Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"Over the coming weeks leading up to the Annual Meeting, we will publish detailed materials outlining our views on the opportunities at LivePerson and we look forward to speaking directly with you, our fellow stockholders."

"Now Olive Garden serves dishes that are astonishingly far from authentic Italian culture, such as burgers & fries, Spanish tapas, heavy cream sauces, more fried foods, stuffed cheeses, soggy pasta, and bland tomato sauce."

"According to NCR, Mark Hurd was appointed COO on Sept 9, 2002. Was Lance really the COO in 2003? Also, NCR’s filings show he was COO of the Retail and Financial Group, not the entire company as suggested by his biography."

"We will generally vote for proposals looking to separate the CEO and Chairman roles unless the company has governance structures in place that can satisfactorily counterbalance a combined chairman and CEO/ president post."

"While capital lease adds have been increasing, capital lease repayments modelled by research analysts reports we’ve seen, have repayments falling. As a result, we believe Adjusted Free Cash Flow will disappoint investors."

"本試算は参考値。豊田自動織機の大規模な事業価値を、簿価がすべて反映しているとは当社は考えておらず、また、簿価には上場株式の保有分に関して将来顕在化し得る税務上の漏出が過度に織り込まれている。日本の法定実効税率約31%を前提とした繰延税金控除が広く含まれている一方で、発行体による自己株式取得を通じた持株株式解消時に適用される、より有利なみなし配当課税の税務構造は反映されていない。豊田自動織機はPBR1倍を大きく上回る評価を受けるべきである。"

"Twist’s “DNA chip” narrative - 10,000X higher throughput and lower cost - is fraudulent, covering up a manual, labor-intensive, and fatally-flawed manufacturing process crippled by errors, bottlenecks, and pitiful yields."

"The ex-employee described a manual-labor body shop where it takes “a few days” to make oligos – that is, the “chip” requires crews of lab technicians working 24/7 shifts similar to traditional DNA synthesis on well plates"

"BNY Mellon has a unique opportunity to leverage its size, data, systems, expertise, lack of trading conflicts, and low public profile to support regulatory bodies and official institutions with similar complex assignments"

"They are maintaining their margins. So being off 10% when you plan to be off 10% and you keep your margin is a significantly different situation than being off 15% when it wasn't your plan and your margins were decimated."

"Elliott has a long history of working constructively with companies to help create value in the energy industry. Time and again, we have found that supposedly "poor assets" are rarely the real drivers of underperformance."

"Our analysis shows that implementation of the Value Unlock Plan could provide BHP shareholders with an increase in value attributable to their shareholdings of up to c.48.6% (Ltd shareholders) / c.51.0% (Plc shareholders)"

"BHP should seek to avoid making badly-timed acquisitions paid for in cash and instead return the substantial upcoming excess cashflow to shareholders by way of post DLC unification 14% discounted off-market share buybacks"

"Our analysis shows that implementation of the Value Unlock Plan could provide BHP shareholders with an increase in value attributable to their shareholdings of up to c.48.6% (Ltd shareholders) / c.51.0% (Plc shareholders)"

"Spruce Point believes projections from “all other customers” ex: Baker Hughes embedded in sell-side estimates are simply too high given significant employee turnover across verticals and regions, and our backlog analysis."

"Management's choice to instead consistently refrain from breaking out inorganic sales, even when this figure could feasibly be deduced from publicly-available data, suggests that the Company is being purposefully evasive."

"We cannot find any record of Saputo providing EBITDA figures for Argentina. However, we can now estimate Argentina's margins with the insights from Saputo's obscured Australian financial filings through a numbered entity."

"Despite having the largest revenue base in media, arguably the best IP, iconic studios, and multiple distribution channels, Disney's Media business ("Entertainment" and "Sports") significantly under-earns its media peers."

"Despite having the largest revenue base in media, arguably the best IP, iconic studios, and multiple distribution channels, Disney’s Media business (“Entertainment” and “Sports”) significantly under-earns its media peers."

"We believe shareholders welcome Starboard's involvement, are hopeful that we will bring greater accountability, and are both excited about the quality of Starboard's nominees and the potential for greater Board oversight."

"TWC's programming costs continue to rise, especially for sports programming. TWC has been relatively successful at passing these costs onto consumers, however, margins are predicted to compress as costs rise even further."

"Phillips 66's refining assets are some of the best assets in their respective markets; the complexity, scale and flexibility of each refinery should allow it to better compete with peers Valero or Marathon in each region."

"By conducting a realistic sum-of-parts valuation of MSCI's business segments, we estimate 55% - 65% downside risk ($190 - $244 per share) and expect MSCI to underperform the S&P 500 and its own relevant benchmark indices."

"As of late 2018, the publicity of the UWO investigations and intent of the UK to aggressively pursue cases appears to have had a cooling effect on the market, reducing demand by despots seeking to clean their dirty money."

"However, the BuiltWith historical data shows customer growth declining and turning negative over the past year plus, with that trend particularly pronounced among the top 1 million websites based on traffic (right below)."

"We believe that UEC is a “trust me” story from a promotional CEO with documented connections to bad actors, and a resource base that has never been proven to have economically viable uranium that can be produced at scale."

"Given the density of the clusters of deceptive indicators in this rebuttal it is highly likely that STJ is being deceptive about the cyber security of its cardiac devices and their knowledge of their existing limitations."

"We believe the targeted directors cannot be trusted to act in shareholders' best interest. We call on the Board to immediately engage with all potential buyers, including Clearlake, instead of prolonging the sale process."

"This bold statement contradicts what Porch told the SEC earlier that the transaction should be viewed as stock compensation. If Porch was not a party to the transaction, why is it recorded in Porch’s financial statements?"

"Another partnership started in 2018 and hidden from investors is eBay. While it still maintains a website discussing the partnership, the phone number help line is currently disconnected and (emails went un responded to)."

"In addition to Abcellera, Isoplexis and Sphere Fluidics sell instruments at a quarter of the cost; simpler to operate while retaining “just enough of the functionality of Beacon to make it useful in similar applications.”"

"According to NCR, Mark Hurd was appointed COO on Sept 9, 2002. Was Lance really the COO in 2003? Also, NCR's filings show he was COO of the Retail and Financial Group, not the entire company as suggested by his biography."

"We continue to believe that eBay is deeply undervalued and that significant opportunities exist to create value for the benefit of all shareholders based on actions that are within the control of management and the Board."

"To Olam, an opportunity to pick up a large processing company at a discount, gain quick entry to a new segment of the US processed foods market, and potentially pick up over $200 million in revenue, must have looked ripe."

"Yangzhou (扬州) is a small city with no existing home and just one new home transaction. It appears to have an agent, but the agent and his associated store Deyou Fenghuang Cheng Flagship store are in neighboring Zhenjiang."

"PGNY's competitors are well-funded and growing rapidly, with nearly all posting significantly higher employee headcount growth. Whatever “scale” or “first-mover” advantages PGNY may have enjoyed are rapidly deteriorating."

"The CEO touted each company's "strong culture of innovation" and the attractive profile of the transaction. As the following slides will show, former Snap executives tell a different story about Snap's innovation culture."

"Ginkgo really needs to control these entities because if they can't then—what they want is for these subsidiaries or for these joint ventures, these supposedly independent companies to be obligated to use Ginkgo services."

"Ginkgo admits as much, buried inside its website, bragging how its engineers have figured out Sartorius how to run “hundreds of ambr250 bioreactors simultaneously” – underscoring the underwhelming nature of its “science.”"

"The food industry has already experienced pressure from large retailers given the current competitive landscape. It is easy to imagine this trend continuing in the OTC healthcare space where there are no barriers to entry"

"We are advocating for a comprehensive, multi-year capital return program comprised of an accelerated share repurchase (ASR) this year and a minimum percentage of future cash flow dedicated to share repurchases thereafter."

"BP, operating through its subsidiary Lightsource BP... unlawfully obtained authorization from the County Durham Council to build a solar farm at Burnhope by claiming it was below 50 MW, when it was actually a 76 MW plant."

"Non-current due from related parties increased by 52.9m. Current due from related parties increased by 53.4m. Neither footnote (1) nor note 6.10 show a clear connection to the CPI Hotels loan assignment to a related party"

"We then performed queries for each particular type of user (Type 0, 1 and 2), and then cross checked all users to see which matched up to the same IP addresses used by the Type 1 and Type 2, the known teachers and tutors."

"USCR's CEO promotes the Company's stock to retail investors. Investors should be aware Mr. Sandbrook pled guilty to reckless driving - indicative of questionable judgement. This is conveniently omitted from his biography."

"Mr. Kasich would be a valuable addition to the Board given his time serving as the 69th Governor of Ohio and as a member of Congress from central Ohio for 18 years where he was also Chairman of the House Budget Committee."

"Our nominees would evaluate Patch on its financial merits alone and not allow Mr. Armstrong's emotional and personal connection to Patch to influence the Board's judgment as to the right course of action for shareholders."

"As music industry fundamentals continue to improve over the next few years, we expect the market will come to view Sony Music as a scarce, high-quality “compounder” that should be valued at ~20x operating income or higher"

"The endocrinologist appeared so skittish at our questions - "you're making me a little concerned about this" - that he encouraged us and/or skeptical trial investigators to go public with our concerns as soon as possible."

"In the final notes of the MD&A, it says both ShopKeep and Upserve were each less than 5% of total quarterly revenues of $57.6m; this implies that both deals contributed no more than $5.8m, or less than the $7.4m reported."

"He indicated that the toxicity was alarming enough that GSK’s governance committee quickly and prematurely terminated the trial after an interim reading, even though it had only enrolled 30-35 patients out of 100 planned."

"Taubman's Board of Directors focuses only on the issuance outlined in option B, ignoring option A, which is to eliminate the dual-class voting share structure through a negotiation between the Board and the Taubman Family"

"We don't believe that any of FIGS' oft-stated competitive advantages, such as strong brand, DTC model, low-cost Asian sourcing, and attractive financial model, or any of its product differentiators, are truly sustainable."

"[U.S.] Vishay, [German] HBM, and Mettler-Toledo are examples of internationally dominant players International competitors are increasing the movement of manufacturing to China, and this is adding market competition risk."

"Perhaps unsurprisingly the turnaround in the derivative balance coincided with the first time that Olam recognized the management-sensitive Level 3 derivatives by re-categorizing Level 2 derivatives as per the note below."

"Moving back to operating leasebacks sacrifices liquidity, but if the subsequent accounting-driven sales and earnings growth drives valuations higher, it’s easy to make up for the lost liquidity by diluting shareholders..."

"As shown in the table above, Joby has better batteries on all metrics: the total mass of batteries is lighter in an absolute sense, but they are also lighter in a relative sense (battery energy density at the pack level)."

"We think this is grossly misleading considering that not only does Nature's Miracle not have enough cash to buy $100 million in vehicles from FFAI; it does not even have the cash to preorder 1,000 vehicles at $100 apiece."

"Of the over 50 Accor hotels that responded, a shocking 80% cooperated by providing quotes, confirming reservations, agreeing to arrange condoms and alcohol, or engaging substantively without raising safeguarding concerns."

"Our report only indicates that the evidence collected through this outreach solely suggests that certain local hotels were willing to knowingly offer accommodation in ways that could materially facilitate illegal conduct."