In William D. Cohan’s December 2013 profile of billionaire hedge-fund manager Dan Loeb, one colleague described Loeb’s public filings as “the most obnoxious letters on the planet . . . juvenile, sophomoric, and cringe-making.” But don’t let the words of an anonymous colleague sway you; see for yourself. Below, Loeb’s top 10 most cutting items of correspondence. Editor’s note: all punctuation errors are Loeb’s, not ours.

1. Penn Virginia Corporation

February 27, 2002

The ill conceived and poorly timed $112.0 million acquisition of Synergy Oil & Gas (“Synergy”) appears to bode poorly for this management team’s ability to complete accretive corporate transactions . . . . With all due respect, the sophisticated Texas oilmen (Synergy C.E.O., Eric Pitcher and the individuals at Natural Gas Partners) that sold their interest in Synergy saw the Appalachian coal men coming with aspirations to wear crocodile skin cowboy boots, silver spurs and ten-gallon hats. No doubt the folks at NGP who sold Synergy so near the top tick of the natural gas bubble had quite a hootenanny at Penn Virginia shareholders’ expense.

2. Star Gas Partners

February 14, 2005

We have also tried to reach you on innumerable occasions only to be told that your legal counsel advised you against speaking to bondholders and shareholders due to the torrent of shareholder litigation currently being brought against senior management and the Company . . . . Sadly, your ineptitude is not limited to your failure to communicate with bond and unit holders. A review of your record reveals years of value destruction and strategic blunders which have led us to dub you one of the most dangerous and incompetent executives in America. (I was amused to learn, in the course of our investigation, that at Cornell University there is an “[Star Gas C.E.O.] Irik Sevin Scholarship.” One can only pity the poor student who suffers the indignity of attaching your name to his academic record.)

3. Yahoo!

May 3, 2012

A rudimentary Google search reveals a Stonehill College alumni announcement stating that [Yahoo C.E.O. Scott] Thompson’s degree is in accounting only . . . . Upon recognizing this discrepancy, Third Point initially assumed that the documents we had reviewed were incorrect and the representations in Yahoo!’s public filings were accurate. However, we were then informed by Stonehill College that Mr. Thompson did indeed graduate with a degree in accounting only. Furthermore, Stonehill College informed us that it did not begin awarding computer science degrees until 1983—four years after Mr. Thompson graduated. We inquired whether Mr. Thompson had taken a large number of computer science courses, perhaps allowing him to justify to himself that he had “earned” such a degree. Instead, we learned that during Mr. Thompson’s tenure at Stonehill only one such course was even offered—Intro to Computer Science. Presumably, Mr. Thompson took that course.

4. Quarterly letter to investors

July 29, 2013

We were surprised that after [Sony] Entertainment’s highly-touted big budget summer film releases—After Earth and White House Down—bombed spectacularly at the box office, C.E.O. Hirai, speaking at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference a few weeks ago, brushed off these failures, saying: “I don’t worry about the Entertainment business, it’s doing just fine” We find it perplexing that Mr. Hirai does not worry about a division that has just released 2013’s versions of Waterworldand Ishtar back-to-back.

5. Intercept, Inc.

May 27, 2004

The Company’s proxy statement provides us with our first indication that a “good ol’ boy” (“GOB”) set of ethics prevails at the Company rather than standards dictated by fairness and good judgment. First, the Company employs the C.E.O.’s daughter, Denise, and her husband David Saylor, who received total compensation of $238,776 in 2003. I called Mr. Saylor last Friday at 4:00 p.m. at the Company’s offices to learn more about the core product that he presumably sells. He had his calls forwarded to his cell phone since it was still business hours. I identified myself as a shareholder interested in learning about the core product lines to which he replied that he could not speak as he was “on the golf course.” I was not sure whether it was his relation with his father-in-law or the $238,776 salary that affords him the opportunity to work on his golf game during business hours.