Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"“We have probably number-one cost position, number-one volume of patients position. I think we can pretty easily declare ourselves the leader in continuous glucose monitoring and growing faster than everybody else.” — Abbott Conference"

""It should be obvious that we have made a lot of moves with a multi-year strategy to put our company in a position to generate long-term shareholder value, that we look at things for all shareholders benefit." — John Hess, January 2013"

"“SWIB will vote AGAINST this proposal, as the following concern(s) remain: CEO pay is 5.00 times greater than the next highest paid NEO.” — State of Wisconsin Investment Board – 2016 Proxy Voting Report (Alcoa 2016 Annual Meeting Vote)"

"We’re not just a refining company. We shouldn’t be viewed just through a refining lens, whether it’s our balance sheet or whether it’s our earnings and earnings volatility. We are diversified on purpose. — Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

"Pai has been referred to as Enron's “invisible CEO” and one of the “brightest brains” at Enron who helped Jeffrey Skilling turn Enron into the fast-paced energy-trading firm it was before its collapse. — Spruce Point Capital Management"

"Fujitec has been a star example of the benefits of upturning the existing management. — The Economist; ... Tokyo Dome had been horribly slow to modernise... many of the changes [Oasis] had suggested are now set to be implemented. — AFR"

""Baker Hughes is a marriage that is not working. The people are not happy. They can't sell the C3 product. It's a nightmare for them to sell it. The culture of C3 is so different that they can't work together." — Former Sales Executive"

""MG produces a full range of high-quality dairy foods, including drinking milk, milk powder, cheese, butter and dairy beverages, as well as a range of ingredient and nutritional products, such as infant formula." — Saputo Press Release"

"Our capital expenditures totaled $124.0 million in 2016, $82.5 million in 2015, and $89.4 million in 2014. The 2016 amount includes a $37 million purchase of our previously leased pipette manufacturing facility — Mettler 10-K footnotes"

"The amendments in this Update require that a statement of cash flows explain the change during the period in the total of cash, cash equivalents, and amounts generally described as restricted cash or restricted cash equivalents. — FASB"

"By October 2022, when Datasection's CEO Norihiko Ishihara was interviewed by the KEIO leadership center he described it as the American version of TikTok and was offering augmented reality and ecommerce as services. — Wolfpack Research"

"You don't want a stop order because it's such a black mark. Normally, if there is an irreconcilable difference with the SEC, you withdraw your registration statement. — Charles Whitehead, professor of business law at Cornell Law School"

"We're not just a refining company. We shouldn't be viewed just through a refining lens, whether it's our balance sheet or whether it's our earnings and earnings volatility. We are diversified on purpose. — Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

"“Those items are just warnings. You're not going to run into those issues hardly ever. I mean, to date, I've never ordered an EKG on a patient. That's what I tell doctors; these are just warnings.” — Sleep physician in the Bay Area, CA"

"The transaction has been approved by shareholders on both sides. So now, it’s really dependent on, we’re just waiting for approval by the SEC and Nasdaq. Hopefully we should have a conclusion by the end of June, I’m just guessing. — Ng"

"“we delivered our first Midnight aircraft to the UAE”, “Delivering our first Midnight aircraft and began flight testing with the GCAA”, and “delivered midnight to Abu Dhabi” — Archer Aviation (via Shareholder letter and Earnings call)."

"The transaction has been approved by shareholders on both sides. So now, it's really dependent on, we're just waiting for approval by the SEC and Nasdaq. Hopefully we should have a conclusion by the end of June, I'm just guessing. — Ng"

"As we’ve demonstrated, Nuvei’s revenue is low quality (already being restated) and growth has come from inorganic acquisitions and higher risk (and margin) business which will we believe will revert towards lower margin in the future."

"Our indicative analysis suggests FIGS' SOM could be more than 50% smaller than our calculation of its oft-quoted TAM. Thus, FIGS' 2025 revenue objective of $1 billion could imply as high as 50% market share, which we find unrealistic."

"WTRG's appears to be shifting its discussion in references to unit customer additions to its business from "customer connections", to "equivalent dwelling units", and finally "equivalent retail customers or equivalent dwelling units"."

"Spruce Point acknowledges that Carvana has been cited as a short, mostly for the fundamental challenges facing the Company. We also acknowledge that some elements of Carvana's questionable financing have been identified by the market."

"An efficient “low-cost” miner should be among the best in generating operating cash flow from its fleet. Riot screens as the worst among its closest peers while also among the worst when it comes to share dilution though ATM issuance."

"ERIE's stock performance suffered a significant 25% decline in the latter half of 2002, primarily driven by investor concerns and subsequent reaction to the Company's announcement of a management fee reduction to 24% in December 2002."

"Given that over four-fifths of Capricorn's net asset value is comprised of cash and near-term contingent receivables, the terms of the Proposed Merger imply that Tullow is paying nothing for Capricorn's Western Desert assets in Egypt."

"Motive Force is also the name of the ANTA ListCo BVI company at the time of the IPO (see prospectus pg. 20, et alia) and which later also produced two notable Fila subsidiaries, Motive Force Singapore and Motive Force E-commerce (HK)."

"Adopt an improved equity compensation and incentive scheme based on clear and transparent KPIs that are disclosed to investors (e.g. ROE, ROIC, operating profit, operating profit margin, debt to EBITDA and/or total shareholder return)"

"Bob Evans has targeted a 20%+ ROI on the capital expended on its Farm Fresh remodels and hopes to drive carryout and bakery sales to 25% of sales by Fiscal 2018, from 11% of sales in Fiscal 2013, for a $300 million market opportunity."

"In perhaps a classic case of “when genius failed,” their Midas touch as legendary investors has failed to translate to cleantech and EV batteries, where their actual track record is marked by a decade of high-profile scandals and duds"

"If it takes a day on a superconducting quantum computer to simulate some protein, if all else being equal, which is the caveat, if you did that on a trapped ion computer running 1000 times slower, that's 1000 days, that's three years."

"At or around the current valuation, we believe Match should be using 75% or more of its free cash flow, plus some or all of the approximately $900 million of available capacity under its 3.0x net leverage target, to repurchase shares."

"Spruce Point called a few stores near Taylor Swift concert venues and asked if they had seen demand for boots and apparel increase when she was in town. Ten out of fifteen stores that were called reported consumer interest and demand."

"We therefore believe the primary reason SOFI has grown this portfolio so aggressively is because the Day 1 gains are the single largest source of recurring paper income available to management on terms that satisfy the comp structure."

"The IP address 113.8.150.94 was one of the top IPs used on YY during the lockdown period. Over a 13-day period starting January 24, our data monitoring tools recorded 1,166 PUs on this IP address who made 25,545 discrete transactions."

"Ancora believes Mr. Wolf's extensive leadership experience, together with his management and financial experience, will enable him to provide the Company with valuable executive insights will make him a valuable addition to the Board."

"Peng Qingqi was recognized in a 2011 media report as the Vice President at ANTA Capital, 福建安踏投资有限公司. ANTA Capital is privately held by the big five founders of Anta: Ding Shizhong, Ding Shijia, Lai Shixian, Wu Yonghua, and Wang Wenmo."

"Warning: Oatly’s Gross Margin is overstated because it fails to include outbound shipping and handling costs. After a review of many public companies in the dairy, frozen and packaged foods space, we find this to be industry standard."

"The leaked information could lead to targeted attacks and reveal sensitive details about the user\device such as current location using Wi-Fi signals triangulation, device model\version for targeting specific exploitation methods etc."

"The shared “art” value is the same as what APP is using to track the user in the Zynga game, presenting both an observable phenomenon of cross-application use (Safari and a Zynga mobile game) as well as the likely technical component."

"Following declines in same-store sales and profitability in 2001 and 2002, Management has improved operations through product innovation, capital discipline and strong execution. As a result, the Company's profitability has increased."

"HIMS has experienced significant turnover since its SPAC transaction in late 2020. Of particular concern, the heaviest turnover has come from executives with medical backgrounds or those focused on new product expansion opportunities."

"We find it interesting that Amdocs not only tends to hire from a pool of "connected insiders," but that it has gone so far as to bring former directors and executives out of retirement to fill roles rather than seek capable outsiders."

"Throughout the report, Spruce Point will lay out in detail the severe financial stress in Saputo's business but we also need to address the long-term structural issues within their business and industry from a qualitative perspective."

"The fact that the Board is averting its eyes from these risks raises questions about whether the Board’s priorities are aligned with those of shareholders – questions that take on greater urgency upon further examination of the Board."

"We note that the engineer appeared nervous at times while answering our questions, suggesting to us a coordinated attempt between Lasertec and its key customers to conceal that the "new" A300/Urashima announcement is essentially fake."

"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."

"APPS CEO claims to have neither the means nor desire to look at other companies' user data, but the evidence in its code indicates the opposite – APP has the means and is engaging in collecting 3P platforms data to construct its PIGs."

"Management has made numerous excuses for challenges in Argentina over the past decade. However, now that Bunge is extremely optimistic about improvements there from the Viterra acquisition, they won't be providing revenue attribution."

"REZI started talking about adjacent category expansion more prominently in 2023 by focusing on Pro and Residential AV, along with Data Communications. Combined, REZI claimed sales were over $500 million in 2022, up 20% year-over-year."

"Starboard believes the Series A Financing has no bona fide business purpose given the Issuer's substantial cash balance and was done solely to entrench the Board and "buy the vote" ahead of a potential election contest with Starboard."

"Starboard hereby demands the right to inspect and copy the Books and Records of the Company described in the Appendix, as they are reasonably related to Starboard's interest in the Company and suspected lack of oversight by the Board."

"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."

"We observe a recent increase of insiders enacting 10b5-1 stock sale programs. Notably the former CFO and Chief Accounting Officer have both enacted two programs that overlapped which we view as a more aggressive manner to sell shares."

"Oasis interactions with Kao’s IR team and competitors suggest the doubling of SKUs across the Group over the past decade and poor focus on inventory velocity probably drove around 200-300bps of consolidated gross margin erosion alone."

"These high-volume users may allegedly be under scrutiny as part of multiple investigations by federal and states authorities and agencies, as well as by prominent news outlets, indicating the precarious nature of TransMedics business."

"They always wanted to get people to accept the organ right away, and that is what it boiled down to. Get it on the machine, and everything else was questionable where they’re like, it kind of looks okay, but I want to see how it does."

"Sony is the largest gaming platform in the world by revenue (roughly 2x the size of closest console competitors Nintendo and Microsoft) and well-positioned to benefit from rapid growth in consumer engagement and spending going forward"

"I do believe it was slightly manipulated...Off-label, certainly people could use it...you’re completely right. If this is really such a good drug, people can use diazoxide and suspension exactly the same way for pennies on the dollar."

"Unique to China, however, Herbalife does not deduct its “[c]ompensation to China sales employees and service fees to China licensed business providers” to derive China Contribution Margin (and, instead, includes that expense in SG&A)."

"As even more evidence that the asserted plasma levels are underestimated, we note a 2011 PK study (P11-3) of pitolisant in conjunction with a CYP2D6 inhibitor called paroxetine, in order to assess the effect of drug-drug interactions."

"We find it concerning that Rollins modified its Critical Audit Matter language in its recent 10-K, replaced its auditor, and is making defensive statements that its accruals are accurate and complete in response to recent questioning."