Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"Spruce Point believes that, not only could near-term uncertainty elicit earnings revisions which pressure the stock, but longer-term competitive challenges will prevent the Company from rebounding as bulls expect."

"Arconic is too big for anyone to manage centrally. Decision-making should be driven down to the plant-level with plant managers given more direct P/L responsibility and freed to make more customer-facing decisions"

"Cash flow significantly benefited in recent years from tax refunds that exceeded early projections. Now that these “one-time” benefits are behind AMR, cash flow will be more reliant on core coal mining operations."

"Spruce Point finds that AMR's COO Whitehead has also engaged in undisclosed stock sales contrary to SEC guidelines which mandate that a Form 4 must be filed with two business days following an insider transaction."

"Spruce Point finds that AMR's CAO Nicholson has also engaged in undisclosed stock sales contrary to SEC guidelines which mandate that a Form 4 must be filed with two business days following an insider transaction."

"Rick may have misinterpreted my silence in response to certain comments he made during the tour. Several times during the tour and in the car on the way back to the station, he exclaimed, "They're printing money!""

"Our survey of cardiologists also found that most were already using various types of monitors from a number of different suppliers, likely making it even easier to change the source of these commoditized products."

"We believe CEO Blackford just informed investors that the Company's widely assumed easiest source of growth, increasing share in the existing MCT market, holds at least 20% less potential than previously believed."

"While auditor rotations can be viewed positively, we believe three auditors in six years is excessive in light of the accounting anomalies we have identified related to sales, gross margins, inventories and capex."

"We modeled Peiyou’s respective offline and online enrollments and ASPs through FY2018 Q4. These do not reconcile with TAL’s disclosures and management statements, depending on which of them you accept as accurate."

"We urge you to routinely and systematically audit distributors for compliance with the 70% Rule and the Ten Customer Rule, including by collecting the retail receipts Herbalife is contractually entitled to obtain."

"Based on our view of appropriate revenue growth and operating profit margins, we believe that P&G should be earning closer to $6/share by FY June 2016 – a level more indicative of the company’s true earnings power"

"After a reckless and failed acquisition spree from 2008-2012, Kratos teetered on credit default before divesting a key division to deleverage, and pivoting focus to hype its unmanned systems (aka drones) business."

"In order to generate ~$30 billion of value from the pipeline, we must assume that the Celgene pipeline can generate, on average, 10 blockbuster products in 8 years, compared to 3 blockbusters in the past 15 years."

"Synergy, the company that has made the single largest purchase in the history of Ballard, is essentially owned and controlled by the local government (Yunfu City), the CEO, Ma Dongsheng, and some venture investors"

"To stem the panic, authorities adopted a currency board and a USD peg. While the initial workings of the currency board were basic, the strength of the USD and the simplicity of the currency board made it credible"

"The K27 medium-term plan fails to address the growth potential available to Kao through its Health & Beauty and Cosmetics brands. The lack of ambition makes it look like Kao’s management have an allergy to growth."

"In reality, Samsara’s profitability has been dramatically overstated due to the Company’s questionable accounting policies and assumptions related to its average customer life and connected device life of 5 years."

"Spruce Point questions the value of Saputo’s specialty cheese distribution business, notably the Port Salut variety. We find the identically labeled product at hyper low-cost retailer Aldi for -26% less per pound."

"Given the recently constructed Operating Asset portfolio, located in mature controlled MPCs, Pershing Square believes that capitalization and discount rates should be much lower than for typical real estate assets"

"Disney's EPS performance has significantly underperformed its self-selected “media industry” peers in both "new media" (e.g., Netflix, Alphabet) as well as traditional media (e.g., Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery)"

"Most concerning is that many of the books the agents are to purchase were written by senior WFG leaders, exacerbating our fears that senior WFG leaders may be using the WFG recruitment engine to enrich themselves."

"A business records search with the California Secretary of State reveals that Xuan Nguyen, one of the highest-ranking members of WFG, and his family control World System Builder (also known as WSB Partners, Inc.)."

"Axon's core Taser product is at best not growing, while margins have been slowly contracting. Meanwhile, its faster growing Software and Sensor segment is experiencing slower growth, along with margin contraction."

"This bolsters our concern that Axon is both recognizing the hardware value at contract inception, and could be overstating its value by obscuring it. Otherwise, Axon is implicitly saying its hardware is worthless."

"During the three bear markets since the firm’s inception, Pershing Square substantially outperformed the S&P 500 due to hedging-related gains and opportunistic investments in high-quality, durable growth companies"

"The CFO is on public record stating that China’s profitability is above its corporate average and it feels good about growth and profitability there. Our on the ground research suggests a markedly different story."

"GoDaddy has significantly increased its Technology & Developments expenses over the last several years, but has seen revenue growth continue to decelerate, indicating a likely opportunity for cost rationalization."

"The third fatal problem with Lasertec's EUV-based inspection tool, in addition to contamination/debris and light source instability/flickering, is pitifully low reliability that leads to low uptime and throughput."

"Spruce Point warns that just in the past week, pest control industry insiders talked about market conditions and offered a range of opinions that we believe are extremely unfavorable for Rollins’ earnings outlook."

"In addition to the Rollins family selling stock, we observe that the CEO adopted a 10b5-1 trading plan to liquidate stock as early as October 2022, coincident with the completion of the Terminix / Rentokil merger."

"The difference is a ~$1.1m per engine increase in the carrying value of Inventory that will be transferred from Leasing Equipment to Inventory, and eventually the same increase in COGS to hit the income statement."

"We believe investors would be wrong to assume that PGNY is handily dominating the market. To the contrary, we believe the core elements of the PGNY solution are commoditized, and PGNY's differentiation is minimal."

"Control4 and OVRC, its professional remote management platform for Control4 dealers, are critical exclusive brands acquired through the Snap transaction. Similarweb analytics also show weak trends to each website."

"The third is based in Park City, UT, and is a documentary filmmaker currently working on “a character-driven, only-in-America story about the enduring consequences, politics, and polarization of school shootings.”"

"Excess cash of up to KRW 6.0 trillion (18% of HMC market cap) should be reduced from HMC's balance sheet Excess cash of up to KRW 6.0 trillion (26% of Mobis market cap) should be reduced from Mobis's balance sheet"

"Given its high insider ownership, if Dillard's maintains its free cash flow and share repurchase levels, then at the current stock price we estimate it would buy back nearly its entire float in the next five years"

"So, we can tabulate the press releases to estimate enterprise bookings. You might not think this qualifies as deep research but none of the sell side analysts have written about this and the results are revealing."

"Oasis’ candidates bring distinctive skills in key areas – ranging from digitalization and finance to cosmetics, health & beauty and marketing – without compromising any of the incumbent Board’s areas of expertise."

"This vertical integration isn't the only thing shrinking the market. Another big part of the puzzle is that doctors were given huge subsidies to adopt electronic health records as part of the 2009 schtimulus bill."

"Disney's EPS performance has significantly underperformed its self-selected “media industry” peers in both "new media" (e.g., Netflix, Alphabet) as well as traditional media (e.g., Comcast, Warner Bros. Discovery)"

"GoDaddy has significantly increased its Technology & Developments expenses over the last several years, but has seen revenue growth continue to decelerate, indicating a likely opportunity for cost rationalization."

"Spruce Point questions Danimer’s claims supported by the University of Georgia research as multiple authors have significant ties to Danimer and the Company provided funding for research in biodegradable polymers."

"Assuming the GCR segment continues to decline at a mid-single-digit rate through year-end, this implies the ODR segment is expected to grow nearly 35% y/y through year-end to support the midpoint of FY25 guidance."

"Mr. Mochkin is notable for having been banned from the financial services industry by the ASIC for alleged stock market manipulation, false trading, market rigging, and not acting honestly, efficiently and fairly."

"The surgeon provided particularly damning detail which shows, in our opinion, that TransMedics is steering organs as a quid pro quo for device volumes – which would comprise a kickback as well as organ trafficking"

"The technician stated that the consumable is packaged in corrugated cardboard, which TransMedics allegedly would not allow technicians to open prior to an organ being accepted – placing cost of goods above safety."

"Mr. Shaw has changed Norfolk Southern from an efficient - albeit lagging - railroad with a low 60s operating ratio in 2021 to a broken railroad with a plan that only gets it back to those levels in the 2027 range."

"Dollarama’s price increases may not yet put its prices on par with those of big box retailers like Walmart, but customers have taken notice that Dollarama has increased prices against other Canadian dollar stores."

"Interpreting the company's quarterly results while it operates under these abnormal priorities, much less extrapolating them to predict how the company will perform under more normal ones, is a futile undertaking."

"The clause could very well breach fiduciary duties on a number of levels but, at a minimum, shows complete disregard for the rights of shareholders to make their own decisions and freely associate with each other."

"With Q3 2020 run rate revenues at Security Detection & Automation (SD&A) running 41% below plan, how are management’s claims credible that they are “ahead of milestones” and things are “going really, really well”?"

"The ex-employee indicated that two patients in the phase 3 trial were hospitalized with potential heart failure; that in one case “admitted because of fluid overload,” which is consistent with Vykat-induced edema."

"The ex-employee’s color is consistent with an attempt to cover-up the cardiac-related hospitalizations, and suggests that the drug’s edema profile - "fluid overload, fluid imbalance" - is a looming safety debacle."

"Aronin’s company Castle Creek follows his usual playbook, similar to the one for Harmony: licensing an old, toxic foreign drug and trying to win FDA approval for a rare drug indication in order to spike the price."

"We note 64 respiratory/thoracic and 26 cardiac reports, which are particularly of note given evidence of pitolisant’s cardiotoxicity and the cardiopulmonary-nature of most of the fatalities during clinical trials."

"Some of NetQin's alleged business partners, such as mobile phone-related companies ZTE, Huawei, Lenovo, etc., claimed to have no pre-installation business with NetQin during interviews with the reporter yesterday."

"We believe CORZQ’s management is well aware that its yields will dimmish over time and then get cut in half in 2024, yet it provided the following misleading chart to investors shortly after announcing bankruptcy."

"Industry experts told us unanimously that Accor’s corporate, franchise and management structure would not necessarily absolve Accor’s responsibility for risks of human rights violations across its branded network."

"Angesichts des Fehlens einer nennenswerten Rentabilität oder eines Wachstums in diesem Markenportfolio erscheint der verbleibende Geschäfts- oder Firmenwert von 257,5 Mio. € in der Bilanz von HelloFresh überzogen."