizzly itself done the research, authored the text, & embedded the links, they would have directed to the original URLs

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Expensed salaries therefore vastly understate employee compensation for a company like $SGML. To use this erroneous calculation to suggest that $SGML may be using child labor or engaging in worker abuse is at best embarrassingly uninformed, at worst misleading & sensationalistic

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Was it also an “honest mistake” when GR “found” that $SGML has 2 out of 3 environmental licenses when $SGML disclosed this, and that it couldn’t have applied for the 3rd before construction was complete? And that it just had its inspection (see @ 37:12)?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

An LO cannot be granted until “construction and installation of the Project is completed.” $SGML could not have even applied for this license before January at earliest, and it would have first had to undergo a site inspection before obtaining the license.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

The only way to maintain the value and credibility of short activism as a whole is to police the space for low-quality reports that undermine the perceived integrity of short-sellers to the general public.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

uhh... $SHOT

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Hunterbrook says if $SOC doesn’t restart production at the Santa Ynez oil field by 1/1/26, the assets “will revert back to Exxon ‘without any compensation to [Sable].’” It omits the very next clause in the cited filing that says that the Exxon loan would be deemed repaid in full.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

An inventory of errors that we’ve identified – and a non-exhaustive one at that – is as follows:

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

This reinforces our core message: good activism is important but hard. Hunterbrook thought it could reinvent activism by amassing a team of dozens of journalists, calling itself a news entity, and making its spokesperson a former Biden speechwriter. Hubris doesn’t pay.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

We regularly criticize low-quality short reports for committing data errors or exaggerating financial analyses. But Hunterbrook’s omissions and taking quotes out of context represent some of the worst that we’ve ever seen in the activist world.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

And, for what it’s worth, Grizzly makes frequent reference to $SGML's “co-CEOs” when it has not had co-CEOs since January, when former co-CEO Calvyn Gardner stepped down from the role. How does Grizzly miss such a basic observation?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Grizzly goes on to complain that $SGML is “lacking PhDs.” Yet counted among its employees on LinkedIn are numerous geologists with graduate degrees, including its Head of Mining Operations, who has a PhD.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Grizzly claims the $162m $SGML raised to finance Phase 2 & Phase 3 isn’t enough to cover the ~$90m remaining Phase 1 capex when it wasn’t meant to cover Phase 1 in the 1st place, completely ignoring $SGML’s cash balance of ~$90m available to cover Phase 1 (plus future cash flow)

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Was it also an “honest mistake” when GR suggested that it was problematic that $SGML has no R&D spend when basically zero lithium miners have an R&D spend? Does GR just not have experience with the space? Or did it not run a basic comps analysis?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Hunterbrook nonetheless released a short report whose bombshell “finding” was that $UWMC's “ultimatum” is anticompetitive or even possibly fraudulent – even after two separate courts dismissed this claim. We think the courts’ findings render Hunterbrook’s thesis entirely moot.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

First and foremost, NINGI’s allegations of financial shenanigans rest upon its premise that key $ODD subsidiaries are not audited. This was a mistake. Israeli filings may show that they weren’t audited separately, but they are consolidated and included in a group audit with $ODD.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

What Hunterbrook chose not to spell out is that $UWMC's “ultimatum” has already been challenged in court – and upheld. Multiple times. This Feb, a judge ruled that the contract terms had not been shown to be anticompetitive and recommended that the case against $UWMC be dismissed

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

It's curious and deeply concerning that Hunterbrook omitted these developments from its report. It linked to a Feb ’22 article discussing the Michigan lawsuit against $UWMC without informing readers that it had since been dismissed.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

For this to have occurred, Grizzly Research must have copied and pasted the text in its report directly from an Outlook email coming from what must have been its financial backer, who must have fed this material on $SGML to Grizzly.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

We call Hunterbrook an “activist short seller” because that’s what it is. It commits time and resources towards intensive due diligence and shorts stocks when it finds and publishes negative information. That’s what good activist short sellers do, and have done for decades.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Grizzly also says that $SGML's ESG claims must be false, and that it is a poor takeout candidate, simply because it does not spend on R&D. It is a lithium miner. Almost no lithium miners spend on R&D. When they do, it is negligible.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Hunterbrook’s presentation of the ~$1 billion deal looks very different when you consider that the $625m loan and now $140m accrued interest would be deemed repaid if $SOC can’t get its plan approved. Omitting this information by taking a quote out of context is not a good look.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 years

Good short activism is crucial to policing markets Bad short activism threatens its credibility The only way to preserve it is to police the lowest-quality policemen As short activists, that's what we'll do Our work: Learn more:

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Another judge in Michigan used this Florida judge’s recommendation as grounds to dismiss another parallel lawsuit. This lawsuit also accused $UWMC of violating antitrust law with its “ultimatum.” The case was dismissed as recently as March 29 – just last Friday.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Grizzly erroneously points to a UK battery technology company that happens to go by “Sigma Lithium Ltd.” The publicly traded “Sigma Lithium Corporation” in fact has 80 employees listed on LinkedIn.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

We see this report as a complete failure of due diligence and have a difficult time taking any of Grizzly’s claims seriously. It shows a basic misunderstanding of critical elements of $SGML's business and, perhaps most significantly, belies a complete lack of careful research.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 years

Today we, as activist short sellers, are issuing a rebuttal to GlassHouse Research's recent activist short report on Catalent, Inc. $CTLT. We believe that it contains numerous errors and casts the company in an inaccurate light. See our report at

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Was it also an “honest mistake” when it complained about $SGML’s current “co-CEOs” when it has not had co-CEOs since January, when co-CEO Calvyn Gardner stepped down? Was it really this tuned-out from the company during its due diligence?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

We don’t take issue with what Hunterbrook is or what it does. We take issue with its dressing itself up in silk and linen, undertaking a massive PR campaign to announce that it’s an innovative, benevolent journalistic enterprise when it’s really just another activist short seller

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Grizzly claims to prove that $SGML pays below minimum wage by dividing its “salaries and benefits” expense by its construction workforce. This fails to take into account the basic accounting principle that much of the labor cost associated with plant construction is capitalized.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

In summary, we believe Hunterbrook omits critical legal developments that render the core of its short thesis moot and misleading. It also takes quotes out of context and misinterprets SEC filings in a way that casts $UWMC in a negative light.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Grizzly claims to discover that $SGML has only two of its required licenses, but not its third “operating license (“LO”) for its Phase 1 mine. MANAGEMENT HAS DISCLOSED THIS.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

Again, we have no view on $ODD. But we think NINGI oversells its case with critically flawed analysis.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Activists who embrace their contrarian and even antagonistic identities have won begrudging respect and surprising longevity, probably because their no-holds-barred honesty about what they do communicates intellectual credibility – their contrarian shtick notwithstanding.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

NINGI says $ODD's obscured retail sales are material to the business. But it estimates retail sales by assuming that $ODD's alleged 15.8% retail CAGR from 2012-16 has remained the same through the present (except 2020), despite $ODD adding fewer than five stores (net) since then.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

Firstly, NINGI’s calculation assumes that the schools operate nonstop through the year, which likely isn’t the case. But it also ignores that some $ODD courses seem to be small online tutorials costing ~450 shekels (~$122). We think NINGI likely overestimates beauty school sales.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

Finally, NINGI uses $ODD's low retained earnings in foreign subsidiaries (i.e. ex-Israel) to argue that its alleged income in its respective domiciles doesn’t square with operations. This ignores the fact that ex-Israel income will ultimately be paid back to the Israeli parent.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Grizzly offers no indication that it won’t be granted. He simply observes that it is still pending – and, for the benefit of all of us, reveals that management has in fact applied for it, suggesting that construction has completed, and that the approval may be imminent.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Was it also an “honest mistake” when GR ignored $SGML’s current ~$90m cash balance in claiming that the $160m Phase 2 & 3 funding wouldn’t be enough to cover Phase 1, when these funds were raised specifically for Phases 2 & 3, and Phase 1 was to be funded separately, with ~$90m?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

What UWM’s 10-K REALLY says is that it bears the risk that brokers might misrepresent loans in a way that is harmful to UWM, and that it bears the economic risk of this – NOT that, if brokers commit fraud, UWM is implicated in or liable for fraud, as Hunterbrook seems to suggest.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Was it also an honest mistake when GR claimed that $SGML is “lacking PhDs” when it didn’t have the correct LinkedIn web address to analyze their work force? And when it missed that their Head of Mining Operations has a PhD?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Remember that Hunterbrook Capital’s raison d'être is to profit from the words published by the newsroom. If Hunterbrook knew that the courts had rejected its theory regarding the “ultimatum,” why would it continue to publicize that theory anyways? Isn’t that deceptive?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Hunterbrook claims $UWMC turns independent brokers into “loyalists who send the company business regardless of price” by writing contracts restricting them from sending loans to Rocket or Fairway, thus engaging in anticompetitive activity through a broker “ultimatum.”

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

We think this is a deceptive rhetorical gimmick. Hunterbrook Capital exists to monetize the investigations done by Hunterbrook Media, and H Media exists to make money for H Capital. They do not exist without each other. They are the same business.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

No response from Grizzly Research yet. I thought bears came *out* of hibernation in the spring. @AlderLaneEggs @BreakoutPoint @StockJabber @JehoshaphatRsch @Pete__Panda @Edark94 @TharsisQuad @TheWealthMiner @explorercheck @5hadowart @Orangeman1992 @Upper20sStCap

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Hunterbrook says “H Capital’s investments must never drive H Media’s reporting.” But if H Capital’s returns struggle because H Media is busy reporting on Peruvian fisheries instead of liquid shortable companies, investors will complain and H Capital will intervene in the newsroom

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 years

Today we, as activist short sellers, are issuing a rebuttal to Spruce Point’s recent short report on Saputo, Inc. $SAP.TO. It is our opinion that Spruce Point’s report contains numerous critical errors which mischaracterize the financial state of the company.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

@matt_levine @FTJFranklin @OrtencaAl @JFK_America @StockJabber @mcelarier @QTRResearch @muddywatersre @WallStCynic @BreakoutPoint @AlderLaneEggs @WSBChairman @WallStreetSilv @DoombergT @kateduguid @valuewalk @zerohedge

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

2 years

We believe that GlassHouse’s report represents a one-dimensional application of a boilerplate “forensic accounting” checklist which, in many cases, ignores or fails to address important contextual information, financial or otherwise.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

@matt_levine @katedugid @FTJFranklin @OrtencaAl @JFK_America @StockJabber @mcelarier @QTRResearch @muddywatersre @WallStCynic @BreakoutPoint @AlderLaneEggs @WSBChairman @WallStreetSilv @DoombergT

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

credit @maxwelltani @semafor

Short-selling news startup didn’t disclose investment in anti-hangover drink

A new exposé by Hunterbrook Media, the startup newsroom whose affiliated company places stock market bets to profit from its journalism, raises questions about trust.

www.semafor.com

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

On (1), reputation: Short sellers are easy targets for smear. It’s career suicide in some white-collar fields to be one. One of Hunterbrook’s founders was a Democrat speechwriter. He might be the last person to want this label. Sorry buddy, you’re a dirty short seller now.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

@SammyKoppelman Why not also point out that the CEO bought millions' worth of stock on the same date? Don’t have a view on $SOC, but seems “kind of a weird thing to do” to draw attention to the one and ignore the other. @kateduguid @csreinicke @John__Hyatt @matt_levine

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

Did GR just not find these readily and publicly-available documents in its due diligence?

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

A final word of caution for Hunterbrook: investors aren’t dumb. Not even retail. Claiming intellectual purity won’t put you in their good graces. Everybody sees what you are beneath the veneer. The fact that you’re being loudly dishonest about it will only make them hate you more

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

$ODD made this clear in its response to NINGI yesterday. Without this critical foundation, we think the basis of most of NINGI’s arguments falls apart, notwithstanding their own separate flaws. The financial games that NINGI alleges are far less plausible under an auditor’s watch

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

Interestingly, Hunterbrook appears to recognize this as it proceeds to argue that UWM “discloses that it can be on the hook for the actions of its brokers” in its filings, rather than accuse UWM directly of fraud (at this juncture). We think Hunterbrook misinterprets the filing.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

This morning we will be issuing a critique of a recent short activist report exclusively on Twitter. Stay tuned.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

It did link to an article citing the Florida judge’s recommended dismissal, but it simply said that countersuits against $UWMC “are moving through the legal system but have yet to find success” without expressly stating that the cases had been dismissed, or are primed to be.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

NINGI’s theories regarding hidden retail capex are also incoherent. It says that “none of the capex for remodeling…is included in the company’s past disclosures” despite appearing to argue that $ODD's worn-down fixtures show that it hasn’t been investing in its stores anyways.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

If anything, we think Grizzly Research's report on $SGML gave investors some marginally *positive* news that the company is in the process of of getting its operating license. We already knew they didn't have it. Now at least we know that it's in the works.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

There is no independence. H Media will report on things that can make money for H Capital, in order to make money for H Capital. It shouldn’t pretend otherwise for the sake of reputation. Because its open deceptiveness will only hurt its journalistic reputation in the long run.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

The report highlights a quote from a “former Senior Counsel for Enforcement Strategy, CFPB” saying “It’s easy to envision a judge or jury calling that fraud.” But we think he is clearly accusing brokers, NOT UWM. The called-out quote removes critical context, making it misleading

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

And what of Hunterbrook’s suggestion that expert lawyers say that $UWMC may be engaging in fraud? We think that it took one of its critical quotes out of context.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

1 year

We will continue to publish critical responses to activist short reports which we find to be misleading or deeply flawed, as we did with $SGML today. See our work at , and follow us for more.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

Even if NINGI is right that all of $ODD's ‘16 sales ($24.3m) can be attributed to retail, growth since then has likely been closer to a low single-digit same-store sales growth number. Using NINGI’s methodology, this puts ‘23 retail sales at just ~$15m, half of what NINGI alleges

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

5 months

But from now on Hunterbrook gets to be the Juicero of short activism. It raised millions of VC dollars on the strength of this hubris to try to do something better, and ended up creating something seemingly deceptive and far worse than the original.

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Fiat Lux Partners

@FiatLuxPartners

4 months

$ODD's capex in 2023 was just $2.1m. Where in the financials has the retail capex been hidden? How much has it been? How would the company even go about “hiding” it, since it is audited (as $ODD noted in its rebuttal to NINGI yesterday)? We think NINGI’s argument makes no sense.

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