Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"Cloud revenue primarily consists of SaaS and managed services revenue recognized over time and term-based licenses, which are recognized at a point in time. — VRNT FY19 10-K"

""The Board does not intend to issue preferred stock in the future and believes that it is appropriate to eliminate this provision from the Articles." — Apple Proxy Statement"

"Mr. Iger’s work with the Succession Planning Committee: the Committee’s only accomplishment was to extend Mr. Iger’s contract by two years, including a significant pay raise"

"「検査においては両方でぴったり同じ問題が起きるので、レーザーテック製のUrashima光源はウシオ製の光源と同じ技術的な問題を抱えているでしょう。また、ウシオ製の光源と共有している問題に加えて、Urashima光源独自の弱点がいくつもあって、それもダウンタイムの原因になるでしょう。」 — Ushio Field Service Engineer"

"“when we write for diazoxide, we always write for a diuretic at the same time, because we've seen heart failure on this drug a whole bunch of times” — PWS endocrinologist #2"

"Apple Watch AFib feature becomes first-ever digital tool approved by FDA to evaluate medical devices — Michael Walter | May 02, 2024 | Cardiovascular Business | Heart Rhythm"

"Vets First Choice recaptures this revenue source by delivering vet’s clientele with an online purchase experience and greater customer compliance (animal prescription use)."

"CEO Fayer’s biography has many open hole questions. First, it says he started Nuvei as Pivotal Payments in 2003. However, it fails to say what exactly he did prior to 2003."

"Why would sports leagues (NFL, Premier League) who control the access to data or sportsbooks who control the customers want to lose economics to a middleman such as Genius?"

"Genius trades at a premium to most of its Online Gaming industry peers based on 2021E & 2022E revenue multiples, despite having the second lowest 2022E revenue growth rate."

"The business world is always enamored by rags to riches stories and wants to root for the underdog who didn't go to a blue chip business school to achieve fame and fortune."

"The market value of Southwest’s aircraft ($17B) exceeds the TEV of Southwest, implying no value from operating the largest domestic airline beyond the value of the aircraft"

"While peer EBITDAR is expected to be in-line with or meaningfully exceed pre-COVID levels, Southwest EBITDAR is expected to be nearly 50% lower despite record travel demand"

"The rate limiter on [a new strategy] is the CEO. I don't have a lot of confidence he is the right person at this stage... The Street would be widely supportive of a change."

"He is uniquely positioned to understand the complications Tessera faces by participating in both the semiconductor IP licensing business and technology components business."

"ADP’s has significantly reduced relevant disclosure, making it challenging for investors to analyze underlying business trends and ADP’s competitive position by sub-segment"

"We find this concerning for a relatively young medical device company which has been funding studies for years in an attempt to gain clinical support for its core products."

"A review of Bolloré's corporate governance practices demonstrates that unaffiliated shareholders must not support any slate put forward by Bolloré and his related companies"

"Given the Company's history of failed execution, we believe shareholders would welcome the appointment to the Board of two new directors with refining-operating experience."

"Manufacturers’ shift in distribution strategy poses a significant risk to PetIQ’s relatively high profitability, which depends in part on the opaqueness of the grey market."

"We believe the overwhelming preponderance of evidence would lead any reasonable and rational group of fiduciaries to conclude that the Company needs a change in leadership."

"This $1.1bn investment represents a potentially significant sunken costs for BP and once again demonstrates the lack of discipline around targeted returns in offshore wind."

"In other words, Quantumscape claims to exceed the "commercial target" for cycle life for an electric vehicle battery – but by cycling a battery with a microscopic capacity."

"Quantumscape’s valuation of $15B requires a leap of faith from making lab prototypes to selling billions of dollars of batteries within 5-6 years, with Google-like margins."

"Per those estimates, if Mosten won its trial and was able to deposit $1 billion into the Carrier Fund, using Manulife's own numbers, that could mean a loss of $450 million."

"We spoke with a significant percentage of those mentioned, and they each laughed at, mocked, or trashed IonQ’s capabilities – contradicting their quotes in IonQ’s releases."

"We spoke with a significant percentage of those mentioned, and they each laughed at, mocked, or trashed IonQ’s capabilities – contradicting their quotes in IonQ’s releases."

"We agree that CGMs likely represent the future of diabetes care, but believe that the Street is misinterpreting both Dexcom’s realistic TAM and its recent record of growth."

"BOOT was not featured as a sponsor in Google’s shopping tab search for “western boots” that we conducted and did not even appear as a top feature based on consumer reviews."

"At $21 per share, Veritas is buying the Company for 7.6x 2024 unlevered free cash flow, a multiple that is too low for a business with the positive characteristics of HMHC."

"Spruce Point has several concerns with PowerSchool's management team and Board; we've found several members with questionable backgrounds and obvious conflicts of interest."

"It is fair to say that Edgio should be valued at least 1x sales which would put the stock at $65 this year. If given the same multiple as Fastly, Edgio would be $200/share."

"Both executives agreed that Xylem overpaid and one believed Xylem needed even more cost synergies to make the deal work and that revenue synergies were not going to happen."

"The market value of Southwest's aircraft ($17B) exceeds the TEV of Southwest, implying no value from operating the largest domestic airline beyond the value of the aircraft"

"While peer EBITDAR is expected to be in-line with or meaningfully exceed pre-COVID levels, Southwest EBITDAR is expected to be nearly 50% lower despite record travel demand"

"Why would a consumer abandon the soon-to-be open Keurig platform to “upgrade” to a new closed platform that offers less product choice and enforces GMCR’s monopoly pricing?"

"In our opinion, MAXR's 2018 Adj. EPS expectation of $4.75/sh is pure fiction. The Company has made numerous aggressive accounting choices that inflate its Non-IFRS results."

"The disconnect between Dr. Kleinfeld’s rhetoric and the reality of business performance has only furthered the erosion of his credibility flowing from that poor performance"

"The almost wholesale adoption of concomitant surgical ablation leaves little opportunity for volume growth out of AtriCure's core open-heart ablation and AtriClip segments."

"Using the Wayback Machine, we find that community membership growth is rapidly decelerating at Dropbox. After growing 36% from 2018-2019, the growth rate has dropped to 16%"

"Like most aggressive tech companies with poor business models that Spruce Point evaluates, we find that Dropbox tries to spin a rosy "Non-GAAP" Free Cash Flow presentation."

"We believe the common theme between Just Energy and Sunnova is that both companies offer a relatively undifferentiated product and service offering and carry too much debt."

"More than half of U.S. homeowners now buy their panels with cash or a loan, rather than sign a lease or power purchase agreement, up from 38% of home installations in 2015."

"An industry executive highly familiar with Sunnova's business model suggested that by evaluating Sunnova's position with Porter's Five Forces its positioning would be weak."

"These purported consideration amounts seem to be little more than accounting entries to a) justify these transactions, and b) produce more substance-less accounting profit."

"Twist’s only claim to fame is that it’s faster at making a commodity chemical – synthetic DNA – just because it drilled more holes, not that it’s making anything different."

"Twist took “a lot of share in the beginning” but now “much harder to gain traction”; customer acquisition has plateaued in the last year; “mood isn’t so great” inside Twist"

"We urge you, first and foremost, to ensure that the practice of lead generation (now acknowledged by Herbalife to be inappropriate and legally risky) has been discontinued."

"Prior to our discussions with P&G, Mr. McDonald was a member of at least 21 outside organizations, which we believe required him to commit 50 or more business days per year"

"There is a $1.1 billion discrepancy between what Ms. Callan said on the conference call – an $875 million loss – and the table in the 10-Q, which shows a $228 million gain."

"Ballard claims a backlog order book of $264m (1); we estimate that announced China projects (assuming most are still live) account for $204m or 78% of the company’s backlog"

"Anytime NVDA has been hit with potential concerns (e.g., crypto, autonomous driving), the immediate analyst fall back is to raise price targets up because of AI datacenter."

"C3's prospectus claims "Recognized AI-Industry Leadership" and that its business is all about gobbling up market share. If in fact true, why is its market share just 0.12%?"

"C3 is highly promoting a strategic alliance with Google Cloud. Yet, we cannot find any prominent feature or refence to C3 on Google Cloud's AI and machine learning website."

"Are we comfortable with a management team which has been criticized in the past for the practice of hiding organic top-line contraction and capitalizing the cost of growth?"

"Management is perhaps crediting itself for revenue from unbilled projects while simultaneously pulling from its Deferred Revenue cookie jar to create even more paper sales."

"The market value of Southwest’s aircraft ($17B) exceeds the TEV of Southwest, implying no value from operating the largest domestic airline beyond the value of the aircraft"

"While peer EBITDAR is expected to be in-line with or meaningfully exceed pre-COVID levels, Southwest EBITDAR is expected to be nearly 50% lower despite record travel demand"

"As such, absent further value- and governance-enhancing measures from Sumitomo Realty, Elliott plans to vote against the reappointment of senior management at the 2025 AGM."

"Saputo claims that EBITDA is a measure of cash flow in performing its DCF. However, our analysis shows that EBITDA is a poor proxy for cash flow and converts at around 70%."