Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"Head of Intel’s EUV mask shop was allegedly so angry with the Lasertec tool and it’s low uptime that he was banned from attending meetings “for blowing up on people”; “definitely a lot of frustration around it”"

"On average, Kalshi generated $277 million of handle per week in the first four weeks of the 2025 NFL season. This represents ~30% of the weekly NFL handle that the OSB operators generated during Sept.-Dec. ‘24."

"The parties to this agreement are separate entities under civil law, between the individual parties no co-investment, agent, employee, contractor, or leasor/leasee relationship exists. — Legal Agreement Excerpt"

"In this context I would like to comment briefly on the attack by the Muddy Waters hedge fund a few weeks ago. Until April 21, 2016, I was in fact not aware of the term "activist short seller". — Udo Müller, CEO"

""Penumbra is not held to the same standard as [us] and [competitor].... We have to be much more cautious [about our spending]. We have limits that we have to stay under." — Neurovascular Products Sales Director"

"at the highest level a simple metric is used to capture how well capitalized an insurer is: the ‘LICAT ratio’ is the ratio of company's available capital over its required capital. — Mr. Rehbeli (Expert Report)"

"If Alibaba is going to be serious about getting into the entertainment industry, Viacom should sell Jack Ma a piece of Paramount... Jack Ma has a great understanding of the Chinese movie market. — Mario Gabelli"

"One of Chicago's biggest office landlords, 601W Companies, might be closing in on a lifeline as it tries to avoid getting pummeled by an approaching loan maturity on a Wacker Drive office tower. — The Real Deal"

"The top grossing [Tether Studios Skillz] games right now are Solitaire Cube, which is a Klondike solitaire game, and 21 Blitz. That one actually has been trailing off for the past year. — Former Tether employee"

"In our view, it is clearly now necessary for the supervisory board to take direct responsibility for this investigation immediately and to resolve the outstanding questions that the report has failed to answer."

""HIMS was heavily metrics driven. I wouldn't say heavily. It was completely reliant on that. And I mean, to HIMS' credit, the way they pulled together their data is something to behold." — Former HIMS Executive"

""The Latino business is now about 61% of the U.S. business, 46% up. One of the big things, markets that we are going to penetrate next year is the college market." --COO Greg Probert, Analyst Meeting 11/28/2007"

"If you have concerns about the direction and performance of the company...vote for my fellow nominees and me using the GOLD card. — Sig Cornelius, 30-year ConocoPhillips employee, Elliott board nominee for PSX."

"“kind of like a beta version” — AbbVie scientist; “major headache,” “tedious.” — AbbVie scientist; “definitely” won’t replace current discovery methods — AbbVie scientist; “not very reliable” — AbbVie scientist"

"Every time we demo it to scientists, it's an insane amount of data. Every cell, we're generating 50,000 data points... It's mind-boggling how you're going to go through that. — Bristol Meyers Squibb employee #1"

"While we commend Baillie Gifford (love those people) and early investors, right now we are looking at a share structure and an investor base that is more interested in spinning a casino wheel. — Citron Research"

""The Company continues to benefit from increasing activity in the U.S. as Core’s land revenue in its Production Enhancement segment increased 32% on a sequential quarterly basis." — CLB Q1 2017 earnings release"

"The New Peer Group Index is a self-constructed peer group consisting of companies in the consumer products industry with comparable revenues and market capitalization — Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. Filings"

"“This is a company that has good people, has a rich history, and great assets that don't necessarily belong together.” — Sigmund Cornelius, Elliott nominee for Phillips 66's Board and former CFO, ConocoPhillips"

""The decrease in Other CCA revenue in 2019 was driven primarily by a $14.9 million decrease from contract manufactured heartworm preventive, Tri-Heart, as a result of reduced customer demand." — Heska 2019 10-K"

"The FTC settlement announced today, coming after a two-year investigation also concluded that Herbalife is not a pyramid scheme – a conclusion that obviously vindicates our research and conviction. — Carl Icahn"

"In 2015, the Sacramento City Unified School District took heat for buying canned peaches, pears and applesauce from China. The district quickly reversed course and used American suppliers once the food ran out."

"Rarely has Spruce Point witnessed such competitive intensity among peers. Wise has launched a social media campaign and provided tools on its website to allow potential customers to compare value propositions."

"Warning: Why Are Charges From 2015/16 Restructuring Programs Suddenly Ignored? Per the 2015 10-K: Charges From 2015/16 Were Expected “To Continue Through 2016 and be substantially complete by 2016” – Not 2018!"

"GFL's capex listed through the cash flow statement does not reconcile with capex additions through the PP&E accounts. As a result, we believe capex is being capitalized on the balance sheet by at least C$41.1m"

"The other key members of ABML management have yet to commit their full time to the Company. Given ABML's ambitious (to say the least) operating plans, we find the lack of dedicated effort an enormous red flag."

"The invigoration of both investors and companies as a result of the Stewardship and Corporate Governance Code will make the Japanese market one of the best places in the world to be a long-term equity investor"

"The internet is international. So with this digital business model we must quickly and rigorously tear down the boundaries in our heads and in geographical movement. I don't see that at the moment. Am I wrong?"

"Indeed, it would have been wrong if we had done it. But we would not do that of course. I may remind you again that 80% or our assets are part of Ströer. It would be kind of insane to impair 80% of our assets."

"The majority of Keisei’s incumbent Board are insiders, led by a tenured President, Toshiya Kobayashi. Within the outside director cohort, both ISS and Glass Lewis have flagged significant independence concerns"

"The Delaware courts are clear that controlling stockholder transactions must be reviewed under the stringent entire fairness standard, not business judgment, unless certain procedural safeguards are satisfied."

"Goodyear continues to win electric vehicle (EV) fitments at a higher rate than on traditional ICE vehicles (approximately 60% win-rate on EVs), which should result in outsized growth as EV adoption accelerates"

"We enlarged the QS fast charge curve (blue) and the lithium ion one (gray) – blue QS data points are perfectly, evenly spaced which suggests they are fabricated, while gray data points appear to be actual data"

"Question: Why does the Services Agreement contemplate a 1.5% advisory fee rather than paying the new management team with a more typical cash and stock compensation construct used by most operating businesses?"

"Assuming Valeant de-levers and maintains 3.5 turns of leverage, allocates free cash flow to acquisitions, and grows at a rate reflective of the strength of its franchises, the stock is tremendously undervalued"

"At best, we suspect that IonQ concocted an exterior shell for photo ops, to conceal the delicate and crude interior, after these employees left, as the photo first appeared on their site right before the SPAC."

"Every ex-employee and leading expert we interviewed slammed the benchmarks as rubbish and “hype” - “contrived” self-serving exercises based on “mock problems” or “a toy problem” that “has no real application.”"

"Singleton was an iconoclast and the idiosyncratic path he chose to follow caused much comment and consternation on Wall Street and in the business press. It turned out that he was right to ignore the skeptics."

"Our independent and highly qualified nominees have the right skills and experience to help the Board hold McDonald's accountable and establish realistic targets, verify progress and meet stated ESG commitments"

"Our independent and highly qualified nominees have the right skills and experience to help the Board hold McDonald's accountable and establish realistic targets, verify progress and meet stated ESG commitments"

"We believe Ms. Penrose's disappointing record as Chair of the SCR Committee and lack of relevant animal welfare, supply chain and labor practices expertise warrant her removal from the Board and SCR Committee."

"Arconic management traded legal claims belonging to the Company and its shareholders in exchange for a voting lock-up agreement personally benefiting themselves. What does that say about "the tone at the top"?"

"If VRX is able to continue its historic success allocating capital, Valeant’s stock today is worth $330+ per share excluding substantial pipeline upside or the potential for a large, transformative acquisition"

"Skechers' advertising campaigns rely heavily on retired or past-their-prime sports or entertainment personalities. However, we believe these efforts do little to generate brand appeal in international markets."

"Spruce Point finds that companies claiming superior margins that poorly plan and execute against capex projections have underlying problems or poor visibility, which ultimately lead to earnings disappointment."

"Our definition represents the true economic performance of the property base and therefore does not ignore vacancies. The magnitude of the overstatement is 2% which is the difference between growth vs. decline"

"We believe Samsara is trying to give the impression that its facility visibility solutions are growing rapidly, when in fact the "non-vehicle" ARR growth is simply coming from other fleet-related applications."

"Three key directors of C3, with otherwise impressive credentials, fail to disclose their corporate director roles at companies that went through accounting scandals and/or were alleged to have committed fraud."

"Fixing Phillips 66's broken corporate governance and culture of hostility toward shareholders who advocate for needed changes is a critical element of setting it on a path to a dramatically higher stock price."

"HIMS came up woefully short of its goal of 100% of fulfillment through affiliated pharmacies by year-end 2022. As of Q1 2023, over 60% of orders were fulfilled in-house, with the goal of 80%+ by year end 2023."

"We believe that Ms. Ogilvie’s substantial business experience and financial background coupled with her extensive experience serving as a director of public companies make her a valuable addition to the Board."

"Under the failed oversight of the Board’s ESG Committee, we believe Huntsman has reactively made a carbon neutral pledge and an unfulfilled promise of TCFD reporting in order to appease institutional investors"

"Even Worse, Innomind Appears to Have Provided VIE $35 - $40 million of Shareholders’ Money. Because We are Skeptical of Much of the “Paper” in RINO’s Balance Sheet, These Funds Could Have Been Misappropriated."

"Spruce Point unearthed an interview from 2018 where OpenSlate's CEO said it scanned 400 million YouTube videos a day, and that it expected $2 billion of ads would be filtered through its software for the year."

"Spruce Point believes Aegon’s shares present significant risk for investors. Aegon’s financial results may be primarily driven by an MLM, which is a business model which carries an above average level of risk."

"The facts an circumstances surrounding the acquisition of Passport Food Safety Solutions ("Passport") in March 2018 are highly suspicious. Notably, a key Executive and Board member departure ahead of the deal."

"MSCI notably added Bloomberg and Moody's to its competitor list in its recent 10-K filing. Meanwhile, both the CFO and COO have downplayed any greater competition. We believe this undermines their credibility."

"If Perion's results and technology are as spectacular as claimed, why is the stock owned mostly by index funds and retail investors and why hasn't it attracted any major technology specialist growth investors?"

"While we have unfortunately been forced to take legal action in an attempt to protect shareholders’ rights, our primary goal remains to help create long-term value for the benefit of all Autodesk shareholders."

"In plain English, HMA management could have missed EBITDA guidance by 9%—and EPS guidance by 26%—and they still would have delivered on 100% of the internal Board and Management plan for incentive compensation"