Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"YY's Bigo acquisition was the culmination of a scam that unfolded over several financing rounds while ultimately being funded with a substantial portion of YY's 2017 secondary offering."

"DND recently added Shopify (-11.7% TSR since DND's IPO), Kinaxis (-17.3% TSR since DND's IPO), and Global Payments (-38.2% TSR since DND's IPO) to help improve its relative performance."

"An investigator we sent to Shenzhen Kuayu’s registered address received confirmation that ANTA controls SZ Kuayu and other Guangdong distributors, and that each is a subsidiary of ANTA."

"But the shenanigans at Quanzhou Binhui don’t stop in 2011. In 2016, Quanzhou Binhui was again transferred to two men, one a current ANTA employee, the other a trusted ListCo lieutenant."

"If in fact Oatly's revenues are overstated, costs understated, and net income overstated, one way to balance inflated profits on the asset side of the balance sheet is to inflate capex."

"While Oatly does warn investors about a Material Weakness of its internal control over financial reporting, we believe it does not adequately explain the exact impact to its financials."

"Temptime's primary applications are in the healthcare industry and it is a technology. However, the product is not highlighted at all on Zebra's Healthcare Technology Solutions website."

"We analyze Zebra's year ending inventory balance relative to its next 12 months forward projected sales and last 12 months sales and find the ratios to be elevated at a multi-year high."

"Today we would like to share our Revised Proposal for Creating Significant Value at McDonald's which incorporates feedback from McDonald's management, franchisees and other shareholders"

"We have identified more than $500 million in cost reductions through a combination of improved labor productivity and SG&A reductions, as well as other EBITDA improvement opportunities."

"What is Vivendi’s real agenda for TIM? Bolloré recognises the inherent conflict of interest, given the risk of prejudicial procurement decisions, so why is Vivendi managing the Company?"

"Twist sells low-quality sequences via a scorched-earth pricing and discounting strategy, it is not surprising that it has ended up with bottom-of-the-barrel price-seeking customer base."

"Serial capital raisers make fantastic shorts, as they dilute stockholders into oblivion just like a Ponzi: the share count expands with each new raise, crushing the value of each share."

"Manufacturing oligos – that is, synthetic DNA - is nothing special. It is a standard, commodity industrial process using a method that is 40 years old, called phosphoramidite chemistry."

"Pre-crisis about half of new munis were insured. With the rating scale corrected and no AAA rated bond insurers left, the arbitrage is nearly gone and insurance is purchased less often."

"When we adjust Samsara's COGS to assume a three-year amortization period for device costs, we find that gross margins have been overstated by well over 600bps the past two fiscal years."

"We find the two-year period notable insofar it is closer to where we believe current contract lengths (and device useful lives) are in the market, and not 5 years as assumed by Samsara."

"We think the fact that ELF ceased disclosing these metrics in Q2 FY25 is also a red flag because this coincides with inventory reporting becoming hugely questionable (as we show later)."

"This increase reflects “a change in certain vendor arrangements where we [ELF] now take ownership of inventory at shipment from China versus when it enters our U.S. distribution center."

"Marathon’s prior Management and Board continued pointing towards the loss of integration benefits, which was quickly disproven, through thoughtful structuring and commercial engagement."

"In 2021 FND started revising down its ecommerce sales claims for 2020 and 2019. This is a strong indicator of revenue misstatement, yet the Company has not made a financial restatement."

"We also note that the delayed timing of the MFS launch with respect to the Utiba acquisition superficially makes MFS appear to be much more of an organic development than it really was."

"We look forward to collaborating with Southwest to restore accountability and best-in-class financial performance for the benefit of the Company's employees, customers and shareholders."

"Spruce Point also observes that Saputo made a subtle change in describing its competitive position from "market-leading" to "category-leading". Why would the Company make this revision?"

"Of the 27 new product introductions, 12 direct consumers to purchase the product on Amazon through Monster’s website which we believe is a lower contribution margin distribution outlet."

"DuPont's inability to generate an attractive return in its non-Agriculture businesses (68% of revenues) is concerning especially in light of the current headwinds in Agriculture markets"

"DuPont's inability to generate an attractive return in its non-Agriculture businesses (68% of revenues) is concerning especially in light of the current headwinds in Agriculture markets"

"When Disney launched its streaming strategy, we believe it made many decisions to maximize distribution quickly that run counter to the core tenets of running a successful DTC platform."

"Taubman's problems are self-inflicted – Taubman has repeatedly blamed poor performance on the industry when the problems lie with management and poor oversight by the Board of Directors"

"In this illustrative example, Huntsman may be underpricing its product by ~30% given its competitor needs to price at $100 per unit to earn the same minimum required contribution margin"

"The CEO declined to specifically detail the nature of the recent hospitalizations, indicating only that they were for pulmonary/respiratory events and “events related to hyperglycemia.”"

"Transamerica Life Insurance Company has a NAIC complaint index of ~5.4, meaning that Transamerica Life Insurance Company generates 5.4x the number of complaints as the national average."

"DuPont's inability to generate an attractive return in its non-Agriculture businesses (68% of revenues) is concerning especially in light of the current headwinds in Agriculture markets"

"Spruce Point has repeatedly warned to be cautious when companies cannot accurately forecast capex, as this often leads to gross margin deterioration (and ultimately EPS disappointment)."

"A uniform opinion is that the culture has changed under CEO Farrell and CFO Dierker more towards a culture of financial engineering, and less towards product innovation and improvement."

"In our opinion, Church & Dwight’s CEO Matt Farrell is no rock-star. He would love to bury his past as CFO at Alpharma (NYSE: ALO), but Spruce Point thought it worthwhile to investigate."

"By simplifying and streamlining the digital offer process — fewer clicks, near-instant valuations, clearer steps — CarMax can capture a greater share of sellers already engaging online."

"As a result, any programmer or Merlin @ Home device can communicate with any Cardiac Device, and once the communication protocol is understood, generally any device can be impersonated."

"Spruce Point observes that MSCI is capitalizing a greater amount of software development costs, which are conveniently added back to Adjusted EBITDA and passed-off as non-cash expenses."

"Either financial supplies revenue is in decline (making it a bad business) or it remains larger than investors expect (meaning there is even more revenue not deserving an 11x multiple)."

"Clearly Mettler has inconsistencies regarding the CEO’s role as Head of Process Analytics from 1999 – 2007 when his employment agreement and the proxy statement show he started in 2001."

"We estimate that Mettler's Adj. Diluted EPS is $1.90 - $2.23 (8.3% - 9.8%) overstated due to aggressive capitalization policies and failures to recognize inventory obsolescence charges."

"DuPont’s inability to generate an attractive return in its non-Agriculture businesses (68% of revenues) is concerning especially in light of the current headwinds in Agriculture markets"

"The GSEs’ fixed-income arbitrage business has been wound down, and the GSEs today hold $182bn of mortgage loans to support their core guarantee business, well below caps set by Treasury"

"Based on our wide-ranging conversations with transplant physicians, as well as an exhaustive review of the clinical literature, the answer to both of the above questions is clearly, No."

"The report shows that IQ’s average mobile DAUs were only 126.2 million during the first 10 days of the 2020 Chinese Lunar New Year, versus 180 million average mobile DAUs claimed by IQ."

"If they were indeed never made aware of the (4) “Illustrative Guidance,” by how much more might have the prospective buyers revised their offers downwards had this guide been disclosed?"

"There needs to be a new board of directors selected to pick the next CEO; this new board needs sufficient experience in the important areas of media, technology, digital, mobile and OTT"

"Again, we are left to wonder whether Vitek’s investment objectives in Dubai did not involve the servicing of very special customers including those with hot flows of questionable money."

"JC may be German but they certainly did not have the implied capital, institutional investor reach, or any form of verifiable track record prior to marketing the TFS investment in 2010."

"Should these directors not receive a majority of the votes cast at the Annual Meeting, we believe it would clearly be inappropriate for such directors to continue to serve on the Board."

"During the peak of the real estate and credit bubbles, Realty Income’s assets more than doubled from $1.4bn to $3.1bn as the company became a financing source for LBOs and corporate M&A"

"Marathon’s prior Management and Board continued pointing towards the loss of integration benefits, which was quickly disproven, through thoughtful structuring and commercial engagement."

"As Meta did with Zynga, Meta could change its TOS, its code, or both, and APP would be embargoed from its key (albeit improperly obtained) user data as well as ad revenue from Meta ads."

"In contrast to PGNY management's comments, we calculate increasing new member acquisition costs, whether based on total lives added during a fiscal year or only during a selling season."

"I think for soybean and corn trading, it's going to be challenging. It's not that Bunge plus Viterra will be 1+1=two. 1+one would be 1.5, to be very honest, because there were overlaps."

"Given its market cap, TIP REIT will be owned by S&P 500 index funds, large cap funds, real estate index funds, yield-oriented investors, and investors seeking inflation-protected assets"

"We believe that REZI's pre-tax income in the YTD 2025 period is inflated by 8-12% as a result of overly aggressive assumptions about the average customer life from the Snap transaction."

"Synlogic indicates they “used $13.6MM of the pre-paid research and development expenses” in 2020, which we are almost certain was booked by Ginkgo as non-cash non-related-party revenue."

"Over the last several years, Autodesk’s management team and Board have overseen a wide range of concerning issues and underperformance, which we believe makes clear the need for change."