Lately a large number of my special situations sourcing ideas have been coming from a new tool called Special Sits Digest made by Clark Square Capital.It’s a weekly, structured rundown of hundreds of activist campaigns, strategic reviews, spin‑offs, restructurings, divestitures, liquidations, and other weird shit across the world.Special Sits Digest also punches above its weight versus some better known subscriptions like KEDM in terms of actionable, off the beaten path setups for me personally at a much lower price point.If you want to give it a try, Clark Square has generously offered to set up a free one‑month trial for my readers here at this link:👉 http://specialsitsdigest.com/triplesI don’t get paid for you signing up, but I do want this tool to keep getting developed and I encourage you serious about special situations to give it a try 😊So with that same disclaimer as always…This is a buffet list of trades and work in progress ideas, not a model portfolio and definitely not personalized advice.Position sizing, strike selection, expiries, and hedging are all on you.With that out of the way, let’s talk about some situations I’ve been working onThanks for reading Triple S Special Situations Investing! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.JRVRSource: Special Sits DigestJames River Group Holdings Ltd. (JRVR) is a U.S.-focused excess & surplus lines (E&S) and specialty admitted insurer, historically known for commercial liability, professional lines, and niche E&S products.The company already sold its troubled casualty reinsurance unit to Fleming.The Excess & Surplus and Specialty Admitted businesses have value and supposedly had buyers previously, but management seems unwilling to sell. Since then, the price has collapsed and the insurer is selling at 50% of book.Industry analysts have estimated that a standalone E&S book of this size in the current market could trade at 0.8–1.2x tangible book, depending on forward ROE and capitalization.Given Zimmer Partners just flipped from passive to activist via a 13D, taking an over 10% stake and explicitly signaling they intend to be involved in shaping the company’s future, I think there is a possibility of a forced sale soon given the large discount.Zimmer Partners is a well‑known activist fund that has previously targeted insurers and financials with depressed valuations, often pushing for break‑ups, special dividends, or full takeouts.In their Schedule 13D filing, Zimmer Partners also laid out an explicit roadmap demanding common dividend elimination, preferred dividend suspension, and the utilization of excess cash to pay down debt, which will put the company on stronger footing even if they don’t sell.MNROSource: Special Sits DigestMonro is one of those sleepy U.S. auto service chains that is slowly becoming an activist target with Gabelli and Icahn owning 25% of the company combined. Icahn disclosed about 14.8% back in November 2025 and Gabelli's crew was up near 9.4% by their March 2026 filing. Keep in mind Icahn owns Pepboys which is a competitor of Monro, or in reality a merger target.The board has now launched a formal “strategic alternatives” process, explicitly hiring advisors to look at everything from asset sales to an outright company sale, with a mandate to maximize shareholder value.They made it official on May 27, 2026, listing asset sales, refinancing, acquisitions, operational fixes, or a sale of the whole thing with the usual "early stage, no deadline" caveatsOne wrinkle worth knowing is that Monro adopted a one-year poison pill in late 2025 that runs out November 6, 2026. The company swears it isn't there to block a full takeover, but it does cap how much more Icahn can scoop up in the open market.Here I’m long stock and selling calls against the position into catalysts, effectively getting paid to wait while the board and activists figure out whether Monro wants to be a standalone fixer‑upper or a sale candidate.EWC.AXSource: Special Sits DigestEnergy World Corporation has been one of the more interesting balance sheet cleanup stories on my screen.EWC.AX is an Australian LNG and power project developer with a legacy of heavy leverage from earlier infrastructure builds, now attempting to pivot into a cleaner balance sheet and more predictable cash flows.The company agreed to convert roughly 434 million dollars of debt (plus accrued interest) into equity at around 0.88 Australian dollars per share, a massive equitization at roughly 44 times the then‑prevailing 0.02 share price, which effectively wipes out the prior debt overhang and hands more ownership to its major shareholders. It's a huge premium to market, which tells you the insiders converting are happy to take equity instead of cash or knew a bankruptcy was counterproductive.On top of that, EWC just signed a deal to sell its Siemens gas and steam turbines for about 350 million U.S. dollars to Hallador Energy (or 500 million AUD) against an equity value of less than half that. Side note: This shows you how crazy backlogs are for power equipment with the current AI boom. There is still execution risk in that they need to turn a cleaned‑up balance sheet and hopefully realized turbine sale proceeds into real returns via their LNG and power projects or return capital to shareholder, but the delta on this one is nice.ENGNSource: Special Situations InvestingEnGene Therapeutics is a failed biotech with cash in excess on the balance sheet. Its only drug face planted on interim Phase 2 data and the stock got cut 80%. Activist BML Investment Partners has since grabbed a 10% stake, and management handed its chief medical officer an exit parachute indicating they are ready to wrap this company up. I bought it cheaply and sold some out of the money calls.SBM.AXSource: QuokkaSt Barbara Limited (SBM.AX) is an Australian gold producer with operations and projects in Australia and Papua New Guinea, including the Simberi gold project in PNG.It has been written up in this article as “the most mispriced gold story” on the ASX, and I think that’s directionally right. St Barbara has now closed the sale of 50% of its Papua New Guinea subsidiary (which holds the Simberi project) to Lingbao Gold for about 370 million Australian dollars in cash, with a separate 10% interest in Simberi being taken up by Kumul Minerals for 50 million. After a working-capital adjustment, St Barbara banked A$389 million.Lingbao Gold is a Chinese gold producer with access to Chinese financing and integrated smelting, which conveniently locks in an offtake path for the concentrate, while Kumul Minerals is linked to the PNG government, which can help with permits, community relations, and local operating risks.The company is now cash rich and is about to expand gold production.With the Lingbao money in, the board has taken a final investment decision on the New Simberi expansion, and construction is starting immediately. The main risk right now is the tax matters they have ongoing with the PNG government.The good news is St Barbara has said it expects no tax leakage on the Lingbao transaction specifically, and any delay on the Kumul side doesn't touch the construction funding.If these tax issues are resolved favorably, the upside from production ramp up could be significant.On top of this expansion of an existing mine, they have an additional project in Nova Scotia that is interesting and moving forward soon. CEKSource: HermitCeontronics is a defense name when the world is going crazy.The company’s major order is roughly 85% of its entire 2025 revenue, and when you add everything else on the books you get a total backlog of about 135% of that year’s sales, essentially more than a full year of highly visible work already contracted.This backlog profile is unusual for a micro/small‑cap defense name and gives CEK a high degree of revenue visibility through next year.In a world where NATO defense spend is ramping on a multi-year basis and more countries are scrambling to rebuild capabilities, having that kind of backlog visibility in a niche supplier can be very profitableALTNSource: Oak BlokeWe all know I have a crush on the Oak Bloke.He always has such great picks and donates his Substack money to charity.Plus who doesn’t like Ents? LOTR FTW.AltynGold is a very interesting gold producer. Oak Bloke has a nice little summary which I pasted below:“Shareholder equity grew to $150m from $82.2m, and comprehensive income was $68m putting ALTN on a 6.7X P/E. A broker guess puts 2026 net profits at $85m based on a forecast $4000/oz gold price putting ALTN at 4.9X P/E.My own reading for 2026 is a result closer to $100m net profit, a 4X P/E where expansion of 2Mtpa implies a below 2X P/E.”As you can tell, I am trying to get more online gold producers into my portfolio.DTILSource: M&A HunterPrecision BioSciences (DTIL) is a clinical‑stage gene editing company built around its ARCUS platform, which is designed to handle gene insertion, elimination, and excision.The company is advancing in‑vivo programs in areas like chronic hepatitis B and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.Financially, DTIL is uniquely well-capitalized compared to typical microcap biotech burn rates, reporting $126 million in cash and restricted cash, which management estimates provides a clean operational runway through 2028.This long runway de-risks execution for their leading clinical trials: PBGENE-HBV is actively enrolling patients in its ELIMINATE-B trial, while PBGENE-DMD just secured FDA Fast Track designation and initiated patient dosing in its Phase 1/2 FUNCTION-DMD study.I like this biotech setup and the covered calls were decent so I am in.FIVNSource: Guardian ResearchFive9 is a leading cloud contact‑center‑as‑a‑service (CCaaS) platform, providing AI‑enhanced, omnichannel contact center software that plugs into all the usual suspects on the CRM side (Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft, Oracle, Zendesk, etc.)The initial fear was that AI chatbots would replace human contact centers entirely, but in practice AI is augmenting agents and expanding usage, which has translated into higher subscription revenue and attach rates for AI features.It’s actually been increasing revenue due to AI.In their latest quarterly print, Five9 delivered $305 million in revenue and a net income of $18.4 million, showcasing improving operating leverage.AI subscription revenue grew 68% year-over-year and management is guiding the AI line to grow north of 40% for the full year, so the thing the bears feared would kill this business is the thing carrying it.Management also raised full-year revenue guidance to a midpoint of $1.26 billion and authorized an aggressive capital return plan featuring a new $200 million share buyback program.It’s got some compelling covered calls also.TTWOSource: MeI purchased TTWO call leap spreads into Dec 2026.Take‑Two Interactive is the publisher behind Grand Theft Auto VI, the most hyped video game release in years, with industry analysts expecting multi‑million unit sales in the first weeks and a strong future income of microtransactions and deluxe editions.This is the most anticipated game of this year and I expect there to be a major run up at the end of it.With the official Grand Theft Auto VI release date explicitly locked in for November 19, 2026, my December LEAP options sit at the tail end of the ultimate catalyst. Management guided FY27 net bookings to $8.0–8.2 billion against $6.72 billion last year, roughly a 20% jump, and Zelnick named the GTA VI launch as the engine behind it.CLPTSource: MeI sold CLPT 10 puts.ClearPoint Neuro Inc is a neurosurgery technology company focused on MR‑guided brain intervention platforms, with a growing portfolio of partners and a key tie‑into a Huntington’s disease candidate.CLPT has a lot of shots on goal and with the FDA showing some return to normality.The commercial tie-in with uniQure’s (QURE) Huntington’s disease candidate, AMT-130, is a major asymmetric driver, with ClearPoint positioned to supply roughly $20,000 worth of surgical disposables for every single infusion upon a potential FDA approval.Beyond QURE, ClearPoint boasts more than 60 active biopharma partnerships and just secured an FDA 510(k) clearance followed immediately by a European CE Mark for its Velocity Alpha MR High-Speed Surgical Drill System, significantly expanding its global high-margin product footprint.OILSource: MeI have purchased oil call spread options for August and September contracts with a $20 spread. The least bullish person I know is calling for $200 oil. This podcast he is in is worth a listen to. This acts as a hedge and cheap insurance policy against this war continuing and wrecking the market.Conclusion:You got a lot to choose from here, so do your own work!If you enjoyed this write-up, please like and restack.I don’t get paid to do this, so consider that my reward.Substack seems to throttle free article writers, which makes attracting new readers difficult. I do not want to charge for this substack, but the algorithm may end up requiring it. I am trying to avoid this, so please spread this substack if you can.Also, if you have other ideas I should write about, my DM’s are always open on substack and Bluesky :)All writeups are subject to our TOSThanks for reading Triple S Special Situations Investing! This post is public so feel free to share it.Share