Spruce Point Short Against Greif Bros (GEF) Falls Flat

Spruce Point Capital has some legitimate gripes about Greif, but they don’t bring anything new to the table and the market has shrugged off the short thesis

Spruce Point Capital released its latest short campaign today, this time against the $2 billion manufacturer Greif, but after brief knee-jerk sell-off Greif’s stock price has basically recovered (down 0.5% for the day) because the weaknesses that Spruce Point highlights were mostly known to people following the company. The most important is that Greif’s dividend coverage ratio isn’t that high and there have been some concerns that its dividend could come under pressure.

Greif has issues, but they aren’t new

Greif’s stock price has already been falling, class A shares are down from $55...