Callouts & quotes from 1,316+ activist slides

"50 or 60 million compared to 40 million dividend amount - and it has almost been doubled -; these are impressive figures, two-thirds of total assets, with a write-off only partially as much as the cash dividend."

"Plc accounts for 77% of Rio's shareholder base but generates <20% of group EBITDA, meaning Ltd is required to support Plc by transferring cash and profit reserves to Plc to fund distributions to Plc shareholders"

"Spruce Point is skeptical about the quality and valuation of targets acquired by Perion. It has paid just ~30% cash upfront and structured most payments as contingent payment earn-outs if the businesses succeed."

"Though one can find convenient examples for buybacks and dividends being bad for the share price, failing to return excess cash in the face of a low multiple usually depresses share price and valuations further."

"After appropriately valuing its high quality franchise and real estate cash flows, even “unfixed” Wendy’s is worth $35 today. If the Company improves its company-operated store margins, the business is worth $42"

"Lasertec is an extreme, textbook accounting fraud that checks off every box: claiming to have the highest margins in the industry; but alarmingly little cash flow and the lowest cash conversion among its peers."

"Assuming that Olam requires a minimum of S$100 million in cash on hand to continue operating, we believe that Olam may have to raise or refinance S$4.6 billion in debt in the next twelve months to stay solvent."

"Therefore, either DLO's disclosures are inadequate (i.e., more detail is needed to disaggregate merchant account balances from those of DLO), inaccurate, or DLO likely used client funds for its 2020 cash needs."

"GFL's capex listed through the cash flow statement does not reconcile with capex additions through the PP&E accounts. As a result, we believe capex is being capitalized on the balance sheet by at least C$41.1m"

"Question: Why does the Services Agreement contemplate a 1.5% advisory fee rather than paying the new management team with a more typical cash and stock compensation construct used by most operating businesses?"

"Assuming Valeant de-levers and maintains 3.5 turns of leverage, allocates free cash flow to acquisitions, and grows at a rate reflective of the strength of its franchises, the stock is tremendously undervalued"

"High fixed interest rates payments risk incentivising Management to bid uneconomically for short-term cash flow at significant long-term risk to shareholders, especially since Management owns very little stock"

"Assuming Valeant de-levers and maintains 3.5 turns of leverage, allocates free cash flow to acquisitions, and grows at a rate reflective of the strength of its franchises, the stock is tremendously undervalued"

"From local filings, we see that its EBITDA margin has fallen sharply over the past three years from 7.8% to 3.9% (Adj EBITDA from 8.2% to 6.0%), while operating cash flow amounted to just A$3 million in 2022."

"High fixed interest rate payments risk incentivising Management to bid uneconomically for short-term cash flow at significant long-term risk to shareholders, especially since Management owns very little stock"

"Spruce Point observes that Philip Services Corp. also understated its Capex through the cash flow statement after completing its IPO in the U.S. and Canada. The stock eventually collapsed towards insolvency."

"Oklo uses “illustrative unit economics” to promote the anticipated low capital costs and cash returns... We believe there are several problems with Oklo’s unit economics which render them grossly misleading."

"we are proposing that TI adopt a dynamic capacity-management strategy and introduce a free cash flow per share target of $9.00+ in 2026, representing a level that is ~40% above current investor expectations."

"But therein lies a key to the fraud - while Lasertec claims to have the highest profitability, its cash conversion is the lowest - a striking anomaly at the center of the largest corporate frauds in history."

"As the discrepancy between accounting income and cash flow widens, funding the dividend becomes tricky – consensus earnings estimates for 2025/2026 imply a dividend that is unrealistic vs. cash or cash flow."

"“There will come a time that once we run out of using those credits, to continue using the foundry services, we would have to pay cash for that, but we're not at that point yet.” — Senior Genomatica employee"

"We are alarmed by the Q1'25 surge in accounts payable, which cannot be explained by the Ambry acquisition which included just $0.2m of additions. Tempus may be stretching out payables to generate cash flow."

"TFS claims that the issue of risk is mitigated through the assumption that the value of the plantations (which TFS can reclaim in the event of default) is allegedly greater than the cash value of the debts."

"There is so little competition that the opportunities to buy fine companies with double-digit cash-on-cash returns are more abundant than at any time in my career, other than at the bottom of a bear market."

"In October 2019 we completed the acquisition of Mobius Imaging and Cardan Robotics for cash consideration of approximately $370 and future development and commercial milestones of up to $130. — Q3 2019 10-Q"

"We theorize that the 1.5% interest rate is likely equivalent to what the company would have earned on the cash balance, and therefore was needed to plug the hole created by having actually funded the loan."

"This undrawn facility amount has decreased RMB 6.25 billion over the last six months to RMB 4.98 billion, which is somewhat alarming since the company supposedly generated free cash flow in that same time."

"Per Riot press release announcing rejected bid for Bitfarms the company has more than $700m in cash on hand and 9.25% stake in Bitfarms (subsequently increased to 11.3% ~44.9m shares). — Kerrisdale Capital"

"All LOIs received included both cash and non-cash consideration, none of which were sufficient to satisfy the Company’s indebtedness to DSMF, as Interim Lender and Senior Secured Lender. — PwC's 2nd Report"

"Note: Our Free Cash Flows are derived using Net Capital Expenditures, net of proceeds received from closures. We note that the Company typically generates $300 - $400mm of proceeds annually from closings."

"We are unable to reconcile certain balance sheet and cash flow statement accounts. The balance sheet accounts show additions that are €24.8 million greater than what the cash flow statement seems to show."

"We have not established a formal cash incentive program for our executive officers. Instead we have relied primarily on the long-term incentive value of equity-based compensation. — Zillow Proxy Statement"

"If Box’s goal was truly to lower the share count and boost EPS, Box could have replicated the intended impact simply by repurchasing $11-$66 million of stock via the Company’s $600+ million cash balance."

"Furthermore, we believe YY either transferred roughly RMB 1.326 billion to its WFOEs—the majority of which would have been transferred to its offshore WFOEs illegally—, or the cash simply does not exist."

"Bunge is a cash incinerating agribusiness roll-up which we estimate has a cumulative cash flow deficit of ($1.6bn) since 1999 while distributing $4.7bn and $3.9bn towards dividends and share repurchases."

"PetIQ is more levered than it would otherwise seem, which will amplify its inevitable share price decline once investors recognize that the business won't hit its targets and will continue to burn cash."

"HHH will be a well-capitalized company with access to equity and debt capital and excess free cash flow from HHC, which will be reinvested in high-return, controlling investments in operating businesses"

"A seven-year extension of GGP’s secured and unsecured loans at their existing interest rates would provide the Company with sufficient time to use cash flow from operations to delever its balance sheet."

"CTO is Obscuring the Fact that Their Core Cash Flows from Operations Have Never Been Enough to Cover Their Dividend and Pay for Recurring Capex with an AFFO Metric That Is an Aberration from Their Peers"

"On the balance sheet side, as of the latest financials (ending December 2019), New Pacific had about C$43 million in current liquid assets (including C$33.6 million in cash and C$8.7 million in bonds.)"

"Because prisons are made of concrete and steel, depreciation expense meaningfully exceeds maintenance capex. As a result, CXW’s free cash flow per share is substantially greater than earnings per share"

"Non-GAAP adjustments to Operating Cash Flow were conveniently just enough to push Non-GAAP Operating Cash Flow beyond management's comp target threshold of $230M (which it did not meet on a GAAP basis)"

"...InternationalCo would be forced to assume all of Hess' existing debt and therefore restrict InternationalCo's financial flexibility, future growth rate, and ability to return cash to shareholders."

"Result is Hess is penalized twice: Penalty #1: Multiple-based valuation undervalues Bakken; Penalty #2: Hess given lower multiple than peers due in part to higher capital intensity and cash flow gap."

"Our research on Novomer causes us to think that the $152 million cash Novomer acquisition is based more on hope than realism, and could signal that DNMR has concerns about scaling its own technology."

"AOL's EBITDA growth ranked lowest among its peers and free cash flow growth was near the lowest quartile, while its CEO and CFO bonus payouts ranked in the 83rd and 96th percentile compared to peers."

"We find it difficult to believe that the accounting team could overlook $19.7 million in cash and payments collected from customers, and at the same time also forget about an equal amount of assets."

"Based on the highly cash-generative nature of HHH’s real estate assets, we expect that HHH will redeem PSH’s preferred stock and increase its economic ownership of Vantage to 100% within three years"

"We estimate that the company will fall short of 2022E revenue and EBITDA by 35%, while we estimate that Levered Free Cash Flow in 2022E will be $74.3 million, or 80% lower than what forecasts imply."

"Factoring in this real cash expense, we calculate CTO's industry standard AFFO would have been $29.9 million, leaving a $10 million shortfall after paying common shareholders their dividend in 2024."

"With Axon's cash flow going negative in Q1, its adjusted free cash flow over the last year is jut $4.9 million. Axon's valuation looks expensive relative to its declining and meager free cash flow."

"With the capital spending behind them, starting in 2023, depreciation will exceed capital spending, leading to even higher Free Cash Flow per share. So, it may be at 4.6x cash flow at $4.50 copper."

"From 2009 to 2011, AOL's revenue declined nearly twice as fast as total operating expenses, causing EBITDA and free cash flow to decline by a staggering $700 million and $575 million, respectively."

"Despite its high growth potential and IRRs in these two plays, and its cash generating core MS Lime position, SandRidge trades at a deep discount to its Peers and its own PV-10 proved reserve base."

"[t]hough free cash flow was one factor in the company's executive compensation program, these decisions were not calculated to influence compensation outcomes. — Autodesk May 31, 2024 press release"

"DGW’s auditor was clearly inattentive in not seeing that DGW had misclassified property deposits in the cash flow statement in a way that artificially boosted its pre-IPO year operating cash flow."

"Directors now cannot defer compensation and must take it in the current period. This raises our suspicion that insiders are opting to take cash out before financial stress increases in the future."

"Magnite's Pro Forma operating cash flow declined -143% YTD 2019 vs 2020 and this assumes zero cash burn contribution from Telaria in Q1 2020, a period that it did not disclose separate financials."

"In our view, the problem with MPLN is that the company stopped giving customers the level of service that they wanted several years ago, as private equity firms were looting the business for cash."

""The board is unanimously recommending this all-cash offer by Nuvei to buy SafeCharge at an attractive premium, which represents compelling value for SafeCharge shareholders" — igamingbusiness.com"