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Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

Every emphasised callout and every pulled quote, extracted slide-by-slide. Search by keyword, filter by slide type or by source.

Showing 2041–2100 of 37,061
callout villain critique

"Neil Erlick was named Chief Corporate Development Officer of Nuvei in December 2020, making him a part of Nuvei’s Executive Management team. His biography states he, "spent nearly two decades in senior leadership roles at Paysafe Group." However, similar to Schwartz’s biography, he fails to state that he also worked at FireOne Group, a separate publicly traded company, as a named executive during the time period from 2004-2006 where it processed billions in illegal gambling transactions for U.S. customers and forfeited $19.2 million in criminal proceeds."

Nuvei Corp · NVEI Spruce Point Capital · p. 27
quote ceo quote

"“I think -- well, it's inevitable that for every CEO, the success is measured through -- with total shareholder return... And the purpose of the pharma company is to bring breakthrough products that change patients' lives... So a way to measure it, for us, it is we have put out there a list of 15 potential blockbusters that could come by the year -- in 5 years, so it is by 2022 when we put it out in '18. And I think my focus would be to make sure that we deliver more than our fair risk adjustment of this number, and that will be success.” — Albert Bourla"

Pfizer Inc. · PFE Starboard Value · p. 15
quote villain critique

"When you think about how cash flow and leverage should play out over the balance of the year, we should incur an additional $140 million to $150 million of CAPEX and approximately $140 million, $145 million of cash interest costs in the second half of the year. If you layer on the conservative assumption of working capital, ending the year as cash flow neutral, you get to a free cash flow number of somewhere between $275 million and $300 million for the back half of the year, depending on your views of where we end up in terms of EBITDA. — GFL Management"

GFL Environmental Inc. · GFL Spruce Point Capital · p. 67
quote villain critique

"First Question At Needham Conf (Jan 11, 2022): "In my discussions with investors, people are still trying to figure out what C3 AI actually does? How you fit into a broad, very fragmented analytics landscape?" — Needham Conf; Former C3 Employee (Tegus Interview, Oct 2020): "So I mean, I've been in this a long time, and I spent a lot of time looking for an AI platform. I didn't find C3 in it. And I don't think it's presented in that, right, as I find new stuff, right? So outside of the advertisements, they are literally invisible right?" — Tegus Interview"

C3.ai, Inc. · AI Spruce Point Capital · p. 18
quote villain critique

""DIS’s stepped-up Parks investment has the potential to drive significant returns, however investors likely need more insight into how DIS intends to allocate this capital across its resorts and cruise lines to factor this upside potential into estimates and valuation." — Goldman Sachs, September 2023; "Following the announcement, Disney’s shares are down ~3.5% intraday. Since it will take time before DIS sees the EBIT benefit from higher DPEP capex, we suspect investors are concerned about the potential near-term pressure to FCF." — Citi, September 2023"

The Walt Disney Company · DIS Trian Partners · p. 118
quote ceo quote

"“...we obtain data from our partners solely in the context of providing them with advertising services; we do not work separately with data brokers. Adjust and MAX operations are entirely independent and transparent, with no conflicts or house bias. We also do not have any means or desire to look at other company's bid or user data; our models use solely behavioral data, ad engagement data, win/loss notifications from mediation (same data shared to any bidder on our platform), and advertiser data to generate predictions.” — Adam Foroughi, CEO of AppLovin"

AppLovin · APP Muddy Waters · p. 24
quote villain critique

"“DIS’s stepped-up Parks investment has the potential to drive significant returns, however investors likely need more insight into how DIS intends to allocate this capital across its resorts and cruise lines to factor this upside potential into estimates and valuation.” — Goldman Sachs, September 2023; “Following the announcement, Disney’s shares are down ~3.5% intraday. Since it will take time before DIS sees the EBIT benefit from higher DPEP capex, we suspect investors are concerned about the potential near-term pressure to FCF.” — Citi, September 2023"

The Walt Disney Company · DIS Trian Partners · p. 118
quote ceo quote

"“I want to ask about the pace of store openings... But does the slower same store sales assumption change your thinking about how aggressively you want to push new stores out there?” — Mark Petrie, CIBC; “No, it does not. It does not. And that I would also add that if the pace at which we've been opening stores this year is slower than last year... it could be that there is an overlap between a few more stores at the end of this year or a few more stores in the beginning of next year, and it will keep our pace of 60 to 70.” — Michael Ross, CFO, Dollarama"

Dollarama Inc. · DOL Spruce Point Capital · p. 24
quote ceo quote

"FTAI's 2023 Module pricing is cited above. Former employees and industry experts we spoke with believe most modules swaps will be for LPTs, followed by fans. Although prices will have come up some from July 2023, they will still be in the low to mid one million range. Fans will be the least expensive. Cores will be the most expensive of the three but are very rare as modules. Prices vary depending on factors such as condition, cycle life remaining, configuration, etc. FTAI's modules tend to be built to 5,000-6,000 or fewer cycles. — Muddy Waters Research"

FTAI Aviation Ltd. · FTAI Muddy Waters · p. 60
quote villain critique

"“There’s a lot of competition. You probably realized we’re shifting a lot of the business away from them, actually. We’re rarely using Twist now. That’s my current company’s situation. So, a lot of gene synthesis is called protein expression. It’s a protein or an antibody. We can actually use a different company in China called Biointron. They synthesize DNA from DNA synthesis to deliver protein in three weeks. That’s three weeks. Twist can barely deliver DNA construct. And the other company can deliver proteins.” — Former Twist employee, director-level"

Twist Bioscience · TWST Scorpion Capital · p. 204
quote ceo quote

""Based on the Company Data Analysis, the total addressable market for our core solutions was less than 25% penetrated in 2020?" — DV Prospectus, p. 4; "Penetrated, safe to say, 95% of them use some serious verification... it's very penetrated. Now it is not a lot of green. It's more winning over clients that may use IAS... But when it comes to just picking up new clients that have no idea what verification with DV is, I would say those days are long gone, at least clients that you want to work with, so to speak." — Former Sales Executive at DoubleVerify"

DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. · DV Spruce Point Capital · p. 30
quote precedent table

"During 2016, expenses were reclassified from sales and marketing expenses to cost of revenue and general and administration for one of our businesses. The expenses moved to cost of revenue are traffic acquisition costs in nature and more appropriately classified as costs of revenue, and the other costs more appropriately classified as general and administrative expenses. For 2015, $994,000 was reclassified from sales and marketing to cost of revenue and $290,000 was reclassified from sales and marketing to general and administrative expense. — 2016 10-K"

Porch Group Inc · PRCH Spruce Point Capital · p. 60
quote villain critique

""The transaction would have been just another [Stryker] tuck-in but we believe the transaction has broader implications for [Stryker] and its plans in spinal robotics." — Analyst Zimmerman, BTIG. "Cardon robotics. So that the elements they were gonna do robotics within that there's, you know, it was a bit of a concept when we acquired it." — Former Stryker Professional Familiar With Cardan. "I can't predict that. Robotics is very difficult to predict, David. I'm just going to take a pass on that." — CEO Lobe In Response To Cardan Availability by NAS 21."

Stryker Corp. · SYK Spruce Point Capital · p. 135
quote villain critique

"“TransMedics is taking care of literally everything...actually I’m unaware if the decision is even made by the transplanting surgeon because once TransMedics takes the organ from the donor...they can make the call right then and there...if you have a lousy organ...and they’re already worried...and it doesn’t look good...they should discard it right then, but they don’t...what I have heard is that once the organ goes into the hands of TransMedics...the receiving team has very little input on anything that happens....” — Senior medical employee at OrganOx"

TransMedics Group Inc · TMDX Scorpion Capital · p. 232
callout villain critique

"LODE is promoting its new lithium recycling investment in LiNiCo, which is using the proceeds to increase its direct strategic investment in Green Li-ion Pte, Ltd. ("Green Li-ion") and purchase Green Li-ion's patented process equipment with exclusive rights for the U.S. market. Green Li-ion's website promotes having three investors, but upon closer inspection it appears the Company may be misrepresenting itself: HAX and SOSV appear to be related. The third investor, Entrepreneur First, doesn't even list or profile the Company among its 312 investments."

quote villain critique

""In the first quarter of 2020, we adopted, using the modified retrospective approach, amended accounting guidance that required credit losses on financial instruments, including trade receivables, to be measured based on an expected credit loss model instead of the incurred loss model. The expected credit loss model requires us to consider forward-looking information to estimate our allowance for credit losses. Our adoption of this guidance did not have a material impact on our financial position, results of operations or cash flows." — 2020 10-Q, p. 6"

Avery Dennison Corporation · AVY Spruce Point Capital · p. 37
quote nominee bio

""Pioneer management has delivered [a] text book repositioning of a portfolio previously spread across more than seven countries to become a 100% U.S. focused resource player." — Bank of America Merrill Lynch (October 2, 2012); "We believe that Anadarko has transformed itself from a company with an inferior asset base and questionable capital allocation success into a company with a strong asset base. The company continues to deliver at-or-above expectations and we believe that it can continue to surprise to the upside.." — Lehman Brothers (May 7, 2008)"

Hess Corporation · HES Elliott Management · p. 101
quote villain critique

""The Company had capital expenditures with Floor & Decor Holdings, Inc., a specialty retail vendor in the flooring market. These capital expenditures amounted to $0.1 million, $0.6 million, and $0.4 million in fiscal 2023, fiscal 2022, and fiscal 2021, respectively, and were recorded as property and equipment, net on the consolidated balance sheets. During these fiscal years, certain members of the Company's board of directors either served on the board of directors or as an executive officer at Floor & Decor Holdings, Inc." — Boot Barn Proxy Statement"

Floor & Decor Holdings, Inc. · FND Spruce Point Capital · p. 116
quote ceo quote

"“strive to meet the same standards of transparency that we ask of the companies our clients are invested in” and to “report Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions for our corporate operations” — CEO Larry Fink, ‘Dear Client Letter’, 2021. “we said, and I have always been loud on this, we are not going to support Scope 3 at this time” and “I have no problem in doing Scope 1 and 2. But we have always said that Scope 3 is forcing big companies, banks, and asset managers to be the environmental police” — CEO Larry Fink, Bloomberg’s interview, 2 June 2022."

BlackRock · BLK Bluebell Capital · p. 50
quote appendix data

""We believe that the market is giving a sizable discount to the value of its cash and investment assets which account for 44% of the current market cap due to poor capital management." — JPMorgan, June 15, 2015; "With the newly created incentive to pay out more of it earnings through dividends, all investors in SEOC [newco] would benefit." — Credit Suisse, January 12, 2015; "If Samsung Group were to restructure into a holding company, our case studies show it would be likely to have positive share price implications." — Deutsche Bank, November 3, 2014"

quote villain critique

""The Company's reported effective tax rate was 21.4% in 2018, 34.5% in 2017, and 23.8% in 2016. As discussed below, the provision for income taxes included charges of $3.6 million in 2018 and $72 million in 2017 related to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act ("the Act") which had the effect of increasing our effective tax rate by 0.6% and 12.5% in 2018 and 2017, respectively. The 2018 effective tax rate also included a benefit of 0.7% associated with the one-time gain related to the settlement of the Biotix contingent consideration." — Mettler-Toledo SEC Filing"

Mettler-Toledo International, Inc. · MTD Spruce Point Capital · p. 62
quote ceo quote

""It's not all going to be Software as a Service, I've met no CIOs who think that" — Bob Beauchamp (2007, Interview with The Australian); "SaaS initiative includes our new BMC Remedy OnDemand Solution, which provides customers with a full industry leading service management offering delivered as a service" — Bob Beauchamp (Q4 2010 Earnings Conference Call); "We were then late, unfortunately, as you well know, to the SaaS market. So when it turned to SaaS, we didn't have a great answer at the same time" — Bob Beauchamp (Q4 2012 Earnings Conference Call)"

BMC Software · BMC Elliott Management · p. 29
quote villain critique

"The parties hereto desire to amend the Credit Agreement: (i) to increase the aggregate Revolving Credit Commitments from $50,000,000 to $75,000,000; (ii) to add KeyBank National Association “KeyBank”, by joinder, as a Lender under the Credit Agreement, with a Revolving Credit Commitment of $25,000,000; (iii) to permit the Borrowers to grant a subordinate purchase-money security interest to Merial LLC (“Merial”); and (iv) to make various technical corrections and other modifications, all as set forth below. — PETQ Q2 FY18 10-Q: Amended Credit Agreement"

PetIQ, Inc. · PETQ Spruce Point Capital · p. 80
quote appendix data

"“For example, you just took the elevator from the lower level elevator, and at the entrance of the elevators there are three LCD screens, this is considered one location. There are also screens at the upper level elevators. The lower level elevator is considered one location and the upper level elevators is also considered to be one location. There are two locations in this building, each location may have one, two or three screens. 'Location' really means the spots in one specific building. There are 70,000 LCD screens nationwide.” — FMCN Salesperson"

Focus Media Holding · FMCN Muddy Waters · p. 9
quote villain critique

"On January 1, 2021, the Company acquired substantially all of the net assets of Base Commerce LLC ("Base"), a technology-driven payment processing company specializing in bank card and automated clearing house payment processing solutions. The purchase price for this acquisition totaled $92,678. The remaining amount consists of a contingent consideration of $3,004 which is contingent upon meeting certain performance metrics. ... Acquisition costs of $268 have been expensed during the nine months ended September 30, 2021. — Nuvei Q3'21 Financials, p.9"

Nuvei Corp · NVEI Spruce Point Capital · p. 65
quote sop buildup

""At the end of the day, it's just a label, it's just a label. There's no rocket science around paper that you coat with an adhesive." — Former Avery VP, 7 Yr Veteran. "RFID is one of the few upside growth areas in RBIS. I left because there wasn't enough upward mobility." — Former Business Development Manager, RFID. "The principal considerations for our determination that performing procedures relating to the goodwill impairment assessment of one reporting unit in the IHM reportable segment is a critical audit matter..." — 2019 Critical Audit Matter."

Avery Dennison Corporation · AVY Spruce Point Capital · p. 9
quote appendix methodology

"Although there is some considerable overlap among analysts as to what might be appropriate adjustments to Funds From Operations that would make it a better measure of dividend paying capacity, NAREIT believes that there is not adequate consensus among preparers and users of the REIT financial statements to allow agreement on a single definition of Funds (Cash) Available for Distribution or AFFO. Further, NAREIT does not believe that there is a single measure of distributable cash that is consistently applicable to all REITs. — NAREIT 2002 White Paper"

American Tower Corp · AMT Muddy Waters · p. 112
quote villain critique

"We previously utilized retrospective RNA genetic testing for specific variants in Ambry's Translational Genomics (ATG) lab. With this approach, we observed two critical limitations. First, deep intronic pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants that were clinically actionable still remained undetected. Second, there was a 90% lost to follow-up rate for patients who were offered additional RNA studies due to the need to send in an additional sample. Therefore, it is more advantageous to offer RNA testing concurrently with DNA testing. — Ambry Genetic Blog"

Tempus AI, Inc. · TEM Spruce Point Capital · p. 65
quote ceo quote

""Importantly, we'll have strong cash flow generation as a result of this transaction, about $1 billion in operating cash flow in the second year and accelerating...." — Acquisition of Bayer by Elanco 8/20/2019; "Looking at our returns, Elanco will generate significant cash flow and exercise strong cash management to pay down debt, reducing interest cost as quickly as possible, increasing optionality of the business and most importantly delivering double digit EPS growth to unlock value for you, our shareholders." — Elanco 2020 Investor Day 12/15/2020"

quote ceo quote

"“strive to meet the same standards of transparency that we ask of the companies our clients are invested in” and to “report Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions for our corporate operations” — CEO Larry Fink, ‘Dear Client Letter’, 2021. “we said, and I have have been loud on this, we are not going to support Scope 3 at this time” and “I have no problem in doing Scope 1 and 2. But we have always said that Scope 3 is forcing big companies, banks, and asset managers to be the environmental police” — CEO Larry Fink, Bloomberg’s interview, 2 June 2022."

BlackRock, Inc. · BLK Bluebell Capital · p. 50
quote peer gap

"The discretionary components of our business, which are the most affected by general economic conditions, have been challenged by cautious consumer spending on big ticket items like swimming pools and outdoor living projects resulting in sales of building materials declining 11% for the year compared to the same period in 2023. We now believe that new pool units could be down 15% to 20% in 2024, and remodeling activity for 2024 may be down as much as 15% compared to our previous estimate of flat to down 10% compared to 2023. — Pool Corp Press Release"

Floor & Decor Holdings, Inc. · FND Spruce Point Capital · p. 121
quote villain critique

"I don't know what they own the IP on if it's the cell channels or the process—the optofluidics thing to move a cell. So, it's hard for me to say. Here's the thing, there are so many different ways that modern nano and micro-fluidics can come up with something that would compete with Berkeley Lights that could be cheaper... If people start using it, then we'll come up with something that costs a quarter of what this costs, and we'll low-ball them because all these pharma authorities spend $20-30 million with us every year. — Bristol Meyers employee #1"

Berkeley Lights · BLI Scorpion Capital · p. 55
quote villain critique

"All the differences between the unaudited accounts and AR that have been referred to in the CLSA’s Report, are essentially re-classification changes between subsidiary accounts in different jurisdictions as compared to Group consolidation; and/or re-classification between line items within the Group accounts. However, this does not lead to any inaccuracy in reported profits, net assets or point to any lack of internal controls, as has been stated in the CLSA report. None of these adjustments have any P&L impact. — Olam response to CLSA Analyst Report"

quote villain critique

"There was a lot of bias in the Nevro pivotal trial. We had to talk people into the study, and then they'd go home and pray they got the new stimulator and then they'd get the old one and be grumpy. It wasn't a pristine way to set up a study. I hope the study wasn't bs. It does bother me. I'm going to say it was done honestly. It's just that as the study unfolded, I could see the bias. I'm different than most guys Nevro markets to. I need higher evidence. I haven't switched my patients over to Nevro. — KOL and key player in the SENZA-RCT pivotal trial"

Nevro Corp. · NVRO Scorpion Capital · p. 60
quote villain critique

"“We did talk to Soleno when they were doing their Phase 3 trial...we did see the data, and we did see the number of people who had diabetes. I do know at least two families that dropped out of the Vykat study, and both of their kids got diabetes, and they were not pre-diabetic. That’s concerning to me. And both of them are still now struggling with controlling diabetes. I think that people who take this drug —you now have another problem that you have to treat, that’s a bigger problem —” — KOL in the PWS field; involved with Soleno’s clinical program"

Soleno Therapeutics · SLNO Scorpion Capital · p. 247
quote appendix disclosure

"On July 14, 2025 (the “Signing Date”), Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. (the “Company”) entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement (the “Purchase Agreement”) with certain institutional investors (collectively, the “Investors”). Pursuant to the Purchase Agreement, the Company has agreed to sell, and the Investors have agreed to purchase, in two closings, for an aggregate purchase price of $82 million, (i) certain senior unsecured convertible notes in the aggregate original principal amount of $82 million (the “Unsecured Notes”) — 8-K filing."

quote transition

"“... Oasis believes Kao can become a competitive global player and emulate the success of companies such as Beiersdorf and L'Oréal... Through a committed focus on personal care and cosmetics, Oasis believes Kao can become a competitive global player and emulate the success of companies such as Beiersdorf and L'Oreal. Kao needs a leadership that can articulate an ambitious growth strategy built on a cohesive overseas growth plan focused on a core set of brands and backed by a credible marketing, branding and distribution strategy.” — Oasis Management"

Kao Corporation · 4452.JP Oasis Management · p. 68
quote ceo quote

"“Once you become a Distributor there is a really good thing called Management Fees [consulting fees]. In Herbalife, the biggest part of our pay comes from Management Fees. Some people earn 100,000 RMB to 200,000 RMB per month. It is not possible to earn this kind of money just from retail profits.” — Ms. Ping, Guangzhou; “Even if I don’t earn money from any personal sales I still earn hourly consulting pay.” — Ms. Chen, Guangzhou; “Earning 30% of retail profits is not very much. But the consulting fee paid by Herbalife is very high.” — Mr. Hu, Hefei"

Herbalife Ltd. · HLF Pershing Square · p. 26
quote villain critique

"We compute our average days sales outstanding, or DSO, as of a given date based on our trade receivables balance at the end of the period, divided by the average daily revenue of the trailing three-month period. We compute our average days payable outstanding, or DPO, as of a given date based on our trade payables balance at the end of the period, divided by the average daily cost of operating expenses over such period, excluding depreciation, amortization, and certain other costs that are excluded from Adjusted EBITDA. — DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc."

DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. · DV Spruce Point Capital · p. 49
quote villain critique

"As part of Short-term receivables - controlled or controlling person, significant influence, the Company reports receivables from ORCO PROPERTY GROUP S.A. as of December 31, 2017. On account of remuneration for assignment of receivables in the amount of 461,382 thous. CZK (2016 - CZK 0 thousand). The subject of the assignment was a receivable from a third party, which was reported under Other short-term receivables in the amount of 442,354 thousand as of December 31, 2016. CZK and outstanding interest for 2017. — CPI Hotels Financial Statements 2017"

quote villain critique

""Intel uses pellicles. TSMC has had a mixed history of using pellicles or not using pellicles, but for the most part, hasn't been." — Longtime semiconductor consultant recently working for Lasertec; "One other thing I would point out is on the High-NA side. If you've been reading the news reports, it looks like TSMC is not going to push very hard on High-NA. What they've decided to do, apparently, is do multiple patterning standard EUV rather than trying to do single pattern High-NA." — Longtime semiconductor consultant recently working for Lasertec"

Lasertec Corporation · 6920 Scorpion Capital · p. 260
callout appendix data

"Article 224(A) of the Criminal Law: Defines a pyramid scheme as a scheme in which “the participants are required to obtain the qualification for participation by paying fees, purchasing commodities or services or any other means, the participants are classified into different levels according to a certain order, the calculation of remunerations or kickbacks to participants is directly or indirectly dependent on the number of persons recruited, and the participants are induced to continue or coerced into continuing recruiting others to participate.”"

Herbalife Ltd. · HLF Pershing Square · p. 62
quote villain critique

"When Xylem spun out of ITT it was not integrated. ITT had internal businesses competing with each other. When it spun out the number of ERP CRM CPQ systems where like 50 to 70 different systems across the Company. Legal entities, much higher than that. Initially, we were a self-help story. Everyone loved it for a while. We made progress, but there is a lot still there. The question is how does Xylem find a way to live with the complexity vs. getting to one system. Very expensive and a lot of change management to fix things. — Former Xylem Executive"

Xylem Inc. · XYL Spruce Point Capital · p. 18
quote villain critique

"Cost of revenue primarily consist of professional fees and materials under the Managed Services model and credit card processing fees, including merchant fees. — Prospectus, p. 70; Porch provides ERP and CRM software to a wide variety of home services companies. Those companies can pay us with typical software fees or we really encourage those companies to pay us by providing us access to their consumer, to their homebuyers, where we then generate B2B2C transactional revenues as we help those consumers with key services for their home. — Transcript"

Porch Group Inc · PRCH Spruce Point Capital · p. 52
quote villain critique

""And here's the other thing you have to be very cautious about... when they sell an engine, they're not selling an engine. They're selling [three] modules. So the, The Module Factory numbers are much higher than what real [customer demand for the Factory] is." — Consultant A. "Well, I'm no longer there. But I could tell you that was the line of thought when I was there...so what I'm suggesting is that that is still happening...there would be more of those modules [that] would be attributed to engine sales than to true module swaps." — Consultant A."

FTAI Aviation Ltd. · FTAI Muddy Waters · p. 16
quote ceo quote

"No, this started in 20... in 2015 it already started. Because then we were doing O2O [online to offline], we helped many institutes attract more traffic. At that time there were few students, but we want the teachers to feel that there were many, especially when we just started, for example just five students might have signed up and the remaining 500 were robots, letting the traffic volume become very big, going online listening to the class, it let them feel that the platform’s volume was huge. Starting from 2015 this was there. — Former Employee"

GSX Techedu Inc. · GSX Muddy Waters · p. 12
quote villain critique

"Yeah. They should not be allowed to have access to Donor Net. And I know that really certainly pisses off some OPOs when, for example, you get a situation where a transplant center turns down a liver that TransMedics has arrived to recover. And the TransMedics people start calling around to other surgeons, other programs, saying there’s a liver out there. Do you want to take it? And the OPOs are like, you can’t do that; that’s our job. We’ll allocate the organ; don’t be making these phone calls. — Transplant surgeon at a high volume academic center"

TransMedics Group Inc · TMDX Scorpion Capital · p. 151
quote ceo quote

""We did [the CoreWeave deal] because we all got caught with the hit called Chat GPT and Open AI APIs, right? We were completely, I mean like, yeah, it was, it was impossible... And that is a one-time thing and then now it's all catching up and you know, so that was just more about trying to get caught up with demand." — Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, BG2 Podcast, December 2024; "Microsoft has had time to pivot; it's been two and half years since ChatGPT hit... they don't need to depend on other people anymore" — Former Principal Architect at Nvidia."

CoreWeave, Inc. · CRWV Kerrisdale Capital · p. 19
quote ceo quote

""Haphazard efforts at omnichannel can destroy value" and "Offering a compelling omnichannel experience used to be the bleeding edge of retail. Now it’s a requirement for survival." — McKinsey On Retail Omnichannel. "Moving to our third initiative, strengthening our omnichannel leadership. In the third quarter, our e-commerce sales declined 11.5%. Our online channel has felt pressure due to less efficient online marketing spend, partly caused by an increase in digital spend by a handful of vendors and competitors." — CEO James Conroy, Jan 31, 2024."

Boot Barn Holdings, Inc. · BOOT Spruce Point Capital · p. 47
quote villain critique

"“It’s their Achilles’ Heel at the same time.” — Ex-senior executive of Gen9; “I have thought so for many years.” — Ex-senior executive of Gen9; “Instead of using the minimum number of spots to make a gene, they over-engineer or over-produce in order to guarantee that they’re going to get a gene and even with that, they still only have a 90% delivery rate or something like that... there’s no way that you can sell a gene at 10 cents a base pair or 5 cents a base pair or to Ginkgo at 1.5 cents and hope to be profitable.” — Ex-senior executive of Gen9"

Twist Bioscience · TWST Scorpion Capital · p. 103
quote villain critique

"“Because they can’t get to scale. If you’re designing a new hybridization capture panel, you’re going to test out a whole bunch of different designs... However, especially in a regulated space like oncology, once you’ve decided on your design, you want to repeat it over the course of thousands and thousands of patients. So, you need not small femtogram amounts of each of the oligos that go into that panel. You need pico to nanogram amounts of that, that you can then divide out onto many, many panels.” — IDT ex-regional sales manager, left recently"

Twist Bioscience · TWST Scorpion Capital · p. 92
quote sop buildup

""At current valuation levels, by simply marking to market the value of non-refining businesses, we estimate one can create the MPC refining business for effectively free before even incorporating the upside from IMO 2020." — Goldman Sachs, March 19, 2019; "We see discounted value in MPC with the stock trading in line with many of its peers on 2020 EBITDA despite its corporate structure with retail and midstream deserving a premium. However, debate has centered on investors' confidence in MPC's earnings achievability." — Morgan Stanley, May 9, 2019"

Marathon Petroleum Corporation · MPC Elliott Management · p. 20
quote villain critique

"It is called an index universal life insurance policy. It is cash value on steroids. — WFG Recruiter; You can never get that in the bank. It's gonna never, ever, ever lose money, my friend. Never in your life. And you will never ever pay taxes. — WFG Recruiter; I-U-L remember, I told you to write down index universal life. If you can qualify for that baby, your future is brighter than the sun. — WFG Recruiter; I could not tell you this in all fidelity with the license, and keep my keep my license. If I wasn't telling you the truth. — WFG Recruiter"

Aegon Ltd. · AEG Spruce Point Capital · p. 65
quote propose solution

""We also believe the rationale for consolidation in coatings remains strong (US peers commented on the need for large scale M&A at GS Basic Materials Conference earlier in May)." — Goldman Sachs research, 6/4/18; "...[we] continue to note that with the coatings industry at the cusp of another round of global consolidation, Akzo is the key strategic asset." — Deutsche Bank research, 4/24/18; "The global coatings sector is consolidating and AXTA could be an acquisition candidate, which could be an upside risk to the shares." — Citi research, 4/19/18"

PPG Industries, Inc. · PPG Trian Partners · p. 34
quote ceo quote

""In that meeting, Mr. Bodner reiterated his position that he believed there is no incremental value that could be generated from separating CES and CIS, that Verint's customers do not want to transition to the cloud, and that Verint had no intention to pursue a cloud-centric strategy for CES." — Neuberger Berman Proxy Filing; "As we've discussed [on] prior calls, enterprise customers have been interested in a move to the cloud and what we've seen lately is that they've accelerated the cloud adoption and cloud purchases." — Dan Bodner – CEO, Verint"

Verint Systems, Inc. · VRNT Spruce Point Capital · p. 52
quote villain critique

"I heard anecdotally that Nevro was paying $1,000 an hour. Question: Do you think what they're doing is essentially a kickback or an inducement? "Well, I'm not an ethicist but that certainly seems to be the case. [laughs] I mean, a hundred percent. Hundred percent." — KOL #1; "Yeah, because they're just trying to feed their kids. They're saying, "If you do this, we'll take care of you." ... Question: Have you ever observed the Nevro reps do anything illegal or what you thought may cross the line, or is it just kind of gray? "All the time"" — KOL #2"

Nevro Corp. · NVRO Scorpion Capital · p. 215
quote ceo quote

"“We did talk to Soleno when they were doing their Phase 3 trial...we did see the data, and we did see the number of people who had diabetes. I do know at least two families that dropped out of the Vykat study, and both of their kids got diabetes, and they were not pre-diabetic. That’s concerning to me. And both of them are still now struggling with controlling diabetes. I think that people who take this drug —you now have another problem that you have to treat, that’s a bigger problem —” — KOL in the PWS field; closely involved with Soleno’s trial"

Soleno Therapeutics · SLNO Scorpion Capital · p. 110
quote villain critique

"“it’s like a horse pill”; “they’re going to chew it”; “I was concerned because the fourth most common cause of death...is choking...they can’t swallow...their choking reflex is poor...it’s a problem...I saw that...they would chew, those that I witnessed...concerns with that big pill....make sure your child doesn’t choke...after I saw the size of that pill and said, oh my God, they’re never going to swallow this...I guess if you chew it, you swallow it in smaller pieces.” — Trial investigator and physician; one of the leading KOL’s in the PWS field"

Soleno Therapeutics · SLNO Scorpion Capital · p. 221
quote villain critique

"“Well, it's amazing you've done all that good investigation. It's very concerning...I feel like the truth eventually comes out... I've seen this before... I've learned to be cautious...it's so super expensive...and they didn't have weight loss data...that is concerning to me”; “you obviously are 20 steps ahead of me...I don't think we've started anyone on this in our whole practice...we may be foolishly just applying for it...it's very strange...you're quite knowledgeable on this.” — Pediatric oncologist, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)"

Soleno Therapeutics · SLNO Scorpion Capital · p. 351
quote other

""Stryker is reducing gross margin expectations. We're now 18 months into COVID maybe two years. Why do you think is the reason it's taken so long for them to admit some of the supply chain challenges?" — Spruce Point Question. "So what's been happening here is just indicative of the larger ecosystem in terms of all the supply chain challenges that are ongoing... I think that's now playing catch up where, it's just been hard for Stryker to keep up with the level of issues going on with their supply base." — Former Stryker Supply Chain Professional."

Stryker Corp. · SYK Spruce Point Capital · p. 187