Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"Mortgage purchase applications for new and existing homes have risen by 33% since their recent trough, with early data showing the entry level housing market generating the best performance."

"We believe Ms. Samuelrich can help drive forward McDonald's commitments to animal welfare and ESG by addressing its weak ESG framework, establishing realistic targets and verifying progress."

"For the social media platforms we can track with the Wayback Machine such as Pinterest and Twitter/X, the data provides clear evidence of rapid deceleration (and decline) of follower growth."

"Spreading out contract acquisition costs over a longer period enables the Company to present a more favorable view of earnings in periods with larger volumes of contract signings / renewals."

"These requirements over-engineer packaging and drive up costs significantly without necessarily driving any benefit associated with more foot traffic or increased pricing power on customers."

"Spruce Point is concerned that Xylem would acquire Evoqua at such a large premium given a recent SEC charge for materially misstated revenue and an ongoing federal investigation by the USAO."

"A significant increase in unprofitable flying driven by a growth strategy focused on capacity expansion (rather than product innovation) appears to have driven substantial unnecessary losses"

"Analysts expect Maxar to produce $181.3m of EBITDA in Q4'18 vs. $180.9 in Q4'17. But they do not account for the $24.6m one-time gain in their models. Maxar is set up to severely disappoint."

"In 2023, the net equity value of GSG Berlin reported by CPIPG dropped from €3.718 billion at YE22 to just €311 million at YE23 – meanwhile reported profits doubled from €163 to €338 million."

"[W]e believe BWLD company-owned stores could improve margins substantially, by up to 500 [basis points] based on our analysis, by adopting labor practices currently deployed by [franchisees]"

"Alright not only revealed a local host IP, but jumped back and forth between Chinese and Malaysian IPs three times during the period of the Chinese lockdown, indicating Alright is an FU Bot."

"GGO will have a strong balance sheet. 100% of GGO's debt is property level and non-recourse. $250mm of balance sheet cash ensures GGO has ample liquidity to fund value creation opportunities"

"For brevity, we note that iRhythm’s initial responses (including that the transmission limit was a “design limitation” rather than a “nonconformance”) were both deemed inadequate by the FDA."

"In August 2024, the Board approved two acquisitions for a total consideration of $69 million, taking net leverage to where it was prior to the dilutive equity offering from earlier this year"

"Warning: By structuring the purchase the way it chose, Oatly could potentially be misallocating the purchase price to areas such as land (which is not depreciated) and building and fixtures."

"Investors are high on oat milk if they truly believe Oatly stands a long-term chance of maintaining a competitive edge in a category that Spruce Point believes is becoming rapidly saturated."

"Using price-to-book value, a metric traditionally used for specialty finance companies, and value per customer in line with peers, we believe there is significant downside to Sunnova shares."

"Elliott Investment Management, one of Southwest Airline's largest shareholders, believes that Southwest represents the most compelling airline turnaround opportunity in the last two decades."

"Elliott Investment Management, one of Southwest Airline's largest shareholders, believes that Southwest represents the most compelling airline turnaround opportunity in the last two decades."

"Elliott Investment Management, one of Southwest Airline's largest shareholders, believes that Southwest represents the most compelling airline turnaround opportunity in the last two decades."

"By reclassifying WSP's net financing expense as an operational cash flow as opposed to a financing cash flow, we find that the Company's operating cash flow margin lags the industry average."

"The market is expecting sequential revenue growth of 12.3% in Q1 2021, and increasing in each subsequent quarter to 23.4% in Q4 2021, for total YoY revenue growth of 62.7% in full-year 2021."

"Twist has a minimum order size that’s a fraction of the competition’s yet its pricing doesn’t reflect the radically higher cost of the customization and lack of standardization in its orders"

"they screen for high GC or low GC content sequences and high complexity sequences, and then they tell a customer we're not even going to try these. We know that our process can't make these."

"greater than $700 million of shareholder value, representing approximately 50% of today's market capitalization, has been destroyed since 2013 against the backdrop of a flourishing industry."

"Our progress is partially reflected in 16% appreciation from March 31, 2016 through year end, but more significantly in the business progress and developments in the balance of the portfolio"

"I’d especially highlight Puerto Rican debt, which AGO says is rated CCC or CC depending on the issue, even though Puerto Rico defaulted last year and S&P and Moody’s show much lower ratings."

"Essentially all of Celgene’s marketed products portfolio is small molecule drugs, and therefore they are likely to experience significant revenue deterioration as they lose patent protection"

"Despite the obvious benefits of this fleet penetration story, we are surprised that average ARR from >$100K customers has barely changed over the past three years the data has been reported."

"FND's legally executed lease commitments relative to total minimum lease payment obligations is not only growing, but also astronomically dwarfs home improvement peers Home Depot and Lowe's."

"A significant increase in unprofitable flying driven by a growth strategy focused on capacity expansion (rather than product innovation) appears to have driven substantial unnecessary losses"

"As part of our research process, Spruce Point consulted a former Saputo executive familiar with its business strategy and gained some valuable insights about what is pressuring the business."

"For example, with clear evidence that EBITDA has been shrinking, margins contracting, and excess manufacturing capacity increasing, why has Saputo continued to add headcount year-after-year?"

"The 2027 timeline is beyond optimistic...it's not credible. It will probably take at least 4 years for a license to be granted...especially with Oklo's record of not answering any questions."

"We believe the Huntsman family exerts significant ongoing influence over HCI and Dr. Beckerle through agreements with the University of Utah, funding commitments, and an oversight committee."

"Second, Petitioner believes it may be helpful for the FDA to convene an Ad Comm to discuss the issues raised in the attached report as well as the actions requested in this Citizen Petition."

"Spruce Point often finds that when a Company updates the summary of its risk factors under "Forward-Looking Statements" it marks a shift in the business that is being signaled by management."

"So I could hear and their challenges and obviously I am not an expert in that specific area, but they saturated the market pretty well and it was very, very hard to get really new customers."

"Spruce Point does not believe that MSCI's 20-year customer life assumption for Real Capital Analytics customers is credible or supported by recent client losses or industry peer assumptions."

"Spruce Point interviewed a former frontline sales and business development executive familiar with MSCI's Private Assets, ESG and Climate analytics businesses for insights into the business."

"We believe our selective hedging strategy is a superior alternative to a large cash position or a continuous hedging program, both of which can be a significant drag on long-term performance"

"Weren't 2011-2016 figures finalized by 2018? If so, why were they higher in 2021? How can Intuit's disclosures be trusted when they change many years after they were theoretically finalized?"

"The current 4% capital requirement is too high and would increase the cost of mortgage financing at a time when home affordability is at record lows and mortgage rates are at multiyear highs"

"Red Lobster's key operating metrics continue to get worse. This trend will create difficulties for New Red Lobster management, who will need to turn around the brand in the public spotlight."

"When aggregated and compared to IQ's F-1 prospectus, we found that the deferred revenues reported to the SEC were overstated by 261.7%, 165.5% and 86.2% in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively."

"Welltower currently trades at approximately 144% above Green Street NAV. This is not only the highest premium since 2020, it is among the highest premiums ever observed for a large-cap REIT."

"In NQ's family genealogy, Mr. Zhou Xu is the mysterious founder who seems able to continuously direct the company's fate, but like a ghost, he himself is hard to find and difficult to trace."

"The reality is that BIS is severely understaffed, with a team of ~70 people handling 171,500+ voting decisions, at the shareholders meeting of 14,100+ companies across 69 markets every year."

"there's no way the company can survive otherwise because they're operating off of 40 different ERP platforms and as being a sixteen billion dollar (sales) company, it just doesn't work well."

"Looking carefully, we see that Vocera retracted claims of its system's “Potential Future” and replaced it with “Market Trends”. We view this as a weaker endorsement of its product's roadmap."

"Upon recent monitoring of Facebook ads for pest control, we find that Terminix has been more aggressive in offering discounts and positioning savings from bundling pest and mosquito control."

"For FTAI to realize AP EBITDA through cash flows from operating activities (CFO) it must invest 101% of the book value of Inventory after the inventory is transferred from Leasing Equipment."

"Based on peers, we conclude that there are potentially material opportunities to improve ADT's cost structure as a standalone public company, enhancing both EBITDA margins and free cash flow"

"Prorating this to 91 days generates a 2Q21 connected store existing home sale GTV estimate of RMB ~233 billion, implying the connected stores' existing home sales GTV was inflated by ~47.2%."

"The more pressing concern for investors should be that despite investing in new product development and supposedly improving sales force productivity, the Grow category is no longer growing."

"WebMD generated revenue through advertising (essentially what we view as medical clickbait) and sponsored content for pharma, biotech, medical device, and other healthcare related companies."

"The fact that such closely-connected entities are engaging in having one’s cake and eating it too accounting is one reason we believe the gains are non-substantive and should be disregarded."

"The former CFO talked up REZI's water and air business in 2021 by saying it had identified attractive areas for growth. Fast forward to today, it's now obvious the growth never materialized."

"In our experience, one of the most common signs a company is forging its cash balances is borrowing more money than it seemingly needs to, and at rates higher than what it earns on its cash."

"Even under more conservative estimates regarding the inorganic sales contributions of recently-acquired businesses, management is guiding to very limited organic cloud revenue growth at best"