The actual method being called is Shape.getAnchor() since ShapeGroup doesn't override it, but apparently it doesn't work for ShapeGroups. It's the same file as in bug #42481 (you can find a copy attached there if the URL above disappears). To reproduce: new SlideShow(new HSLFSlideShow("alterman_security.ppt")).getSlides()[9].getShapes()[1].getAnchor();
Fixed. ShapeGroup.getAnchor() is overridden - it reads data from EscherSpgrRecord which stores the information about shape group. Yegor