Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"Spruce Point has a strong track record of exposing highly promoted “technology darlings” as technology dogs before the sell-side and investors could figure out that the businesses had inflected negatively."

"Zebra has long touted its leadership in radio frequency identification (“RFID”) especially after it augmented its product capabilities when acquiring Motorola Solutions Enterprise in 2014 for $3.5 billion."

"Zebra omitted a statement that said, “Our solutions remain essential to our customers’ operations…” and retracted a slide claiming it had “Attractive Long-Term Growth Opportunities Across Our End Markets”."

"HASI's use of a low, risk free rate to value these increasingly commercial receivables appears disingenuous: one expert stated to us that a high teens discount rate was appropriate for commercial projects."

"Twist hypes its chip but is less than candid on a critical point: it’s only used for the first step in a long manufacturing workflow, and the remaining steps are the same as any commodity DNA manufacturer."

"The “fee-for-service” delivers a customized offering to a university for their online program at significant reduction in cost. In our illustration, the university keeps an additional 26% of their tuition."

"As a result of fraud related to electric vehicle subsidies, Synergy and Broad Ocean now face much tighter requirements and longer payouts than they would have expected when partnering with Ballard in 2016."

"Ballard has historically hyped segments or products/partnerships within segments only later to restructure, exit or change strategic direction. Will the China HDM 2.0 Strategy be the latest disappointment?"

"The Hong Kong dollar peg has been working well since its adoption in 1983. It's the foundation for the stability of the currency and financial system in Hong Kong so we have no intention to make any change"

"Even when the vehicle telematics industry was nascent with more robust growth potential, larger industry players were acquired between 4x - 8x revenue, significantly less than Samsara's hefty 16x multiple."

"Spruce Point fact-checked C3's claim that its platform is “tightly integrated” with Hewlett Packard Enterprises’ (HPE) ProLiant family of servers. A recent sale inquiry revealed no such integration exists."

"We believe their unremarkable background (in the case of Williams) and failure to acknowledge these roles (in the case of Powell's LinkedIn biography), highlight the “figurehead” roles they currently fill."

"We believe FND trades at an irrational premium to peers and that sell-side expectations are too high. Where we differ the most is new store operating expenses which we estimate are set to rapidly increase."

"Something doesn't add up with Monster's MD&A discussion of changes in operating expenses. Notably, in 2023 total costs increased by $251 million, but the MD&A discusses changes amounting to $314.3 million."

"We believe both the Board and the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee (“Nom & Gov” or the “Governance Committee”) have proved unwilling or incapable of addressing seemingly obvious interconnects."

"The Magazine Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of TWX, is the leading consumer magazine publisher in the US and worldwide with approximately 13,000 employees and over 150 magazines as of September 30, 2005."

"The success or failure of the CNNMoney.com launch will be determined in time; however, this integrated approach, in general, has had limited success online and is reminiscent of the strategy of Pathfinder."

"Color us skeptical, but a cursory review of DV’s U.S. patent does not strike us as overly complex. Below are figures from a key patent. In fact, only one of the four patent authors is still employed by DV."

"In late December 2021, it appears that TaskUs just increased incentives for referrals by offering a $500 sign-on bonus to new recruits. In addition, $750 is paid to the individual who sources the new hire."

"In 2009, the California federal court stated that Herbalife appears to pay compensation facially unrelated to sale of products to ultimate users – an essential element of finding of an MLM to be a pyramid."

"So I think what you will see is retention will probably actually go up as we go through this phase. And then, we want to get back to active recruiting which is another word for opening new Nutrition Clubs."

"Trian believes Mr. Myers' qualifications to serve on DuPont's Board include the knowledge and experience he has gained while serving in various management positions for over 35 years with General Electric."

"While management says "holistically, this portfolio provides a platform for balanced growth, margin and return improvement...all of which leads to top-tier total shareholder return," it simply is not true."

"The Company has been entirely closed off to Elliott’s views and has not substantially considered the ideas of a major shareholder that has helped create billions in value for companies and their investors."

"MTD does not disclose sales by industry end market, instead broadly reporting sales in three product categories (lab, industrial, and retail) without providing details of margins in these three categories."

"Stryker's allowance for bad debts, a contra account to accounts receivables, has been steadily growing and is now above 5% of gross receivables - notably larger than close peers Zimmer Biomet and Medtronic"

"We question how TFS can continually and substantially revise its biological assets upwards, considering actual harvest results have missed their initial MIS prospectus results by such a spectacular amount."

"We theorize that the 1.5% interest rate is likely equivalent to what the company would have earned on the cash balance, and therefore was needed to plug the hole created by having actually funded the loan."

"The table below shows the cities and data which were adjusted based on the average sales price collected from BEKE’s platform for the reference city and the CRE price data’s average listing price for 2Q21."

"We do not believe these are simply one-off items to be excluded from financial results. Rather, we see these as on-going and recurring costs which are necessary to fix REZI's complex and ailing operations."

"The only viable explanation for the Series A Financing is a shameless and utterly transparent attempt to entrench the Board and ward off activist stockholders willing to challenge the troubling status quo."

"A LinkedIn search turns up only 6 employees at Allonnia, plus an intern and a random Chief of Staff who lists 2 other current employers, despite being in operation since 2019 and raising $50MM in Oct 2020."

"But when it became clear that Autodesk would miss its financial targets, management reversed course – harming the Company, its customers, and its shareholders – to protect and potentially enrich themselves"

"This undrawn facility amount has decreased RMB 6.25 billion over the last six months to RMB 4.98 billion, which is somewhat alarming since the company supposedly generated free cash flow in that same time."

"Businesses acquired by Verint continue to maintain separate websites once acquired. If these “Verint companies” remain largely autonomous, do Verint’s acquisitions really create material shareholder value?"

"Juniper has historically tried to buy into other attractive markets but consistently mis-executes post-acquisition, resulting in significant missed opportunities and greater shareholder value implications."

"Although Nevro already bundled low-frequency capability with devices prior to Omnia, KOL's and former employees suggest that the company was paranoid that it would expose its high frequency data as a sham."

"If you're keeping track, Red Cat: a) Went from consistently claiming – for years – that the total size of the program would be approximately a billion dollars to claiming it would be close to $350 million."

"This is an enormous lie because it goes to the heart of our conclusion that NQ's largest customer is really NQ, dressed up in a shell company called Yidatong (“YDT”) that is nominally 75% owned by Xu Rong."

"A former employee in a regulatory role alleged a number of troubling interactions with the CEO, such as allegedly being pressured to doctor adverse event reports to downplay any link to TransMedics device."

"Now, do I have any way of validating whether that was true...do they have an incentive to lie about it...yes, they do...you just have to trust what they’re telling you...it’s ridiculous...it’s infuriating."

"As part of what we believe to be an organ steering or “trafficking” scheme orchestrated by TransMedics, surgeons indicated that the growth has come from accepting organs that reputable centers won’t touch."

"I cannot stand working with them...it feels like I’m talking to a used car salesman...we had a recent situation, where we had some A/R...they declined a heart transplant for one of our patients in the ICU."

"Trian believes Mr. Myers' qualifications to serve on DuPont's Board include the knowledge and experience he has gained while serving in various management positions for over 35 years with General Electric."

"Despite the obvious potential fit, the board presumably dismissed the transaction to entrench itself, as Midstates publicly stated they would be open to replacing the board with shareholder representation."

"The biggest hurdle to consumer adoption of cloud streaming services historically has been input latency – the time it takes for controller inputs to reach the cloud and return to affect the action onscreen"

"Our analysis of the data buried in Soleno’s papers indicates an alarming spike in prediabetes and diabetes within 13 weeks of starting Vykat – and a linear increase over 3 years with no signs of a plateau."

"The FDA’s review exhibited zero awareness of the hypereosinophilia signal and failed to draw any potential link: “No clear association between pitolisant and pulmonary edema is apparent in this narrative.”"

"the simple fact that there are undisclosed transactions between these two related companies should worry investors, given that, again, related party transactions can potentially be for nonsensical amounts."

"We believe Archer deliberately hide their Type Certification progress and only report a single vague number as it is not in their interest to detail the actual facts, but rather, hide behind the ambiguity."

"So, instead of telling investors that the Food Hall was defaulting, costing CTO $1.5 million in capex in the process, management was able to boast to investors that it was increasing rent for a top tenant."

"Out of nowhere, the stock has spiked 100-200X since it became an EUV story, depending on the baseline date, making it the best performing stock in Japan in the last 5 years (1,700%) and 10 years (16,000%)."

"Global Foundries sees KLA as “huge risk to Lasertec” that “obviously will” take share; Lasertec would have “significantly mark down” and “impair” its inventory; “would probably require an asset write-down”"

"The level of stonewalling by the CEO – when asked for even the tiniest crumbs on EUV contribution – would alarm any investor who reviews each quarterly Q&A in the 5 years since its ACTIS EUV tool launched."

"The tools require a shocking 10 hours of daily cleaning to address particle contamination, leading to a low uptime of less than 60%, with an onerous protocol including UV light to scan for stray particles."

"Lasertec desperate to offload ACTIS inventory; offering up to ~75% discounts on A150; offering various inducements and concessions, including some that appear to acknowledge uptime and reliability problems"

"Within 10 days of the execution of this agreement, Party B shall pay to Party A a one- time Trademark License Fee of ________ RMB. The Trademark License Fee shall not be refundable under any circumstances."

""The $31 million tax benefit was related to the ADPP termination approved by our Board in July 2018, as well as lump-sum payments associated with two U.S. nonqualified benefit plans." — Q3'2018 10-Q, p. 27"

"Per Riot press release announcing rejected bid for Bitfarms the company has more than $700m in cash on hand and 9.25% stake in Bitfarms (subsequently increased to 11.3% ~44.9m shares). — Kerrisdale Capital"

""We can no longer be everything to everybody all the time...I don't think customers are out there counting the number of items. It's about producing better quality products." — Brad Smith, COO, Tony Roma's"