Callouts & quotes from 2,092+ activist slides

""We expect that [vet clinics on the Vets First Choice Platform will] identify more than $0.5 million to $1 million of incremental new revenues to their practice." — Benjamin J. Shaw, CEO of Vets First Choice on April 23, 2018 (announcement of transaction)"

"Operating revenues from non-recurring revenues increased 48.7% for the six months ended June 30, 2023, primarily driven by one-time license fees related to prior periods, as well as non-recurring licensed data products. — MSCI Q2 2023 Financial Disclosure"

"Miraculously, there are still sell-side analysts recommending to buy Zillow’s stock despite the Company eliminating its 2025 revenue target, lowering 2024 revenue guidance and consensus estimates for Adj. EBITDA being way below management’s 2025E target."

"Lower commodity prices are forcing the industry to cut costs. Here we adjust the revenue to the future strip price, and cut expenses by 20%. On that basis, gross cash flow is $30 per BOE and Pioneer earns a positive margin. But, it's not positive value."

"In the context of his wildly aggressive revenue target claims, pressures on cash flow, outsized exposure to struggling Facebook as a 22% customer, and new evidence of financial reporting tied to borrowing not adding up, investors should be on red alert."

"Amcor screens as if its valuation is reasonable for a global paper and packaging company. In addition, its sales and earnings are temporarily showing growth from the addition of Bemis, but as we've illustrated, there is underlying revenue deterioration."

"Consolidation in the financial services industry could adversely affect our revenues by eliminating some of our existing and potential clients and could make us increasingly dependent on a more limited number of clients — Broadridge Notable Risk Factors"

"Marathon today reports lower RINs expense than merchant peers because Speedway reports no RINs revenue. If Speedway were a separate company, it would recognize higher revenue from RINs commensurate with the higher cost of RINs at Marathon’s refineries."

"During the monitoring period, the highest gift revenue we observed for a dating channel room was approximately RMB 150,000 in a week, while weekly gift earnings for the top 10 dating performers as of March 2020 ranged from 16,000 up to 99,000 per week."

"We believe Axon should be valued relative to traditional weapons and firearms manufacturers and connected device and location electronics companies, not high growth SaaS peers with bigger TAMs, lower business risks, and proven recurring revenue models."

"This is the highest revenue Mettler-Toledo company in China with 38%, or $464m in revenue, and it has an incorrect address. Our investigators visited the 3rd floor and found one abandoned company and one in operation, but no evidence of Mettler-Toledo."

"Spruce Point is alarmed that PERI's audit chairman Michal Drayman held multiple financial roles at Lumenis Ltd. during the same period where the CFO and COO were charged with a scheme to fraudulently inflate revenues and misrepresent financial metrics."

"Even with evidence that Microsoft revenue is falling below plan, Perion retracted Yandex as a search partner, made search its #1 risk factor, and experienced a sharp decline in revenue per day per search, sell-side consensus estimates are still rising."

"The striking absence of dedicated finance, treasury, HR, legal, or other G&A staff in LinkedIn searches makes it apparent to us that Allonnia is controlled and run by Ginkgo as a captive entity, with no purpose we believe except to create fake revenue."

"Our rigorous forensic analysis suggests it may be outright impossible for Amcor to meet lofty analyst expectations, with revenues already vanishing, deal costs higher than planned, and critical maintenance and growth capital expenditures being delayed."

"Spruce Point believes our assumptions are conservative given there is a good chance the state litigation ends up at SCOTUS, allowing Kalshi to operate at least through 2026. In our base case, we estimate DraftKings risks missing 2026 revenue by ~15.0%."

"We are also able to increase revenue per customer as we introduce new solutions, which have resulted in a compounded annual growth in average revenue for our top 50 customers of 32% from 2017 to 2019. — DoubleVerify Pre-IPO Draft Prospectus (Sept 2020)"

"As we've already shown: 1) MPWR's Chinese tax filings do not account for ~$262m of revenue, and 2) MPWR's inventory turnover metrics are ballooning and a significant industry outlier despite stable and steady gross margin growth that management touts."

"In less than twelve months, durvalumab, demcizumab, ACY-241, and RPC-4046 had all been removed from the list. While fedratinib was added to the list, current Wall Street analysts' estimates expect fedratinib to generate peak revenues of <$500 million."

"Notice that PERI included Yandex with Microsoft Bing in early 2021 after commencement of the new Microsoft deal. The inclusion of Yandex coincides with PERI increasing its total revenue from Microsoft by $100m over the four-year term of the agreement."

"Spruce Point has identified inconsistent statements made by Rollins about its termite business. On the one hand, they said revenue from termite has tripled. However, a year later they said that they don't break out the termite from ancillary business."

"However, with recent acquisitions poised to contribute $115-125M in cloud revenue by our estimates, we believe that this leaves targeted cloud revenue growth at a three-year CAGR of just 13-27% excluding outstanding sources of inorganic cloud revenue."

"It seems to us that if one were to overstate revenue in a global business, one wouldn't want the margins to seem glaringly out of line with peers. Therefore, we would expect that a smart person (or people) would find a way to inflate expenses as well."

""the preponderance of revenue on the loan side comes from [fintechs]...I mean, if you look at Upstart, I think they've reported as much as 50-plus percent of their origination volume comes from Credit Karma." — Former Director at Intuit, Tegus, 8/2/22"

"Our research suggests that Kratos is a tiny player in the field of unmanned systems, with approximately 1% share of industry revenues and contract awards as a percentage of the DoD budget for drone procurement, research, development and construction."

"Analytics is our long-term target to move from being a lower revenue generator in the low to mid-single digits to a medium revenue grower in the upper single digits over the long term. — CEO & Chairman Fernandez, Investor/Analyst Call, April 28, 2016"

"There is more evidence that PERI’s revenue growth story is cracking. In the recent quarter, revenue growth vastly exceeded accounts receivable growth. Even more alarming, Q1 2023 accounts receivables amounted to 92% of total revenue for the quarter."

"It lists only two open positions on its website as well as on LinkedIn – again, a striking fact for a “independent” company that raised $50MM in Oct 2020, and one from which Ginkgo already reports a $38MM deferred revenue balance as of Mar 31, 2021."

"We believe providing a target of at least 40% growth plus profitability for FY2025 would be in-line with peer targets and timelines and should be readily achievable through a reasonable acceleration in revenue growth and meaningful margin expansion."

"The increase in receivables from the prior quarter was the result of our record revenues, unusually high turns booking late in the quarter and a mix swing of relatively more shipments to customers with longer payment terms. — Q1 2010 Conference Call"

"Absent any helpful answers from the Company, shareholders can only assume that the Company is significantly increasing spending in other areas and offsetting the margin improvement that should result from the workforce reduction and revenue growth."

"We believed that GoDaddy had significant opportunities to deliver on strong revenue growth, meaningful margin expansion, and a more appropriate capital allocation strategy, which, collectively, would result in meaningful shareholder value creation."

"We believed that GoDaddy had significant opportunities to deliver on strong revenue growth, meaningful margin expansion, and a more appropriate capital allocation strategy, which, collectively, would result in meaningful shareholder value creation."

"We believed that GoDaddy had significant opportunities to deliver on strong revenue growth, meaningful margin expansion, and a more appropriate capital allocation strategy, which, collectively, would result in meaningful shareholder value creation."

"NQ management during Q&A on conference call: “Yidatong reports net revenues associated to a portion that would be earned by them for their services, and not the gross amount that is being passed to the carriers on behalf of the developers like NQ”."

"Similarly, FirstGroup's UK Bus business grew substantially prior to 2007, with stagnant revenue growth since 2008 and significant margin deterioration since 2012, while Stagecoach grew its UK Regional Bus revenues and margins during the same period"

"We are short IONQ because our investigation reveals IONQ lost its funding for vital Pentagon contracts that provided up to 86% percent of IONQ’s revenues from 2022-2024, leaving a $54.6 million black hole in its expected quantum computing revenues."

""And we already pointed out that in the last quarter we have a path to achieve our 2016 targets. We actually said that we're going to have an EBITDA target of $350 million 2016 on revenues of $1.6 billion...." — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, October 8, 2015"

"DV ceased a key disclosure about revenue facilitated through programmatic partnerships. It appears they've become increasingly dependent on two partnerships, which we believe is adding greater business risk and financial pressures to its business."

"There are many data points to cast doubt on the accuracy of Axon's margins beyond it having recently reported a material weakness tied to revenue recognition and cost of sales, fail to promptly address SEC comment letters, and have its CFO resign."

"The relationship between IQ’s deferred revenues and realized revenues is the opposite of what we would expect based on their claims – the realized revenue curve consistently leads the deferred revenue curve and the gap between the two is widening."

"The application of fair value accounting for the SanReno JV is a convenient mechanism by which Chinook can inflate its revenues and decrease its expenses, minimizing its near-term losses and setting itself up for potential future profit inflation."

"Genius has secured partnerships with a large number of sports leagues in 2020, including 20 new partnerships since the beginning of October. Our conversions with experts reveal these partners are unlikely to pay meaningful cash revenue to Genius."

"Based on our significant number of live stream related interviews, we believe that the Street's base case is materially overstating Live Video and Mobile Marketing revenues while understating costs of revenues associated with Live Video services."

"10. Aside from its “customers” being related parties and effectively fake, we believe that Ginkgo takes the scam into even more aggressive territory by booking revenue from them that is simply fictitious, overstated, and/or based on overcharging."

"ROAD infrequently provides guidance as to how much of its revenue growth it expects to be organic. However, in the recent instances that it has commented on organic growth goals, we find that the Company has been falling short of its projections."

"Revenues increased by $52.1 million, or 11.6%, to $499.5 million in 2015 from $447.4 million in 2014. The increase in revenues resulted from an approximate 15% increase in volume of sales... — Caesarstone FY 2015 Revenue movement explanatory note"

"Based on our belief that Procept is likely to face growth challenges, we believe the Company should trade at 5x to 9x 2025E revenue, implying a price target range of $29 to $54 per share, or approximately 30% to 60% downside from current levels."

"TASK claimed it booked $15 million of revenue in 2014. Another version claims that at a revenue run-rate of $35m million in June 2015, that it doubled revenue (implying $17.5m). One former executive told us revenue in 2014 was just $8.0 million."

"The SEC's order finds that MagnaChip Semiconductor Corp. overstated revenues for nearly two years in response to immense pressure placed on employees each quarter to meet revenue and gross margin targets that had been communicated to the public."

"Sector leader IDEXX actually innovated the subscription model and offers a range of similar purchase options, as well as a much broader range of products and services. Moreover, IDEXX lab diagnostics consumables account for 78% of total revenue."

"Water and wastewater rate increases, including infrastructure rehabilitation surcharges, implemented during the past three years have provided additional operating revenues of $27,421 in 2021, $32,660 in 2020, $55,658 in 2019. — 2021 10-K, p. 51"

"SafeCharge contributed revenues of $55,853 and net income of $11,643 to the Company for the period from the acquisition date to December 31, 2019. The net income contribution includes the amortization of identifiable intangible assets acquired."

"To drive home the absurdity of Procept’s valuation, we project the Company’s total ten-year Aquablation opportunity making highly generous assumptions... we still calculate a revenue opportunity less than one-half of Procept’s enterprise value."

"Analysts model revenues beginning in FY 2026 and accelerating in the out years. We believe these assumptions are aggressive. Given the large current discount to the consensus analyst price target, the market appears to be expressing skepticism."

"Porch trades at a lofty 2021E 9.0x revenue and 11.7x gross profit multiple on the assumption its recent revenue growth is sustainable, but we believe recent results are distorted due to low-quality acquisitions, which inflates inorganic growth."

"Based on the problematic Site Sharing portfolio, we believe that the above market rent that AMT is currently receiving, which amounts to 43% of operating revenue, is unsustainable and any average rent metrics based off this will be overstated."

"The relationship between Shujia's year-end deferred revenue and subsequent-year recognized revenue is inconsistent with our understanding of how GZ 1-1 operates, supporting our view that Shujia was not consolidating all of the GZ 1-1 business."

"Spruce Point believes it is a huge red flag that Bunge failed to provide revenue projections for Viterra in its proxy statement which it likely had formulated if it were able to provide Adj. EBIT, EBITDA and Unlevered Free Cash Flow estimates."

"PLUG likely would not have been able to secure these deals without offering warrants to Walmart and Amazon. Yet management believes that it should get full credit for this as revenue, AND that the warrants should not count against gross profit"