Callouts & quotes from 306+ activist slides

""We continue to remain focused as a Company and our Board of Directors on deleveraging. I think that when you look at our targets going out 2015 and 2016, our leverage ratios during that time period, particularly when you take into account an IPO during that time period, that our leverage ratios go to our long-time stated objective of 2.0 times our EBITDA." — Peter Huntsman, President & CEO, September 2013"

"In addition to capital, what entrepreneurs really need is access to the broad expertise required to build a successful retail business. We see a tremendous opportunity to leverage Campfire's collective experience and relationships to further brand and scale FIGS to transform this $9 billion unbranded industry. — Christine Day, Partner at Campfire, current CEO of Luvo and ex-CEO of lululemon"

"Mr. Prittie’s alleged shortcomings were tied to his perceived failure to come to grips with Tyler and OneMove’s concerns over the Company’s financial status, share price performance, leadership, strategic vision and strategy, corporate governance, CEO compensation, excessive M&A activity, debt leverage to cash flow ratios and the lack of guardrails around senior management decision making."

"In terms of value creation for shareholders, it's really a multi-pronged approach. So, topline growth around the product launches, biosimilars and the global expansion, as well as delivering operating leverage for the company, we expect here over the next several years to deliver a 15 point operating margin improvement for the business. — David Meline, Amgen EVP and CFO, November 2014"

"Capitalize on Corporate Infrastructure Investments. In recent periods, we have made significant investments in our senior management and corporate infrastructure in anticipation of future revenue growth... We therefore anticipate that, to the extent our revenue grows, we will be able to leverage this infrastructure base and increase our operating margins. — Kratos 2013 10-K, p. 9"

"The first $500 million of synergies is expected to create a company with EBITDA margins of over 20% and annual EBITDA of over $3 billion, giving us the firepower to reduce the leverage ratio to 3 times to 3.5 times within two years to three years and then, subsequently, to deploy capital to create further value beyond our organic agenda. — CEO Michael Polk – Q4 2015 Earnings Call"

"CEO Gerald Hassell: "It's part of our goals that if we get a 4%, 5% revenue growth in a range, we should be able to produce positive operating leverage" — CEO Gerald Hassell. CFO Todd Gibbons: "Our core fee business has been growing at about the 3% to 5% range...on the lower end of that, to generate positive operating leverage...is going to be challenging" — CFO Todd Gibbons."

""By positioning ourselves as a "one-stop" environmental services provider, we plan to leverage our diverse service offerings to unlock potential cross-selling opportunities across our business lines. As we execute on our growth strategies, we will continue to leverage our scalable capabilities to manage costs and drive higher operating margins." — GFL Environmental"

"One important area in which fiscal '19 will differ from fiscal '18 is in capital allocation. With $600 million of acquisition debt repaid and our leverage target achieved, we returned to our historical priorities for deployment of cash, which our CapEx, acquisitions, dividend payments and share repurchases. — Cintas CFO Q4 2018 Earnings Call July 19, 2018"

"Spruce Point believes Broadridge should have ceased capitalization of additional costs with the UBS project last year given delays and cost overruns. As a result, had the latest capitalized conversion and start-up costs been expensed, Broadridge would have been in violation of its “Leverage Ratio” covenant, which limits it to 3.5x Total Debt to EBITDA."

"We have true opportunity for margin expansion through operating leverage, driving commercial and operational excellence and continuing to shift our portfolio towards digital solutions. — CFO Roland, Investor/Analyst Day Sept 30, 2021; The reality is Xylem’s digital sales are actually dilutive, not accretive. — Former Xylem Executive Response"

""Our operating leverage was up 245 basis points year-over-year..." — Todd Gibbons. "This is one of our real focuses, delivering positive operating leverage and improving the operating margins of our company...And so you can see over the last 12 months, the operating margin has in fact, improved by 78 bps across the firm" — Gerald Hassell."

"Current Mettler investors should be aware of the fact that its long-time Audit Chair, John D. Macomber, also served in audit roles at Xerox Corp and Lehman Brothers. The SEC later charged Xerox with accounting fraud, while Lehman Brothers infamously collapsed due in part to creative accounting that concealed its true leverage."

"Analyst: “We always talk about incremental margins with you.... You got all this operating leverage. How do we think about operating margin then?” Mark Donegan (PCC CEO): “And again they move, but I think that the range in which you should expect to see it move is somewhere between that 35% and 45%, 48%.” — December 3, 2014"

"Overall, we find that closed-end PERE [private equity real estate] funds have underperformed listed REITs, even before adjusting for risk, leverage, illiquidity, and the uncertain investment timing associated with unfunded capital commitments. — University of Florida study, published in the Journal of Portfolio Management"

"TIP REIT will be required to fund land capex for the first two years after the spin-off. Thereafter, TIP REIT will be Target Corp’s land developer through its Preferred Vendor Agreement. As such, Target Corp will generate significant free cash flow and will likely deleverage to an A-/A3 ratings profile after two years"

"To summarise, TFS’s mark-to-model approach to biological asset valuations and revenue recognition policies allow it to leverage real capital. Accordingly, we believe that the only factor that would prevent this business from being a Ponzi scheme is whether or not the underlying products are a feasible investment."

"Optically, PGNY would like investors to believe that it is achieving significant operating leverage. In reality, the largest contributor to its operating leverage story has been its aggressive use of stock-based compensation (SBC). Netting out the benefit of SBC uncovers that PGNY’s EBITDA margins are in decline."

"MAXR appears “cheap” on its inflated Non-IFRS metrics. However, Spruce Point’s forensic analysis unravels its aggressive accounting methods used to inflate EBITDA and EPS. Furthermore, when its debt is adjusted for standard credit agency adjustments, we find leverage to be in excess of its 5.8x covenant"

"There is certainly opportunity for operating margin expansion beyond '23, as we begin to leverage those operating costs more, but we'll still likely be based on where we're at today and closer to those single -- to close to double digit operating margin metrics. — Wilson at Investor Day November 2020"

""Our Foundry wraps proprietary software and automation around core cell engineering workflows—designing DNA, writing DNA, inserting that DNA into cells, testing to measure cell performance—and leverages data analytics and data science to inform each iteration of design." — Ginkgo Bioworks Prospectus"

"Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc.'s ("Hill-Rom") Ba2 rating reflects the company's moderate financial leverage. The rating also reflects the risks associated with a growth strategy that is expected to rely on acquisitions, which could be debt financed and result in integration risks. — Moody's Credit Rating"

"With the same toxic combination of leverage and cash burn, we believe investors underestimate Nevro’s risk of becoming the next Nuvectra, especially if the FDA takes any action against its product, or if the OIG’s Nov 16th Special Fraud Alert on speakers programs is predictive of what’s coming."

"Land and Buildings sees 70% upside to a base case net asset value of $33 per share, and up to 180% upside in a bull case, that can be realized through a REIT conversion, a tax free spin-off of a lodging C-corp, and a reduction of leverage through asset sales and an MGM China special dividend."

"Arconic originally projected that Firth Rixson would do $2 billion of revenue in 2019. At the same margins as originally projected for 2016 (i.e., conservatively assuming no incremental volume leverage), Firth Rixson will produce approximately 50% less EBITDA than originally targeted for 2019"

"We estimate Casino's LTM leverage ratio is 8.9x. Ideally, a company consolidating results of proportionally-owned companies has the debt spread out among the consolidated companies. That is not the case with Casino - there is a massive gap between what is owned, and what is owed."

"We go to market with Google Cloud. We go to market with AWS. We go to market with NVIDIA. So those all look like market partners. So that is -- so we're using a lot of market leverage to be able to expand into these markets very quickly. — CEO Siebel, Wells Fargo, Dec 2, 2021"

"This presents a real strategic risk to Intuit, as the stated rationale for the Credit Karma acquisition and recently announced integrations of the two products was Intuit's ability to “leverage” customer data that was explicitly collected for the sole purpose of tax filings."

"Although the resulting leverage exceeds the level appropriate for a ‘BBB-’ rating on an ongoing basis, the ratings incorporate S&P's expectations that Cox has the capacity and commitment to reduce consolidated debt to EBITDA within two years to the low-to-mid 4x area. — S&P"

"I'm sure we're going to talk about FDA remediation activities. There is incremental $15 million of spend going towards those activities. Ideally, we're wrapping those up by this year, and that will fall off and be a nice source of leverage for 2026. — iRhythm CEO Blackford"

"There is massive leverage at EBITDA level. A sole 1% reduction (as % of sales) at Distribution expenses level and 0.5% reduction (as % of sales) at Administrative expenses level would account for USD4.9m of extra EBITDA which accounts for a 61% increase of current EBITDA."

""[PCC] generally leverages superb execution for market share gains through pricing strategies and long-term contracts. We believe [PCC] is one of the best operators in our space, as operating margins are generally above peer companies." — Bank of America, June 4, 2014"

"MSCI's leverage ratio keeps rising and is at a decade high which significantly increases the risk to equity holders. At the current time, we believe it is a recipe for disaster that leverage is rising while client Retention Rate falls and competitive risks increase."

"“...our goal is to accelerate value. We have a deep multi-decade inventory and we want to bring as much of that value forward. So, our plan would be to leverage those efficiencies and be able to drill additional wells...” — Rick Bott, Continental President & COO"

"The chart below shows the performance since 2010 of four of the EM currencies to which AMT has directional exposure, the Brazilian Real, Indian Rupee, Ghana Cedis, and the South African Rand – a hedge fund using leverage for this trade would have been unhappy."

"In this illustration, we assume the JV takes on initial leverage of 5.8x net debt / EBITDA, or $6.9 billion(1), which enables Macy’s to repay debt at the parent-level in order to achieve a target leverage ratio of 3.5x Adjusted Debt / EBITDAR at the OpCo."

"A former Nevro executive shared his dismay at patients being “flipped” and painted a sordid picture of “bad actors” hustling patients into the company’s stimulators and threatening to cut off their opioid refills as leverage to force them into the device."

"Leidos management has emphasized that a cornerstone of its Dynetics acquisition was to leverage itself to hypersonics growth. Yet, in less than a year after the acquisition, there is already evidence to suggest investors could be set for disappointment."

""This merger is for the next 50 years" — Scott Peters (quoted in March 2008). "the tenant-in-common assets managed by NNN's illiquid partnerships [that] were highly leveraged and the fees that NNN had generated [that] were not sustainable" — Forbes."

"By factoring in the U.K. pension debt, we estimate Saputo's true Net Debt / EBITDA leverage to be 3.5x. Looked at another way, with over $4.5 billion in net debt, each manufacturing facility is indebted $68m and every employee by almost $240k."

"Overall, we find that closed-end PERE [private equity real estate] funds have underperformed listed REITs, even before adjusting for risk, leverage, illiquidity, and the uncertain investment timing associated with unfunded capital commitments."

"In our opinion, GFL is showing investors an inaccurate measure of its leverage. Per its own IPO Prospectus, its lenders evaluate it on a "Net Funded Debt" measure, and not "Total Gross Debt" as depicted in its recent earnings press release."

"CEO Dominik Richter's private company borrowed massively against his HelloFresh’s shares to fund highly leveraged real estate investments by his brother Benedikt Richter, apparently triggering margin calls amid a steep share price drop."

"It is self-evident that Huue could only “leverage Ginkgo’s platform” if it’s plied with cash that will be recycled back as fictitious revenue, and we question whether it’s even an active startup or a carcass being exploited as a front."

"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."

"Beyond the clearly negative value implications, this lack of operating leverage is damaging from a business perspective because it masks inefficiency while impairing the Company’s flexibility to make sound investments in R&D and M&A."

"We do not believe that Saputo deserves a multiple commensurate with the larger branded players in the industry such as Danone or Kraft Heinz given its weaker margin profile, declining transparency, high leverage and fragile dividend."

"We believe companies should generate significant operating leverage on revenue growth, evidenced by incremental margins that are substantially higher than consolidated margins – especially software companies with high gross margins"

"We believe companies should generate significant operating leverage on revenue growth, evidenced by incremental margins that are substantially higher than consolidated margins – especially software companies with high gross margins"

"Management plans to use all free cash flow after dividends to repurchase stock and will increase leverage to 1.8x Lease Adjusted Net Debt / EBITDAR from 1.6x. We estimate share repurchases will be ~$10bn to $13bn from 2012 to 2015"

"While Align has relative scale in manufacturing, it has not been pressured to leverage its scale to match competitors' prices until now, as it was effectively the only major player in the clear aligner space until the mid-2010s."

"Although there are some differences in opinion regarding friction costs, leverage and potential alignment issues, the key disparity between Pershing and the Company’s views was regarding the Valuation of Pro Forma McDonald’s..."

"Pro forma TWC, as shown in Exhibit 3.43, is expected to have total debt of approximately $15.8 billion as of January 1, 2006 or 3.6x net debt/2005E OIBDA (with covenants allowing for maximum leverage of 5.0x total debt/OIBDA)."

"AOL (assuming initial maximum leverage of 2.5x OIBDA or $4.8 billion) is projected to generate approximately $4.1 billion of free cash flow over the next three years and $7.6 billion of cash flow over the 2006 - 2010 period."

"To keep perpetuating its growth story, USCR is growing more and more dependent on larger acquisitions and leverage to fuel its growth. What’s scary is that its current Net Debt / Adj EBITDA of 3.8x exceeds pre-crisis levels."

"The current stock price is so dislocated that the Company should immediately start using a portion of its cash flow to repurchase shares (e.g., 50% with the other 50% for debt paydown) until it reaches its leverage target."

"By primarily using stock options to incentivize management, the Board has created an environment that has favored excessive risk-taking, which can be seen by the excessive pace of M&A and the reluctance to reduce leverage."

"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"

"We continue to target a long-term leverage of approximately 2.25 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA. From time to time, we may deviate from our long-term leverage target to pursue strategic opportunities. — Capital Mgmt."

"PowerSchool is among the most highly levered companies in its industry; a standout where many peer companies are net cash. Only TWOU, a company that has recently been linked to financial challenges, has worse leverage."