Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"Phillips 66 intentionally excluded Valero, the only pure-play refiner of scale, as well as all pure-play midstream comps. When adding in Valero and relevant midstream players, it is clear Phillips 66 trades in line with both Valero and Marathon and not at all like a midstream company."

"The solid-state battery researcher who we asked to analyze this data – a leader who is highly published in the field - pointed out yet another red flag: the current density profile makes no sense and, contrary to Quantumscape’s claim, does not represent actual laps around a car track."

"The deterioration of Skechers' cash flow margins since 2018, coupled with a history of mismatch between its CFO and net income (before non-controlling interest) and thus highly suspect earnings quality, suggests that something is fundamentally wrong with the Company's financial model."

"Inside the company the bonding of relatives, their clan and extended family ties are strong. For example, like Mr. Ding Shizhong, currently his largest partners they all started out with him, they are all from the same village, they are all family or relatives, they have strong bonds."

"RINO claims to be the leader in selling desulfurization (“FGD”) and other environmental equipment to Chinese steel mills. It reported 2009 revenue of $193 million. In reality its revenue is under $15 million, and its management has diverted tens of millions of dollars for its own use."

"Phillips 66 has repeatedly highlighted the absolute dollar amount it has returned to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases, without mentioning that it trails its peers relative to its market cap on this metric. Management's omission of key information deceives shareholders."

"We struggle to explain how gross margins expanded in the face of a structural decline of inventory turnover, and a material drop in revenues in 2015 (from emerging market challenges), and the Swiss National Bank unexpectedly changing policy in early 2015 to strengthen the Swiss Franc."

"The data integrity problems flagged by ex-employees are not only devastating enough to prevent adoption, but they make the machine a non-starter for any FDA-related submission, according to a former BLI executive, who indicated that customers therefore won't take the risk of using it."

"Aldi and Lidl continue to gain Weis customers. Earnest Research data shows 36.2% of Weis customers transacted at an Aldi in the 12 months prior to July 2018, up from 30.4% in July 2017 and 8.0% vs 0.8% at Lidl over the same period (n = ~42,000 Weis customers observed since July 2016)."

"We provide evidence that since 1999, the Company has generated a cash flow deficit of -$1.6bn after capital expenditures, business investment, and asset-shuffling and repositioning, while making +$4.7bn and +$3.9bn of dividends and share repurchases effectively through debt-financing."

"Phillips 66 intentionally excluded Valero, the only pure-play refiner of scale, as well as all pure-play midstream comps. When adding in Valero and relevant midstream players, it is clear Phillips 66 trades in line with both Valero and Marathon and not at all like a midstream company."

"Current investors are paying a premium to the Company’s historical valuation. In addition, we believe the fundamental valuation of Aerojet is substantially higher than it appears given numerous off-balance sheet liabilities being ignored by the market and diminishing revenue programs."

"An interview with a Senior Executive at a Danimer competitor reveled there will likely be challenges to scale within the trillion-dollar plastics industry. In addition, Danimer’s reliance on canola oil looks to be a competitive disadvantage compared to lower priced alternative inputs."

"While we admire Director Geller’s entrepreneurship and acknowledge that microcap investing is a high-risk venture, we find instances where companies that Director Geller’s Leonite Capital funded were the subject of litigation, allegations of bad faith and SEC investigation or charges."

"He is not well-liked. His style with the community of physicians. My contacts are mainly with the heart transplant centers, including the administrators all the way up to the C Suite in lots of cases. When I joined, my phone just kept ringing, saying are you crazy? That man is insane."

"60% of ELF’s sales are through Target, Walmart and Ulta Beauty. ELF must adhere to Supplier Codes of Conduct that reference ethical conduct and standards that are open to the interpretation of their customers, none of which have any obligation to continue purchasing products from ELF."

"Pre-portioned boxes cost ~50% more than delivered supermarket groceries and even more versus in-store shopping. This premium is inherent to the added logistics layer and widely known (e.g., The Guardian, Reddit threads, viral YouTube clips). No amount of efficiency can close this gap."

"This means one of two mutually exclusive possibilities is true: a) ONP churns and burns its customers and miraculously finds new ones to make up for the lost volume (plus 62.5%); or, b) that ONP is lying about its sales volumes to these customers (which is the possibility we believe)."

"we've always thought about kind of the long-term EBITDA margin in the mid 11s. — CEO Response (Nov 23, 2021); So as you said, kind of long-term average for EBITDA has been the middle average. — CEO Response (June 14, 2022); we think that's an opportunity. — CEO Response (May 22, 2024)"

""The Commission has stated that, as a general principle, the fair value of a portfolio security is the price which the fund might reasonably expect to receive upon its current sale." — Douglas Scheidt, Associate Director and Chief Counsel in the SEC’s Division of Investment Management"

""In fact, our St. Joe beaches have been fortunate to experience minimal tar balls recently and have necessitated fewer workers to accomplish the slight clean-up required. We have similarly reduced the number of private workers required to maintain our beautiful beaches." — JOE Website"

"“...your device was cleared under K163512 for long-term monitoring of arrhythmia events for non-critical care patients where real-time monitoring is not needed as reporting timeliness is not consistent with life-threatening arrhythmias.” — FDA Warning Letter Dated 5/25/23 (CMS 643474)"

""Vishal you made one comment that I'd like to touch upon in a bit more detail relative to our past acquisitions. There's perhaps maybe one or two acquisitions I can point to that perhaps have not materialized, the benefits that we would have expected historically." — Q2 2023 Conf Call"

"The reporter came to Shenzhen Julan Information Technology Co., Ltd. The special assistant to the General Manager received us. The reporter asked, “Do you have any relationship with Focus Wireless?” The special assistant to the General Manager replied “No relationship.” — CCTV program"

"「KLA製の深紫外線装置は、とりわけ元のマスクの検査については市場のリーダーです。顧客としてはマスクには意図している画像が正確に転写されていることを確実に確認したいところです。それを検査・確認するためには、業界ではダイ・トゥ・ダイの技術が広く使われています。KLAのTeronシリーズはその技術を駆使しており、極端紫外線マスクの市場の一部を含めて、全社にとって主力装置です。ダイ・トゥ・データベースの検査技術もあります。それはレーザーテックが開発したものですが、その有効性については私にはわかりません」 — KLAで極端紫外線マスク検査を担当した、元エンジニアリング幹部"

"“The Moxian Platform is at the heart of our business. There are five components to our Moxian+ platform, which is the backend of our application, namely the social media engine, the e-commerce engine, the rewards engine, the gamification engine, and the analytical engine.” — 2017 10-K"

"Giant's balance sheet is akin to a personal financing tool for the chairman — Ottoman Bay Research. Giant Interactive Group "is willing to cooperate with authorities in their investigation into allegations the company is involved in money laundering activities." — Dahe Daily reporter."

"Ed: Just a quick question. If you can comment, since we have a lot of data with micro-second pulse field ablation, what are the theoretical benefits to nano-second? Is there less skeletal muscle stimulation or what’s the potential advantage? — Ed (Audience Member at AF Symposium 2024)"

"While US$6.0 million and 34 towers normally would not be a material amount for a company of AMT's size, we strongly believe that in light of the US$250 million discrepancy in the Site Sharing transaction, the transactions with NIHD should be closely examined for possible impropriety."

"What they have shown is data for one. One layer. So, you can understand that the ability for them to scale that up is going to take some serious time and effort because to get from just having one cell cycling to having technically 200,000 layers cycling, that's a huge scaling issue."

"Perhaps the most brazen statement in the release comes from Chris Monroe himself, who goes so far as to boast that the system has already been deployed: "The new system we're deploying today is able to do things no other quantum computer has been able to achieve...the holy grail....""

"We believe that Mr. Smith’s extensive knowledge of the capital markets, corporate finance, and public company governance practices as a result of his investment experience, together with his significant public company board experience, would make him a valuable addition to the Board."

"Ancora is concerned that this may have potentially been an attempt to “juice” the stock ahead of the nomination deadline by providing an incomplete picture considering the financial metrics indicated a strong top-line performance, but no detail was offered regarding margins/earnings."

"Skechers’ purchase commitments relative to LTM revenue are approximately 64% higher than that its peers as of their most recent fiscal year end. Moreover, Skechers’ increase in relative purchase commitments since before COVID-19 (FY-2 for all) is over twice as high as that of others."

"Thus, even if we assume iRhythm can achieve the low end to consensus of Wall Street analyst revenue estimates for 2026, which we doubt, applying a more appropriate 2x to 4x revenue multiple range yields approximately 40% to 70% stock price downside and material underperformance risk."

"Dropbox does warn that its Free Cash Flow excludes payments for finance leases and that it may be calculated differently from other companies in the industry, limiting its usefulness. When asked about finance leases, the CFO avoids highlighting the effect on the financial statements."

"2U is the highest valued “Cloud based SaaS” company. 2U is currently priced for perfection and we believe the stock will re-rate as downward estimate revisions come to fruition as well as the realization that the EBITDA margin profile will never mature similar to its SaaS peer group."

"With ~30% of revenues tied to BH, the equity story is very dependent on success of the partnership between Baker Hughes and C3. However, multiple contract amendments pushing revenue into the future, and the resignation of BH's CEO from C3's Board all point to a troubled relationship."

"Former HIMS employees and physicians confirmed the high degree of control HIMS exerts over the AMGs. In states with strict CPoM provisions, the MSO should not make personnel decisions. Yet, several physicians we spoke with said HIMS effectively controlled physician hiring and firing."

"Note shift in language to YTD penetration. It implies that Q3 penetration was 15.2% of sales or ~$133M, down -3% from the prior quarter. Q3'19 ecommerce sales were $53.2M (10.2% penetration). If the 67% 2-year CAGR claim were correct, Q3'2021 sales would have been $148M and not $133M"

"We believe that Mr. Smith’s extensive knowledge of the capital markets, corporate finance, and public company governance practices as a result of his investment experience, together with his significant public company board experience, would make him a valuable addition to the Board."

"A consistent theme among recent employee reviews of Mettler is that the company’s “operating systems are dated”, computer programs are “outdated”, and “growing pains” related to SAP. This should be an extreme concern to investors given $660m+ of capitalized software over twelve year."

"Total impairments approximated the $144m enterprise value SGHC originally booked for DGC, effectively erasing the entire acquisition within roughly 24 months and highlighting the potential engineered nature of the asset and the questionable strategic rationale behind the transaction."

"Since the Company has little interest in letting shareholders have their say regarding the Red Lobster Separation, the Special Meeting will provide an alternative forum for shareholders to show the Board that Darden's shareholders will not stand to be silenced on this critical issue."

"Notice carefully that BR recently made a few critical changes to its investor communications. Below are changes made to its IR website where we see clear evidence of slowing transaction processing and a removal of the same 80% statistic also struck from the recent 10-K Annual Report."

"Amgen employee #1, a scientist and group leader has interfaced closely with BLI for 5+ years. Remains unenthusiastic about the instrument; machine is prone to major errors, creating distrust and hesitation among Amgen staff; still have to hack it get it to work for various workflows."

"With healthy growth continuing into the 2030s, GAAP EBIT margins in the 21% range, an 11.7% WACC, and a 17.5x EV / LTM EBITDA exit multiple (relative to a current small-cap WFE average of 24x), we get a $72 per share fair value for ACMR, representing 300%+ upside from current levels."

"KOL's elaborated on the dynamic described by former employees, calling the pushing of stimulator trials as "straight up fraud" and "a big problem," saying that doctors "pump bodies" through stimulator clinics, particularly in high-abuse states with "giant billboards" for stimulators."

"To summarize Red Cat's version of their SRR win: Teal will be the sole supplier to the Army of about 12 thousand drones and 6 thousand controllers at a cost of $45 thousand per system, for a total revenue over a 5-year period (that's based on the press release) of about $265 million."

"In August 2022, Zillow positioned the higher stock-based compensation as a one-time/off-cycle “retention action”. However, we believe Zillow has few options but to continue to grow stock-based compensation as it now makes up a significant piece of its employee compensation structure."

"Spruce Point believes that PLUG cannot issue equity or raise debt fast enough to support its current restricted cash build - and, therefore, cannot continue to support customer leases through operating-type leasebacks, the source of the Company's recent "inflection" to profitability."

"The surgeon flatly stated that the main rationale is stacking and scheduling transplants as they only have one operating room – “we’ve had three livers on OCS at the same time”; “you can do that case at your leisure and you can stack cases”; “even take a break for dinner in between.”"

"Norfolk Southern shareholders have the opportunity to install operationally proficient leadership with a proven strategy for transforming the railroad's infrastructure and running a PSR-powered Scheduled Network that drives superior safety, customer service and financial performance."

"LSPD touted early on that CFO was "the best indicator" to follow its path to profitability. However, it quickly ceased providing quarterly and annual CFO guidance. In fact, the Company did not call out this key change to investors of this suspension until a quarter later in the MD&A."

"The Company performed its annual impairment testing of goodwill based on the December 31, 2021 balances, and, in all cases, the recoverable amounts exceeded their respective carrying values including goodwill; therefore, goodwill was not considered to be impaired as at March 31, 2022"

"It is evident that if investors include acquisition related expenses when calculating the company's free cash flow, the sum of free cash flow generated from 2013 to 2018 would be $205 million, as compared to $1.1 billion if those acquisition related expenses were excluded from capex."

"The "new" ACTIS A300, announced with fanfare in Nov 2023 as Lasertec's next-generation EUV product and driver of growth, is a hoax – a cover story to conceal fatal flaws with the EUV light source in its flagship tool, the A150, and the resulting, costly replacement and recall crisis."

"Calling the EGM reflects Palliser's loss of confidence in the judgement and priorities of the Company's current board, resulting both from an unwillingness to respond to shareholders' concerns and a sustained inability to execute a value accretive corporate strategy for shareholders."

"Dr. Metzner: Question from Ms. Schütz: What did the audit of our own work (accounts?) by Ernst & Young cost our company? - The special audit cost the company a five-figure amount. - I think it was about €25,000 or €30,000 but I'm not exactly sure. But it was about that. — Dr. Metzner"

""As part of such efforts, remuneration plans for management could be used as a sound incentive for sustainable growth, for example by including indicators related to profitability and improvement of corporate value in the calculation of executive remuneration." — Tokyo Stock Exchange"