Callouts & quotes from 1,069+ activist slides

"Spruce Point believes that when customers cut fees, suppliers and partners are typically expected to make concessions. We observe that MSCI's fees linked to equity ETFs have been in perpetual decline with further risk to the downside over time."

"In an effort to avoid admitting a large miss, management has recently started stating that "to get to its mid-cycle EBITDA PSX needs adjusted gross margin of $14.50/bbl," a level that even VLO (best-in-class operator) is not expected to achieve"

"Prescribing only because of patient desperation and pressure; doesn't think it has much benefit and is “trying to undersell the expectations”; forced to prescribe only because there's a new FDA approval; doesn't “disagree” with insurer denials"

"Warning: Why Are Charges From 2015/16 Restructuring Programs Suddenly Ignored? Per the 2015 10-K: Charges From 2015/16 Were Expected “To Continue Through 2016 and be substantially complete by 2016” – Not 2018! — Spruce Point Capital Management"

"Revenue is recognized upon transfer of control of promised products or services to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to receive in exchange for those products or services. — PowerSchool Revenue Recognition Policy"

"To avoid admitting a large miss, management has recently started saying that "to get to its mid-cycle EBITDA Phillips 66 needs adjusted gross margin of $14.50/bbl," a level that even Valero (best-in-class operator) is not expected to achieve"

""We are still expecting Clean Energy revenue growth well above 50% for the full year, with continued strength in PWRcell energy storage systems along with contributions from the initial rollout of new products." — CFO York, Q1 2022 Conf Call"

"We would expect a scope of business similar to that of Lufax (https://www.lu.com), which includes financial product research and development, portfolio design, private offerings of equity investment funds, and financial advice. — Footnote 27"

"Even through today, Disney has underperformed over every relevant period over the last decade...outside of the period since news broke of Trian’s increased beneficial ownership in Disney shares and expected request for Board representation."

"To avoid admitting a large miss, management has recently started saying that “to get to its mid-cycle EBITDA Phillips 66 needs adjusted gross margin of 14.50/bbl,” a level that even Valero (best-in-class operator) is not expected to achieve"

"Even through today, Disney has underperformed over every relevant period over the last decade...outside of the period since news broke of Trian’s increased beneficial ownership in Disney shares and expected request for Board representation."

""Revenue expected to come from backlog within the next twelve months that's an important leading indicator that we've put in all of our filings has been coming up over the last couple of quarters" — CFO At Jefferies Conference (Aug 8, 2018)"

""...I'm also pleased to note that we have increased our cost reduction target by approximately $300 million to at least $1.3 billion of total expected savings to be achieved on a run-rate basis by 2017." — DuPont Q4 2014 earnings transcript"

"FTSE index inclusion can be expected to drive new buying demand from index trackers and other passive investors which should have a positive impact on the share price and help narrow the discount to NAV at which PSH shares currently trade"

"FTSE index inclusion can be expected to drive new buying demand from index trackers and other passive investors which should have a positive impact on the share price and help narrow the discount to NAV at which PSH shares currently trade"

"In 2019 Vireo has come short of its dispensary rollout plan and gross margins have been significantly below expectations (16% in Q3/2019 vs 35% consensus and down 19% sequentially) Buildout in a number of locations have been put on hold."

"Within a year after MPWR claimed inventory growth was a result of needing to meet "current demand and future growth", $10.5m (7.7% of inventories) was written down unexpectedly, and a wafer supplier agreement was terminated in Dec 2018."

"Since the initial investment, Huntsman has invested an incremental ~$660 million into a business that has yet to perform in-line with the Company's initial expectations, and continues to be free cash flow negative on a cumulative basis."

"We compare Rollins’ valuation with a broad set of residential and commercial service companies. We expect Rollins’ margins to contract and its top-line growth to normalize. As a result, we believe its excessive multiple should contract."

""Shrimp inflation is expected to stay at the current high level because of production issues in Asia." — Buckingham, March 21, 2014; "Commodity Outlook Should be Favorable in FY15 as Shrimp Pressures Ease." — Sterne Agee, March 21, 2014"

"EBITDA add-backs. Very aggressive; includes uncapped pro forma cost savings, synergies and operating expense reductions resulting from transactions and expected to be taken within 18 months, determined in good faith by Parent. — Moody's"

"Rate base growth potential is a key investor marketing pitch used by WTRG to show upside in its business. We find that Peoples is falling behind expectations for rate base growth and projections have quietly been cut by $100m per year."

"We believe that lingering stigma around entering such environments could slow dental office activity for months into the future, given that the disease itself is not expected to disappear until later this year at the absolute earliest."

"This view appears to completely contravene U.S. GAAP, which provides that “if a business is expected to lose money for a sustained period, the inventory shall not be written down to offset a loss inherent in the subsequent operations.”"

"This target represents the level of margin expansion we would expect any company to strive to achieve in the normal course of business, not the result of a publicly announced Operating Review that took almost eight months to complete."

"We expect a substantial re-rating lower in the share price once investors see that revenue programs are disappearing, and critically analyze the quality of the Company’s earnings and its valuation adjusted for significant liabilities."

"Over the last two years, DSP's expectations for DECT Home Gateways have declined dramatically from expecting total market shipments of approximately 13 million units in 2012 to estimating approximately 5 million units shipped in 2012."

"As a general long-term guideline, we expect to retain roughly half of our free cash flow... to support the growth of our business... and return the other half to our shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. — FY 2015 20-F"

"Your application for Wakix was not referred to an FDA advisory committee because the application did not raise significant safety or efficacy issues that were unexpected for a drug in the intended population. — FDA NDA approval letter"

"Red Cat's management claimed that if you just look at the draft NDAA... "the number" for the SRR funding is $79 million, which the company uses as an indication of what to expect for the first year's revenue generated by the program."

"At the current run rate IIPR would have to pay out $86M in dividends throughout 2020. It seems to us that the company will not be able to do so based on our analysis. We expect that the dividend will have to be reduced substantially."

"If you believe Mettler, it is able to navigate rapidly changing business cycles with limited backlog, unexpected currency revaluations, commodities, disappointing acquisitions, and trade wars without ever missing quarterly earnings."

"If you believe Mettler, it is able to navigate rapidly changing business cycles with limited backlog, unexpected currency revaluations, commodities, disappointing acquisitions, and trade wars without ever missing quarterly earnings."

"Despite the CEO offering expectations of “winning” in Europe at the beginning of the year, we find that profits were down materially. Even worse, we find that Amcor’s cash pool swung from a surplus of €62.7m to a deficit of -€34.4m."

"By the way, they are ahead of our plan. We had an internal plan that we put together for the combined business... And they had a quarter that exceeded our expectations and we expect that to continue. — Roger Krone, CEO, Aug 4, 2020"

"Crown’s thesis for paying premium multiples on fiber is that it values fiber & towers similarly; CCI expects fiber economics to be very similar to towers, albeit at an earlier stage of development and investment. — Citi, May 2017"

"Closed sales represent an estimate of the expected annual recurring fee revenues for new client contracts that were signed by Broadridge in the current reporting period. — Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. 2021 Proxy Statement"

"Since other benefit managers have largely adopted the PGNY treatment protocol, we expect that fertility outcomes, a major (although questionable) marketing point for PGNY, will cease to be a point of competitive differentiation."

"The least squared trendline in figure 1 indicates that the statistically expected outcome for the stock of a suing company is a valuation decline of 80% against the index over the next 6 years (2,192 days) after the publication."

""TWX's advanced broadband delivery systems are expected to provide an important distribution platform for AOL's interactive services, which is expected to result in incremental subscriber growth." — The Board of Time Warner Inc."

"Samsung expects KLA to launch a competing tool “very soon”; will given them at least half the business; have already placed a pre-order; has “confidence and trust in KLA” who is “aggressively developing their own actinic tools”"

"“There has been no change in the scope of the audit.” — Mr. Walton, Allied’s CEO. “the accountant does not function as an appraiser and is not expected to substitute his judgment for that of the company's directors.” — ASR 118."

"Further, we are concerned that Mellanox has set the bar far too low. For example, even if the 2018 targets are achieved, Mellanox would still be expected to come in dead last among the peer group in terms of operating margins."

"Pro forma TWC, as shown in Exhibit 3.43, is expected to have total debt of approximately $15.8 billion as of January 1, 2006 or 3.6x net debt/2005E OIBDA (with covenants allowing for maximum leverage of 5.0x total debt/OIBDA)."

"EBITDA add-backs. Very aggressive; includes uncapped pro forma cost savings, synergies and operating expense reductions resulting from transactions and expected to be taken within 18 months, determined in good faith by Parent."

"If the aspiration catheter is so low-tech that its role can be satisfied by cheaper existing products, why should Penumbra expect to maintain a premium price as neurovascular aspiration thrombectomies become more commonplace?"

"With thousands of customers running jobs “every week” at a price of “several thousand” per hour, we would expect $100MM+ revenue. Yet, IONQ reported only $451K of YTD revenue around the time the claims were made in late 2021."

"Logically, if in 2020 the lower margin cohorts from 2018 and 2020 grew to become the majority of the TPV, we would expect the average take rates to fall; however, the opposite occurred, and average take rates spiked by 17.5%."

"In 2018, Aerojet benefitted from boosts in missile orders which will not be repeated in the 2019 budget. Based on the 2020E overall budget, key programs are expected to fall by 11% driven by declines in THAAD and PAC-3 / MSE."

"We expect management will wrack its brain to find another excuse about why it is hiring engineers to run its internal bot network. We thought we would help. Management or IR, please feel free to cut and paste the reply below."

"Investors don't need to take our word for it. Samsara CFO Phillips has already said that the future is increasingly cloudy as he attempted to manage down investor expectations for the Company's future earnings outperformance."

"To understand why NQ’s results were much worse than expected, investors need to realize that prior audits of the company were likely not as rigorous, and the extra scrutiny made it harder to fake profits and cash flow in Q4."

"Stated that he expects those physicians who want to use Vykat to just prescribe generic diazoxide suspension off-label instead - "of course...that’s probably what it will come to...I think that’s what it’s going to come to.""

"I guess that I'm feeling maybe a little more hypocritical after talking to you, but I feel like the expectation is there that since this is FDA approved and available, that trying to get on the drug is important to families."

"“They were just surprised to see that it was so extreme, especially given the fact that it seemed to happen so quickly after they came off the drug. They didn’t expect that. They expected it to be a slower withdrawal [...]”"

"Fox Pest Control has elicited strong and negative feedback from consumers recently. We expect Rollins will need to invest in additional reputational management and brand building exercises to counter the vitriolic feedback."

"Among the ideas considered was SoftBank serving as an anchor investor in the IPO by buying a significant portion of the roughly $3 billion to $4 billion the company is expected to raise. — WSJ article on Softbank/WeWork IPO"

"On its Q2'23 earnings call, Redfin noted closed rates unexpectedly fell from ~6-7% in '22 to 5.5% in '23. This 100 bps decline is significant as it implies a ~15% reduction in conversion assuming lead count was comparable."

"We expect approximately $1.1 billion of upfront costs associated with the initiation of the plan to impact net income in the fourth quarter, which will be adjusted out of normalized FFO. — Tim McHugh, Q3 2025 Earnings Call"

"“I wasn't anticipating this particular piece of news...I wasn't expecting to see this — I don't think there was a perspective that this was likely to happen” — Endocrinologist; academic and community hospital affiliations."