Slide recipe: Cover

The first ten seconds. Build it deliberately.

What it must answer

The cover slide is read in approximately 4 seconds before the reader decides whether to keep going. It must answer three questions in that window:

1. Who is making this argument? (Fund identity)
2. About whom? (Target — name + ticker, immediately recognisable)
3. What is the thesis? (One-sentence provocation)

Not necessarily in that order. Three layout patterns recur.

Layout A · "Brand-target-thesis"

The classic. Top-left: fund logo. Centre: target name in massive serif. Below: thesis subtitle.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ◆ Pershing Square                                       │
│                                                         │
│                                                         │
│         Canadian Pacific Railway                        │
│         Nominees for Management Change                  │
│                                                         │
│                                                         │
│                            February 6, 2012             │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Used by: Canadian Pacific 2012, McDonald's 2005, ADP 2017, Disney "Restore the Magic" 2024.

Layout B · "Provocation-first"

Used by short-sellers when the headline IS the cover. Big bold claim, source attribution at the bottom.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│   Why Nikola Is An                                      │
│   Intricate Fraud Built On                              │
│   Dozens of Lies Over The                               │
│   Course of its Founder's                               │
│   Career                                                │
│                                                         │
│                          — Hindenburg Research, Sep 10  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Used by: Hindenburg / Nikola, Muddy Waters / NMC, Citron / Valeant.

Layout C · "Quote-anchored"

Cover IS a CEO quote that you'll spend 200 pages destroying. Rare but devastating.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│   "We have the most reliable hydrogen-electric truck    │
│    in production today."                                │
│                                                         │
│   — Trevor Milton, Founder & CEO of Nikola              │
│     CNBC interview, July 2020                           │
│                                                         │
│   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━    │
│                                                         │
│   Hindenburg Research · September 10, 2020              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Used as inner-cover by: Hindenburg / Nikola (after pure-text cover), Pershing / Herbalife.

Anti-patterns (avoid)

• ❌ Stock photography (handshakes, skylines, conference rooms)
• ❌ Generic "stylised network" or "blockchain-like" graphics
• ❌ Multiple fonts on the cover (one serif, one sans, max)
• ❌ Date in 8pt at the corner — it's part of the brand, treat it as a typographic element
• ❌ "Strictly Confidential" / "Do Not Distribute" watermarks (you're filing this with the SEC)
• ❌ Logos of advisors (Wachtell, JPMorgan) — you are the author

Typography

Target name (or thesis)    serif, 60–88pt, regular or bold
Subtitle / thesis line     serif, 22–32pt, lighter weight
Fund identifier            sans, 12–14pt, top of slide or footer
Date                       mono, 11–12pt, footer right

Resist any decorative element that doesn't serve identification or the thesis.

Background colour

• White / off-white: institutional, the default. Conservative audiences (proxy advisors, public pension funds).
• Dark / black: editorial, signals confidence. Media-savvy audiences (Sohn, retail).
• Brand colour: only if the fund has an established visual identity (Pershing's warm cream, Trian's navy, Elliott's dark grey).

Cover ↔ thesis-headline-slide pairing

The cover is followed immediately by Slide 2 — the thesis headline. Together they form the first 8 seconds.

Cover answers "what is this?" Slide 2 answers "what's your point?" Don't merge them.

Exemplars

• Pershing Square · Canadian Pacific (2012) — Layout A archetype
• Pershing Square · McDonald's (2005) — Layout A
• Hindenburg · Nikola (2020) — Layout B
• Trian · Disney (2024) — Layout A with castle motif (rare effective decorative element)
• Muddy Waters · NMC Health (2019) — Layout B
• Pershing Square · Herbalife (2012) — Layout A; uses "Pyramid" in the title to commit publicly

See also

• slides/slide-architecture.md — the cover is Block 1
• storytelling/three-reasons.md — what comes immediately after
• slides/visual-craft.md — typography hierarchy