Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"“a decision-maker must read the contract as a whole, giving the words used their ordinary and grammatical meaning, consistent with the surrounding circumstances known to the parties at the time of formation of the contract.” — Paragraph 47 of Sattva"

""the Yellowstone television show does not seem to be a factor behind the significant acceleration we saw in sales over the last several years with only 4% of customer responses citing Yellowstone as a reason for wearing our product." — Boot Barn CEO"

""better off going through someone like IDT...you'll get much higher purity and much better performance." — An ex-IDT sales manager. "emperor has no clothes" — A competitor. "scares the living heck out of anyone in the clinical space" — A competitor."

"Sales volumes decreased due to the added pressure on the retail market segment from inflation-driven pricing actions. Sales volumes also decreased in the industrial market segment, mainly in the dairy ingredients category. — Saputo reports (Q2 2023)"

"Look at the performance. They have issue after issue after issue. If that is not a question of the management is the problem...look, they have a management problem. I don't know any other investor who doesn't think that is true. — Anonymous Investor"

""We have always talked about how long it took for the nutrition clubs to ramp up. It’s exponential. So you’re probably talking 18 -24 months out into the future till you see maybe the explicit exponential growth." — Michael Johnson, CFO, May 2, 2007"

"Look at the performance. They have issue after issue after issue. If that is not a question of the management is the problem...look, they have a management problem. I don't know any other investor who doesn't think that is true. — Anonymous Investor"

"Simpson Oil remains committed to the core energy industry and will continue to invest and participate in companies in the industry that adopt strong corporate governance practices and prioritize the interests of shareholders. — Simpson Press Release"

""just unacceptable" — Global Foundries executive. "no question...it sounds sketchy" — Global Foundries executive. "around 60-70%...disappointing" — Global Foundries executive regarding uptime. "problematic light source" — Global Foundries executive."

"“we were afraid that they had bugged our Slack channel”; the article “picked up on all of the things that we were concerned about Ginkgo, about their grandiose claims” and “versus the reality of what we see day to day.” — Senior employee at Joyn Bio"

""The FTC settlement is an acknowledgment that our business model is sound and underscores our confidence in our ability to move forward successfully, otherwise we would not have agreed to these terms." — Michael O. Johnson, chairman & CEO, Herbalife"

"“Any Chinese national who has settled abroad and who has been naturalized as a foreign national or has acquired foreign nationality of his own free will shall automatically lose Chinese nationality.” — Nationality Law of the People Republic of China"

"“There are multiple 5-star fake reviews for freecash.com listed on trustpilot. I've tried contacting freecash support numerous times and was temporarily banned today from their subreddit for "defamation" after posting the screenshots.” — Reddit user"

"“what I know is that TSMC is upset because the source is not working...TSMC is upset...the source does not have uptime, cost of service is too high, they are flickering.” — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group"

"Generac has recently been disclosing its Residential Dealer counts. We observe that its deal growth started to stall in the middle of 2021 and has been flat now for three quarters. All the while Generac's financial condition has been deteriorating."

"Glass Lewis is "unconvinced that the proposed changes to the 2012 LTI plan will adequately link pay and performance" and that it "leads us to question how committed the compensation committee truly is to linking equity pay to corporate performance""

"We believe the market conditions and the outlook for ATL's business prospects will remain very weak and that AMT should be forced to impair its intangible assets and/or goodwill in India by US$364 million, or 48% of the combined acquisition prices."

"Not only has Crown Castle's AFFO per share grown more slowly than that of peers, but its AFFO also includes less of its total capex. In other words, Crown Castle is growing cash flow per share slower than its peers despite spending far more capital"

"Elliott Investment Management L.P., together with the other participants named herein (collectively, "Elliott"), has filed a preliminary proxy statement and accompanying GOLD universal proxy card with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC")."

"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."

"The x-axis is in seconds. So they're pulsing. The current density they're applying - the charging or discharging - each cycle only lasted for 10 seconds. This is ridiculous. I've never seen people reporting data in this way. This is a huge problem."

"The key role of a board member is to appoint management, to set, together with management, a clear strategy with defined goals and metrics, and to hold management accountable for effecting that strategy. The oversight role of the board is critical."

"We believe Hess has great assets but is mismanaged. It is a public company that should be run for all Shareholders but has been held captive by a CEO and Board that are apparently unwilling to take an objective, clear-eyed look at their own record."

"Chipotle annually updates stakeholders on the status of their goals and identifies opportunities to align new goals with existing initiatives, including targets to increase sourcing of organic, local and/or regenerative food grown every single year"

"A FOIA request conducted with the NC Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) which holds one of PowerSchool's largest contracts, reveals that the department will decrease its spending with PowerSchool by a whopping 36% for the 2023-24 school year."

"Removing the OLC Accounting Distortion will allow a clearer focus on areas for improvement, which drive a low PBR: Inefficient balance sheet / inadequate returns, Insufficient IR / communication efforts, General governance / structural shortcomings"

"Given that ANTA espouses a strategy of developing self-operated retail businesses, like FILA, Descente, and Kolon, we expected to ANTA’s general managers actually heading up ANTA-owned companies, not those of its purported independent subsidiaries."

"Lest there be any doubt about whether BUR is truly a martyr to a cruel accounting standard that mandates it produce Fair Value Gains in each period, following our report, at least two litigation funders made clear that BUR’s accounting is a choice."

"Twist used “shocking” discounts of 75% to lure customers away from Danaher/IDT; “change in attitude” among customers toward Twist as they now return to Thermo, which allegedly used the phrase “Ponzi scheme” in internal discussions to describe Twist"

"The signatures below differ from those above, as do the accountants' personal seals. The audit firm's seal below may or may not be forged – if it is not forged, it would imply that DGW had some cooperation from the audit firm in forging the report."

"FMCN shareholders lost a total of $159.6 million on FMCN’s investment in Allyes Information Technology Co. Ltd. But shareholders will be comforted knowing that insiders likely made at least $70.1 million trading in Allyes on the other side of FMCN."

"If the Board and management are preventing a value maximization process based on their belief that the stock is undervalued, why aren't we seeing insiders buying? In fact, we are seeing insiders (including CEO Bob Espey) consistently selling stock."

"The analysis assumes that pro forma corporate expense in 2006 will be $100 million versus $488 million as projected by Wall Street analysts (which includes $36 million of intersegement eliminations) and that SG&A will decline by 5% or $510 million."

"DuPont’s inability to deliver on Kullman’s agenda suggests that she needs more help to overcome the 100+ years of history and the inertia that comes with that; Trian can be Kullman’s best ally. For shareowners, Trian’s impact is already very clear."

"Bolstering our concerns about Axon's product roadmap, we observe that Todd Basche, a key recruit from Apple where he worked directly with Steve Jobs, quietly departed Axon less than 2 years after being hired as indicated from this Linkedin profile."

"While claiming opportunities to rationalize costs by eliminating duplicate sales efforts, a year later, and VIEVU’s website is still operating with a phone line separate from Axon’s remaining operation and professional service costs are increasing."

"It’s a huge red flag when management says one thing and does another. The CFO specifically said there would be no deal synergies for at least four years, yet it assigned $88m to goodwill, which it is using to reduce U.S. taxes and underpay the IRS."

"What we can say is that it constitutes an extreme departure from industry standards, as evidenced by the security efforts its competitors have made, and further shows a remarkable indifference to protecting its customers from cybersecurity threats."

"While most of the assessments were favorable, the common theme among the constructive feedback was that MSCI needs to innovate more and faces increased competition, especially in ESG & Climate which has been MSCI's fastest growing segment recently."

"Spruce Point observes that MSCI recently changed its goodwill testing discussion to first insert a qualitative test before a quantitative approach. It struck out language referencing that the fair value “substantially exceeded” the carrying values."

"DuPont’s inability to deliver on Kullman’s agenda suggests that she needs more help to overcome the 100+ years of history and the inertia that comes with that; Trian can be Kullman’s best ally. For shareowners, Trian’s impact is already very clear."

"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."

"Spruce Point made an incisive short call directly related to Stryker, with a critical report released in 2017 on TSO3 (TSX: TOS). Our research warned about a material overvaluation and product challenges ahead of an 84% collapse in the share price."

"The executive stated that Lasertec’s customers are now delaying “shipment of systems” due to the rampant product problems and it’s product “not even being adequate”: “they’re holding off near-term shipments until they resolve these quality issues.”"

"Finally, we believe that refusing a request by Bluebell representatives to accommodate entry to BP's 2024 AGM (given Bluebell are currently one of the main dissenting shareholders), is an insult to shareholder dialogue and a sign of BP's febrility."

"Though Amcor serves a mix of companies in defensive food, beverage, personal care, tobacco and healthcare industries, it is not immune to a potential recession. It will likely experience declining results much greater than the industries it serves."

"Payables to foreign suppliers are broken down as follows in the following countries: Germany (48%), China (18%), Czech Republic (16%), Poland (10%), Spain (2%), Republic of Korea (2%), and other countries with lower percentages for the remaining 4%"

"We believe the PVD and OVP segments are worth little because they are sub-scale, major product Tri-Heart has minor share and has been de-emphasized by Merck, and because another large drug targets bovine as opposed to companion animal applications."

"It appears as though a significant chunk of the €4.08 million consideration Media Ventures “paid” for freeXmedia was actually in the form of advertising on Ströer’s network - meaning that Ströer appears to have subsidized Media Ventures’s purchase."

"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”."

"Part 7. The NOP organ procurement service is “a ticking time bomb” staffed with imported H1B surgeons unlicensed to practice medicine in the US, from high-risk areas like India, Pakistan, and the Middle East; resulting in butchered and lost organs."

"Part 10. Customer rage: TransMedics business practices have antagonized the small world of transplant, past the point of no return – a short-tempered CEO; allegedly threatening centers who state that organs have been held hostage from ill patients."

"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"

"Miller was involved with beloranib as the “principal investigator,” a drug developed by Zafgen which was the last high-flier PWS stock, which imploded after development was terminated due to fatalities from pulmonary embolism and thrombotic events."

"Curiously, while striking a bullish tone in its marketing and PR materials, LSPD footnoted in its investor presentation that subsequent to year end March 31, 2020 its customer locations went down by 1,000 from 76,500 to 75,500 as of April 30, 2020."

"When we asked if he was being paid as a speaker but not actually speaking, the ex-employee replied “absolutely correct,” and even explained that the doctor “was horrible...he was absolutely horrible...a complete disaster” when he had him do a talk."

"That's what the whole discussion is about. We were accused of having switched, because we had purchased companies that are growing at a faster rate than our core business, and were attempting to cover up weaknesses in our core business in this way."

"EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. It measures the business profitability. We use EBITDA because it removes discretionary accounting and financing decisions that often vary based on management choices."