Callouts & quotes from 790+ activist slides

""The issue for us has always been the relative return of a U.S. small cell opportunity versus our ability to deploy capital primarily on the macro side in international markets. And when we've looked at that historically, the international opportunities have tended to present a more attractive and more compelling return opportunity, and that's guided our capital deployment decisions." — Senior Director of Investor Relations, American Tower, May 2018"

""[W]e've gotten more and more comfortable that we build these and other carriers, so we get an anchor built, that is what we call the first carrier. We build it, we get about a 6% to 7% return on that capital for the first carrier, which is not over our cost of capital. But when we add a second tenant to that, which happens over the course of about 10 years in our business, our returns go to the 10% to 12% range." — CFO Dan Schlanger, June 2020"

""No, it's not. What you'll see used is a traditional specialty finance company investment model where you use core earnings. All specialty finance companies and really all banks use core earnings. Core earnings takes all interest income, subtracts interest expense, subtracts operating expenses and then divides that by equity and that is what the core return on equity and that's how these businesses really get valued." — Former Sunnova Executive"

""No, it's not. What you'll see used is a traditional specialty finance company investment model where you use core earnings. All specialty finance companies and really all banks use core earnings. Core earnings takes all interest income, subtracts interest expense, subtracts operating expenses and then divides that by equity and that is what the core return on equity and that's how these businesses really get valued." — Former Sunnova Executive"

""Because we do have a differentiated customer offering that customers love. Our NPS [Net Promoter Score] is high." — Ernie Garcia III, CEO Carvana, 1Q23 earnings conference call. "What were our differentiators early on, are no longer differentiators at all. Like, everyone will deliver a car to you now, everyone has a return policy...Everything that made Carvana what it was...CarMax? They've already caught up." — Unattributed expert source."

""So when our marketing team is thinking, hey, do we increase or decrease some of our, call it, paid search or digital channel investments, they're not looking at the average customer acquisition cost. They're looking at the marginal, meaning that next dollar spent, either higher or lower, and seeing what the return on is -- on that marketing dollar is. And so I think that's a big part of our secret sauce." — CEO GS Conf Sept '24"

""As we look to fiscal '19, we believe there is a unique opportunity to deliver value to our stakeholders beyond M&A by returning capital to shareholders through the announced $50 million share repurchase. We see this as an incremental way to add shareholder value without inhibiting our long-term ability to invest in brand building, delever and pursue future M&A opportunities." — Christine Sacco, CFO, Q4 2018 Call, May 10, 2018"

"“Therefore, in order to restore the balance between safety and soundness and mission, FHFA has placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship. That is a statutory process designed to stabilize a troubled institution with the objective of returning the entities to normal business operations. FHFA will act as the conservator to operate the Enterprises until they are stabilized.” — James Lockhart, FHFA Director, 9/7/2008"

"“Therefore, in order to restore the balance between safety and soundness and mission, FHFA has placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship. That is a statutory process designed to stabilize a troubled institution with the objective of returning the entities to normal business operations. FHFA will act as the conservator to operate the Enterprises until they are stabilized.” — James Lockhart, FHFA Director, 9/7/2008"

"“Therefore, in order to restore the balance between safety and soundness and mission, FHFA has placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship. That is a statutory process designed to stabilize a troubled institution with the objective of returning the entities to normal business operations. FHFA will act as the conservator to operate the Enterprises until they are stabilized.” — James Lockhart, FHFA Director, 9/7/2008"

"A full 87% of [Deutsche Bank conference] attendees believed that if the vote were to occur today, Dell’s existing bid would be voted down — Deutsche Bank Securities research October 21, 2018; In many ways, the IPO alternative seems suboptimal for both sides — Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., research note October 5, 2018; The Biggest Winner of Dell's Public-Market Return? Michael Dell — Bloomberg Deals, July 2, 2018"

"If customers can't venture into the store with their pets - forcing them either to leave their pets in the car (which most pet owners prefer not to do) or to return to the store to purchase whatever else they intended to buy - does the in-store wellness center model really save customers a trip to the vet? Is it any more convenient than a stand-alone veterinarian (especially considering their limited service offerings)?"

"“...We’re committed to four quarters of brand support. The fourth quarter we increased meaningfully our media investment versus previous year and we’re going to continue that in FY17” — Q4 '16 Earnings Call; “We’ve stepped up digital [advertising]. Why? Because it’s working, and we’re getting the returns, and we can see the returns both in volume and in sales and importantly, in terms of profit.” — August 2017 (Clorox)"

"there will be a resumption of its order flow and shipments to Amazon — Stifel Research. Recent sales growth has been broad-based, but still supported by the return of meaningful Amazon sales. While these appear stable for the next few quarters, an unexpected slowdown here may represent the biggest downside risk going into next year should offsetting contribution from new platforms not materialize. — Barclays Research"

"In short, shareholders are demanding change now, and Elliott remains committed to providing them with a clear choice between continued industry-lagging performance under an incumbent leadership team that has repeatedly failed to deliver on its promises, versus fundamental leadership change involving new and proven airline industry executives capable of returning Southwest to its rightful place as an industry leader."

""We believe the new BDC (ACAP) will have inferior returns relative to peers because it has lower asset yields and a higher cost structure. As a result we believe this investment will continue to trade at a deep discount to its book value" — KBW Research Note, November 9, 2015; "We apply an 80% book value multiple to the net assets of American Capital Income" — Cantor Fitzgerald Research Note, November 9, 2015"

"“We never understood why this lower growth, lower return (and lower multiple) business with undeniable long-term structural risks would enhance Disney’s asset mix or contribute to Disney’s DTC transformation. By allowing Comcast to prevail in the Sky bidding war, Disney avoided paying a massive premium for a business which is primarily a European DBS distributor” — Todd Juenger, Bernstein, September 24, 2018"

"Red Lobster's business continued to decline through fiscal year end, and based on industry trends, the declines were expected to continue for an extended time — Darden Press Release. The management team believes that each of these issues are temporary in nature, correctable, and that they have plans in place to return the business to historic levels of profitability — Red Lobster Debt Memorandum."

"Red Lobster's business continued to decline through fiscal year end, and based on industry trends, the declines were expected to continue for an extended time — Darden Press Release. The management team believes that each of these issues are temporary in nature, correctable, and that they have plans in place to return the business to historic levels of profitability — Red Lobster Debt Memorandum."

"In the summer of 2013, Huang was charged with ‘criminal defamation’ for criticizing a Chinese company. His trial in September of that year lasted one day and was closed to the public, at Silvercorp’s behest. Silvercorp was also granted standing. In the end, Huang received a two-year sentence and was returned to the same overcrowded cell to serve out the rest of his term. — Hindenburg Research"

"If the first-year sales declines in Volker and Aspen were indeed just a temporary product of integration, and if they immediately returned to their (approximate) previous growth trajectories – perhaps supported by temporarily pent-up demand among customers – Hill-Rom could have benefited heavily from one-off accelerations in both businesses. Could management have been spring-loading revenue?"

"“... I have not gotten a single sale from someone who has seen my ad on Patch, so I can’t say I’m very happy with the prices I’ve had to pay to advertise....” — Local advertiser on Patch, March 2012; “... It has been two months and I haven’t gotten any results from Patch. If I do not see any return in the next month, I’m going to stop using Patch.” — Local advertiser on Patch, March 2012"

"NEW YORK -- The leader of a secretive group in upstate New York turned female followers into brainwashed "slaves" who were branded with his initials and coerced into having sex, authorities alleged on Monday in a criminal complaint charging him with sex-trafficking. Keith Raniere, co-founder of the group called Nxivm, was arrested in Mexico and returned to Texas Monday, authorities said."

"I have been a surgical nurse for 40 years and have seen many patients receive SCS...and many, many fail, or return to surgery for fractured electrode wires, misplaced wires, or infected battery pockets...spinal fluid leaks...severe headaches...[they] find out in 2-8 months that they wish they never had agreed to it ... — Anonymous (comment on a blog discussing the WSJ article)"

"Just as the Company reaches a size at which continued M&A-fueled growth would require even larger deals, management is communicating that it no longer has sufficient cash flow to consistently support M&A from FCF on top of its fairly consistent $450-550M return of cash to shareholders, and that any M&A would have to come out of buybacks / dividends (if not the balance sheet)."

"Our technical designer checked some of the returned pants and figured out that 12,000 pairs had been constructed with a women's front sewn to a men's back. That was when we realized we needed a quality-control team on the sewing side at all of our factories. We ended up donating the whole lot of pants--that was more than $100,000 in inventory. — Hasson in 2018 Inc. Interview"

"We find it interesting that Amdocs executives continue to invest with each other after leaving the Company, and feel that this does not reflect well on how they may treat their stewardship of Amdocs – perhaps less as people building a company for the long-term than people looking to get a return on their personal investment, maybe through financial engineering if necessary."

"How can TurboTax disclosed Paying ARPR only increase 7% from 2020 to 2023 when (1) Online and Live average list prices rose 10% and 9%, (2) Intuit launched the highest ASP Full Service offering in 2021, and (3) we estimate that higher list ASP Live as a percent of total paying returns grew from 7% to 18% over the same period. We believe this suggests weak price realization."

""We continue to see a commitment to shareholder returns as being a strong differentiator in our E&P investor offering. Since 2007, we have returned, or have committed to return more than US$5.5bn from monetisation of exploration and production successes through a combination of special dividends, tender offers and share repurchase programmes." — Capricorn 2021 Annual Report"

"TL;DR Pay your local dealership to do a PPI (pre-purchase inspection) during your return policy. It's worth it. /u/DougDeMuro would not be impressed with the bumper to bumper CarvanaCare warranty. They will tell you that it is the same as the manufacturer's warranty, but it is significantly worse. At least the return policy is good. I needed to use mine. — Reddit User"

""lightly regulated, private investment funds that use unconventional investment strategies and tax shelters in an attempt to make extraordinary returns in any market...these factors have given them a secretive and shady aura in the financial community." — Investopedia; "The Sleaziest Show on Earth." — Forbes; "the largest fraud in SBA history." — SBA inspector general"

"We believe it's time for Stryker's failing business strategy to end. The Company needs to take a hard stance that management's blunders are no longer acceptable and that it's time to reposition Stryker from a growth by terrible acquisition story, to one committed to internal investment, fixing cost bloat, improving manufacturing inefficiencies, and returning capital."

""In closing, I wanted to emphasize that our business model and philosophy regardless of short-term volatility, we'll remain laser-focused on operational excellence, capital discipline, long-term shareholder value creation, and returning that value to shareholders while fortifying our balance sheet by continuing debt reduction." — Former CEO Mark Little, July 29, 2021"

""There has been an internal debate within the IRS for a number of years about whether the agency should issue separate guidelines for solar transactions... is the tax equity investor a real partner with meaningful upside and downside risk of a business or is it a bare purchaser of tax benefits or a lender earning essentially a fixed return?" — Norton Rose Fulbright"

""With this return to normalcy, residential consumption has fallen back to its 2019 level and commercial consumption has risen to its prepandemic level as well. And as a reminder, historically in the water business, we typically see a natural decline of about 1% annually in water usage as customers change out older appliances and fixtures." — Year End 2021 Conf Call"

"In closing, I wanted to emphasize that our business model and philosophy regardless of short-term volatility, we'll remain laser-focused on operational excellence, capital discipline, long-term shareholder value creation, and returning that value to shareholders while fortifying our balance sheet by continuing debt reduction. — Former CEO Mark Little, July 29, 2021"

"A former employee described concerns about WTRG's ability to meet its long-term goals leading up to the Peoples transaction. By looking carefully at the three-year period leading up to the transaction announcement in 2018, we find evidence that water revenue per customer was declining in two of three segments, while return on equity and EPS were also falling."

"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"

""We're [Anadarko] very committed to capital discipline and...as we constrain capital, we see better returns on our projects, we quit dipping down to the lower tier, we keep that continual high grading effort going on and on... We're going to be very disciplined as we go forward." — Karl Kurz, Shareholder Nominee, Former COO Anadarko, May 2008"

"Lead Independent Director and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee Chair Sean Aggarwal and Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee member Betsey Stevenson have overseen negative total returns during their tenures, lack financial sophistication based on their track records at Lyft, and support the dual-class share structure."

"These (tax) rates (from 2020) reflect onetime operational fluctuations that arose due to the pandemic... For 2021, we do not anticipate these circumstances arising as we expect to return to normalized operations during the year. And we expect our full year effective tax rate to be in the range of 15.5% to 16.5% — CFO Boehnlein (Jan 2021)."

""The complaint is for damages as a result of an alleged fraud and stock manipulation. The Company is seeking monetary damages in excess of $200,000,000." — Dwight Cantrell, CFO of Endovasc. "Di Ricco is a disbarred attorney with criminal convictions for aiding and abetting the preparation of false tax returns and obstruction of justice.""

"I’d figured I’d start my presentation off with a little math formula… And it’s basically the formula for how AOL returns to overall growth. And basically that happens… when the absolute dollar growth from all the growth businesses… exceeds the decline of the subscription and search operations. — CFO Arthur Minson, Investor Day, 6/16/11"

""We have implemented a zero-based budgeting process by brand with a sophisticated ROI analysis looking at every single piece of our marketing mix to ensure we are spending money only where we are getting the best returns." — Tony Hooper, EVP of Global Commercial Operations at Amgen, Amgen 2014 Business Review Meeting, October 28, 2014"

""For the long term, we expect the company to grow sales at 7% and earnings at 12% compounded annually. These performance goals reflect the diversity of our portfolio, attractive returns on growth investments, such as research and development and capital expenditures, plus benefits from ongoing productivity." — DuPont's CEO (12/13/11)"

"From the end of 2013 to the end of 2016, Arconic invested $6.23 billion dollars in growth capital expenditures, research and development and acquisitions. For the $6.2 billion invested, Arconic generated an incremental $154 million of Net Operating Profit After Tax (NOPAT) for a Return on Incremental Invested Capital of merely 2.5%"

"You then said you had an investigation conducted by Ernst & Young (EY). This is the same company that prepared the annual financial statements. What did you expect? That they would come forward and say, Oops, sorry, we've made a mistake, we're returning our auditor's licence to practice? This is laughable. — Shareholder at 2016 AGM"

"We will also be very focused on achieving a better return on invested capital for our retail businesses, in effect, getting more from our existing assets. And we will refocus on our automotive business. This Company had its beginnings in that business, our two founders selling tires and servicing cars. — 2009 Annual Report (page 3)"

""It will be acceptable to indicate eventual possible appreciation in the event of confidence returning to such a degree as to produce unduly rapid monetary expansion, but such an indication must carry complete conviction that the rate would only ever be adjusted in that direction." — Internal Hong Kong government policy memo, 1983"

"So, is Ballroom doing well or not doing well? When I hear or learn that a claim is being filed in the German courts for the return of the purchase price you paid because Ballroom is not doing well, and yet you write under no. 11 of the response that Ballroom is doing well, then we are going to lose the claim. — Shareholder at AGM"

""Agrium's Board has, in our view, done little to ensure that shareowners in the company have the information they need to make informed decisions" — Credit Agricole / CLSA, 11/5/12; "Agrium's EBITDA targets can be met with acquisitions at any price at all, with no reference to return on capital" — Credit Agricole / CLSA, 11/5/12"

""After unification, 100% of your dividends have to be franked for shareholders to benefit. So, when you think of our shareholder returns policy... paying out at 60% over the last 8 years, that means 60% of our earnings have to be in Australia to have the capacity to keep on fully franking." — Peter Cunningham, CFO, 31 July 2024"

"Arconic cannot blame poor performance on the disastrous Firth Rixson acquisition. From 2013-2016, the Company invested over $3 billion in capital apart from the Firth Rixson deal. But merely generated an incremental $109 million of Net Operating Profit After Tax (NOPAT) for a Return on Incremental Invested Capital of only 3.4%"

"In 2023, Parkland was a top performer on the Toronto Stock Exchange, achieving a total shareholder return of approximately 50 percent — Parkland Press Release. The outstanding share performance of Parkland in 2023 is a clear expression of our shareholders' support of Parkland's direction and strategy — Parkland Press Release."

"Companies that consistently invested their cash flow and resources in a share repurchase program have generated material outperformance over the past 5, 10 and 15 year periods, leading to an average of more than 4% greater annualized returns versus the S&P 500 index and 4x the amount of investor gains over the 15-year period"

"In addition, these loans are priced at market rates, which not only helps to diversify our balance sheet, but also provides an additional return above our cost of funding and a yield similar to the net interest margin of our loans, which are unsecured. — CFO Lapointe, SOFI Technologies, Inc., Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript"

""They did that for a reason, because the Joint Value I discussed. They were worried people would go, 'wait a minute, now your just placing the robots, in return for cases.' So you're wiping out the million dollar price tag and your getting cases off it. It's a way to fool the numbers a little bit." — Former Mako Salesperson"

"We appreciate that Disney's studio operations are critical to sustaining a durable competitive advantage, and we do not want to do anything to jeopardize Disney's creative output, but it is imperative that Disney's content strategy strikes the right balance between creative risk-taking and maximizing return on investment"

"I have been a surgical nurse for 40 years and have seen many patients receive SCS...and many, many fail, or return to surgery for fractured electrode wires, misplaced wires, or infected battery pockets...spinal fluid leaks...severe headaches...[they] find out in 2-8 months that they wish they never had agreed to it ..."

"If Val-gan can grow organically at a high single-digit rate as Valeant management projects, and management can invest the company’s free cash flow in new acquisition targets at historical rates of return, then we believe management can achieve its goal of 15%-20% annual EPS growth — Valeant Presentation April 22, 2014"