Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

""In a somewhat surprising tactic, PSX management talked down the potential [sum-of-the-parts] upside (i.e., [stating that the Company is] fairly valued)...." — Piper Sandler, March 2025; "The biggest issue for Phillips, in my opinion, is that they are not at all focused on creating shareholder value. They are focused on status quo." — Phillips 66 Shareholder A; "If I were being harsh, and I think it is appropriate, I would almost say that they are just trying to coast along." — Phillips 66 Shareholder B"

"“They show a little membrane, and people are flexing it between the blue glove. That membrane is the solid electrolyte. They've got to scale that from that little credit card that he's pinching in his fingers to sheets, literally hundreds and hundreds of meters long, and being able to produce that all day long every day. There's an area scale up. And they have to be able to do that defect-free. Any hole or any crack in that membrane is going to be a place where the battery will short.” — Former employee"

"Multi-level distribution companies shall not represent, directly or indirectly, that participants in a multi-level marketing program will earn or receive any stated gross or net amount, or represent in any manner, the past earnings of participants . . . Multi-level distribution companies shall not represent, directly or indirectly, that additional distributors or sales personnel are easy to secure or retain, or that all or substantially all participants will succeed. — Massachusetts and Wyoming statutes"

"For example, we face increasing competition from entrepreneurs such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, who have been or are in the process of developing liquid fuel propulsion capabilities which are primarily focused on the development of space propulsion systems for heavy lift launch vehicles. These new entrepreneurs have signaled their intent to compete primarily on price and are therefore bringing pressure to bear on existing cost paradigms and our manufacturing methodologies — Aerojet Rocketdyne Risk Factor"

"“When we use it, those are kids that are on high rates of intravenous fluids already, because their blood sugar is not being stabilized on a normal amount of IV fluid that you might give someone, even a little baby size. Because they're on such high rates, 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. We're definitely cautious about it.” — Pediatric oncologist, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)"

""The author's allegations regarding our loyalty program are the unfortunate result of not understanding our business. The author does not at the least take due care to quote the correct financial figures, as the author claims that 'as of Q2 2019, trailing twelve-month loyalty program expenses totaled $701.8 million, or 100.2% of its SEC reported revenue', while our reported figures were RMB 2,074 million (or approximately USD 300 million), or 43% of SEC reported revenue." — QTT's response to our report."

"We're really going to try to get the algorithm right to cut where we can and not necessarily do things the same way. As I mentioned, we're also using technology to reduce some of our operating costs, and that gives us a little bit of headroom also to absorb some inflation. But we're really trying to use our heads here to come up with a way to kind of mitigate some of these challenges that we have. — Christine McCarthy, The Walt Disney Company – Senior EVP & CFO, November 10, 2021 – FY 2021 Earnings Call"

"You should assume that as of the publication date of our reports and research, Muddy Waters Capital LLC (possibly along with or through our members, partners, affiliates, employees, and/or consultants) along with our clients and/or investors and/or their clients and/or investors, has a short position in all stocks (and/or options, swaps, and other derivatives related to the stock) and bonds covered herein, and therefore stands to realize significant gains in the event that the price of either declines."

"You should assume that as of the publication date of our reports and research, Muddy Waters Capital LLC (possibly along with or through our members, partners, affiliates, employees, and/or consultants) along with our clients and/or investors and/or their clients and/or investors, has a short position in all stocks (and/or options, swaps, and other derivatives related to the stock) and bonds covered herein, and therefore stands to realize significant gains in the event that the price of either declines."

"We arrive at the start of the 2018 MotoGP season with high expectations. Today we are enthusiastically celebrating the presentation of our team in such a prestigious location as Lamborghini and with the welcome participation of Ducati. A great Italian event that we hope will be a good omen starting from the first race in Qatar next Sunday. We start a fascinating new adventure with Alma and I would like to thank Luigi Scavone for the trust with which he shared our project. — Paolo Campinoti, Generac EVP"

""We have had this strategic transformation... underway really going back... since I became Chairman... In fact, Elliott got on the train after it really left the station... This is a culmination of a multi-year strategy..." — John Hess, March 2013; "Absolutely, that is the correct understanding of my remarks, that the major moves to reshape our portfolio in terms of divestiture to complete the strategic reshaping of our portfolio, will have been completed by the end of 2013." — John Hess, January 2013."

"“WindMark Beach is situated on approximately 2,020 acres in Gulf County near the town of Port St. Joe and includes approximately 15,000 feet of beachfront. This beachfront resort destination is planned to include approximately 1,662 units at full build-out, together with 75,000 square feet of commercial space. Construction to realign approximately four miles of U.S. Highway 98 away from the beachfront was completed in 2006. Sales in the second phase of WindMark Beach began in 2006.” — 2006 10-K, page 8"

"4x more customers are adopting aluminum wheels than they were 15 years ago...that's pretty good, right? What's really good about that chart is the aluminum wheel cost is about twice what a steel wheel does. So if you're back into the math, it says that only 20% of the aluminum wheels in that market or the wheels in that market are aluminum today. — Tim Myers, EVP TCS, 2016 Investor Day; And that market continues to grow at least at the speed of 10%, 15%. — Jose Drummond, Fmr. EVP TCS, 2015 Investor Day"

"An increase in transportation costs could have an adverse effect on our ability to increase or to maintain production on a profit-making basis and could therefore adversely affect our revenues and earnings. Because transportation costs represent a significant portion of the total cost of coal for our customers, increases in transportation costs could also reduce overall demand for coal or make our coal production less competitive than coal produced from other sources or other regions. — AMR Disclosures"

"“In terms of margins, the accounting change really accounts for the shift that you're seeing. So we have not revised up or revised down our expectations” — DuPont Management. “...Safety and Protection margin [targets] that you show are 21% to 23% which is what they were 18 months ago. But you now exclude your pension cost...[which was] more than 500 basis points.” — JP Morgan analyst. “...You're right, Jeff. The margin is lower between 400 and 500 basis points from that standpoint” — DuPont Management."

"“The company sells constant-speed drive shaft, car wheel units and drive shaft and other products. Revenue recognition for domestic sales meet the following conditions: the product has been delivered to the company according to the contract, and the amount of product’s sales revenue is determined, the payment has been collected or a payment voucher has been obtained, the associated economic benefits will likely flow to the company, the costs related to the products can be reliably measured.” — Wanxiang"

"“the problem is that the national registry, the UNOS database, doesn’t collect information about...the perfusion time or some of the parameters we think are very important, like donor warm ischemia time.” — KOL; “more than 50% [of donor livers] are over 30 minutes” and that “we’ve waited two hours...we wait 45 minutes” — TransMedics’ highest-volume user; “the rationale is you had a significant increase in the rate of complications...where the liver just doesn’t work.” — TransMedics’ highest-volume user"

"While these inconsistencies suggest that there may be discrepancies in the sell side's view of the base of the market, we are intrigued most by the fact that, regardless of how analysts identify and measure the market, they appear to significantly underestimate the pace of competitive market share gains: again, the sell side appears to assume that Penumbra will lose 2-3% market share per year, while Medtronic claims to have gained 15% in under a year and to be on pace to capture another 10% this year."

"You should assume that as of the publication date of our reports and research, Muddy Waters Capital LLC (possibly along with or through our members, partners, affiliates, employees, and/or consultants) along with our clients and/or investors and/or their clients and/or investors has a short position in all stocks (and/or options, swaps, and other derivatives related to the stock) and bonds covered herein, and therefore stands to realize significant gains in the event that the price of either declines."

"“RUN may, without your consent, assign, lease, sublease, or transfer the Solar System and this Agreement, along with the rights and obligations hereunder, to any third party (each, an “Assignee”) for any purpose, including without limitation, collection of unpaid amounts, financing of the Solar System’s installation, or in the event of acquisition, corporate reorganization, merger or sale of substantially all of RUN’s assets to another entity.” — RUN BrightSave PPA Agreement Dated November 2017, p. 12"

"The Company paid: MORE compensation to its top officers than the median compensation for 28 similarly sized companies with a median enterprise value of $1 billion; MORE than a sector group of 23 large consumer discretionary companies with a median enterprise value of $1.2 billion; and MORE than a sub-industry group of 9 specialty stores companies. The CEO was paid above the median CEO in these peer groups. Overall, the Company PAID MORE than its peers, BUT PERFORMED WORSE than its peers. — Glass Lewis"

""We're realists about the business and about the impact technology has had on how product is distributed, marketed, and consumed... All of this has and will continue to put pressure on the multi-channel ecosystem, which has seen a decline in overall households as well as growth in so-called skinny or cable-light packages. ESPN has experienced some modest sub losses, although those have been less than reported by one of the prominent research firms." — Robert A. Iger, Disney CEO & Director, August 2015"

"“bizarre that they would take on such a cost for convenience...you can’t have outrageous organ acquisition charges...for the surgeon’s convenience.” He doubted the legality of surgeon’s simply fabricating a clinical indication – “they can pump anything and say, look, I was wondering about the functionality of the lung, and I need to check it for a couple of hours...I don’t think anybody would say that out loud.” — Longtime executive at major OPO (organ procurement organization), and on UNOS committees"

"Moyi, which is owned solely by Chinese shareholders, is granted an Internet Content Provider license (“ICP License”). Businesses in China that are engaged in the business of Internet information services, including online advertisement and e-commerce services, are required to obtain an ICP License. Due to Chinese regulatory restrictions on foreign investments in the Internet sector, we operate our marketing platform and conduct our business through Moyi pursuant to the Moyi Agreements. — Moxian's 10-K"

"This was why in February 2018 we made the decision to acquire Dianguan which then became our in-house advertising platform. At the time of this acquisition, Dianguan had built up a good technical base as it owned several intellectual properties, which were valuable assets for us to further develop our proprietary advertising platform related technology. The acquisition decision was made after thorough due diligence, the purchase consideration of RMB15 million was supported by a valuation report. — QTT"

""U.S. Person Prohibitions. The ITSR [Iranian Transaction and Sanctions Regulations] prohibits the exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States or by a U.S. person, wherever located, of any goods, technology, or services (including aircraft and related goods, technology or services) to Iran, unless the transactions are exempt from regulation or authorized by OFAC." — U.S. Treasury Department Iran-Related Civil Aviation Industry Advisory dated July 23, 2019"

"“The Boot Barn customer is younger, makes more money and SKUs more female than most people realize. So the average age of the customers is 44 years old, the median income is $75,000, and while men's product out sales ladies product about 2:1, half of our customer foot traffic is female.” — CEO Conroy, ICR Conference, Jan 12, 2015; “Our median income is about $75,000” — CEO Conroy, CNBC Interview, June 6, 2023; “Our consumer is still pretty solid I would say” — CEO Conroy, CNBC Interview, June 6, 2023"

"“...we announced the acquisition of Ciba's textile effects business. This was an acquisition of roughly $255 million with an $88 million LTM EBITDA. It is our objective over the course of the next two years to invest about $100 million into that textile effects business, and we believe we can get that EBITDA up to about 15%, 16% of sales; increase that EBITDA from its present rate of about $90 million run rate, upwards of about $150 million run rate.” — Peter Huntsman, President & CEO, September 2006"

"“My personal opinion is that Cesar Navarro is totally corrupt and even more politically protected by President Evo Morales himself (another great corrupt too).” “...Particularly in the case of Minera Alcira and Cesar Navarro, the secrecy with which they handled the issue and the speed of procedures in all administrative instances, to grant prospecting areas, is very suspicious. This fact clearly shows Navarro's interest in Minera Alcira.” — Bolivian Journalist Who Reports on the Local Mining Industry"

"“BlackRock clearly stated that climate risk is an investment risk, but actions speak louder than words. The appointment of the CEO of the world’s largest oil producer to BlackRock’s board undermines its own stated climate commitments. At a time when financial institutions need to take a collective approach to addressing the financial risks from climate change, BlackRock shareholders expect climate-competent, not climate-conflicted, directors” — Brad Lander, the New York City Comptroller, 19 July 2023"

""Our guidance includes the following assumptions related to the acquired G&K business: no transaction and integration expenses; revenue of $870 million to $900 million, compared to a prior year run rate of $965 million; synergies of approximately $50 million to $55 million; purchase price amortization expense related to intangible assets of $50 million; interest expense on G&K acquisition debt of about $65 million; and an EPS contribution of $0.15 to $0.17." — CFO Q4 2017 Earnings Call, July 20, 2017"

"“I’m watching out for that...[she] already has quite big ankles”; “my son can’t tell me if he’s in pain or not but his legs looks bigger to me”; “I’m noticing several people experiencing edema as a potentially serious side effect...my kiddo struggles with expressive language and I’m not confident he will communicate or notice if he is uncomfortable...he has severe OSA...so I absolutely do not want any extra strain on his heart/lungs from fluid retention.” — Anonymous parents in Vykat discussion group"

"“systems violations”; “an increase in out-of-sequence offers, ‘open offers,’ and similar workarounds to the allocation system”; “a patchwork of opaque organ allocation practices”; patients are not “getting a fair opportunity” for an organ if they are at a center that is “not favored as an aggressive center by the participating OPO”; and that not a single OPO or transplant center has been “held accountable for any violation” of match rules. — American Society of Nephrology letter to OPTN/HHS, Feb 2024"

"The Ushio light source is DPP. Discharge produced plasma. Think of the old days with a spark plug in a car with a gap where you apply voltage and you have a spark. Now imagine tin in the middle of the spark and using electrical energy to light the tin and get plasma. It's not a well controlled process. That's why people can't harness energy from lightning - it's uncontrolled. It was painful but we would get some light. If you choose a bad technology you just can't get there. DPP has inherent issues."

"The acquisition is highly strategic and complementary to both businesses, aimed at accelerating the growth of the combined organization. It further strengthens Nuvei’s payment technology and creates a truly global presence. While Nuvei has traditionally operated in the US and Canada focusing on the SMB market, SafeCharge has established a solid foothold across European, Asian and Latin-American territories, servicing large scale merchants in both revenues and size. — Nuvei Press Release, Aug 1, 2019"

"As previously disclosed, the Securities and Exchange Commission began an informal inquiry into the issues associated with the restatement of some of our financial statements in 2001 through 2003. On August 18, 2006, we received verbal notification from the SEC that the inquiry will continue under a formal order of investigation, which we believe is a common step in such matters. We believe that the focus of the investigation is substantially the same as the informal inquiry. — MasTec Inc. SEC Filing"

""The new governance is a concern to us, the risk of dismantling and governance that would not take into account the shareholders' interest may cause Vivendi to consider as permitted by law, to request the convening of a Shareholders' Meeting to propose to reorganize the board of directors." — Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Vivendi CEO, May 17, 2018; "A Board with any single party in control faces the likely prospect of continued proxy challenges by the other party." — Vivendi Presentation, February 25, 2019"

""[We] designed our mid-cycle methodology around the 2012 to 2019 time frame. You had cycles of strong margins and weak margins during that period of time." — Phillips 66 IR, March 14, 2024; "Q: ...[W]hen you look at the differences... between Wall Street and that $14 billion, where do you think the biggest delta still are? Is it chems? Is it refining? A: The biggest delta is in refining and well below mid-cycle refining environments baked into the '25, '26 outlook..." — Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

""The other thing that they're not showing is separator thickness across the board...I mean, if they reported separator thickness, that would go a long way toward answering these questions." — Solid-state expert; "One of the solutions was to make the separator thicker, and that typically reduces the performance of the cell, and it quickly negates a lot of the advantages that solid-state gives ...If they say they can make a separator that works, but they won't tell us how thick it is..." — Ex-employee"

""[We] designed our mid-cycle methodology around the 2012 to 2019 time frame. You had cycles of strong margins and weak margins during that period of time." — Phillips 66 IR, March 14, 2024; "Q: ...[W]hen you look at the differences... between Wall Street and that $14 billion, where do you think the biggest delta still are? Is it chems? Is it refining? A: The biggest delta is in refining and well below mid-cycle refining environments baked into the '25, '26 outlook..." — Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

""How do you measure success? The answer is right here. We launched in the US and within 9 months there was a national oat milk shortage. It's cool but not cool because you want to supply that. We've come to realize we'll never be able to make enough oat milk. The demand is more great than the supply. It doesn't matter how fast we build our factories, because we're building them as fast as we can. And that's a cool way to measure success." — John Schoolcraft, Oatly's Creative Director of Mind Control"

"“In terms of margins, the accounting change really accounts for the shift that you're seeing. So we have not revised up or revised down our expectations” — DuPont Management. “...Safety and Protection margin [targets] that you show are 21% to 23% which is what they were 18 months ago. But you now exclude your pension cost...[which was] more than 500 basis points.” — Jeff Zekauskas, JP Morgan. “...You're right, Jeff. The margin is lower between 400 and 500 basis points from that standpoint” — DuPont."

"We're realists about the business and about the impact technology has had on how product is distributed, marketed, and consumed... All of this has and will continue to put pressure on the multi-channel ecosystem, which has seen a decline in overall households as well as growth in so-called skinny or cable-light packages. ESPN has experienced some modest sub losses, although those have been less than reported by one of the prominent research firms. — Robert A. Iger, Disney CEO & Director, August 2015"

""The goal is to set up the policies and incentive systems so that increasing number of quality agencies professional performers can feel motivated and driven enough to offer higher quality and more differentiated content through our platform." — Momo Earnings Call; "On the product side, one of the key hurdles that we had in improving the long-term user retention was the fact that our core use case, which was pretty much based on nearby people and instant messaging was kind of limited" — CEO Tang Yan"

"Although dd-cfDNA is an interesting and promising marker of solid transplant organ health, much work still needs to be done before clinical implementation...In conclusion, whereas observational studies published so far point to dd-cfDNA as a promising marker in the transplantation field, randomized control studies are mandatory comparing a dd-cfDNA-based monitoring strategy with the standard post-transplantation monitoring in terms of graft and patient survival. — American Journal of Transplantation"

""[We] designed our mid-cycle methodology around the 2012 to 2019 time frame. You had cycles of strong margins and weak margins during that period of time." — Phillips 66 IR, March 14, 2024; "Q: ...[W]hen you look at the differences... between Wall Street and that $14 billion, where do you think the biggest delta still are? Is it chems? Is it refining? A: The biggest delta is in refining and well below mid-cycle refining environments baked into the '25, '26 outlook..." — Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

""The stage has two problems: significantly high cost and complexity. and two, the fact that it produces particulation into the entire area. The problem with particles is two-fold. One, there is all the optics of the mask inspection system whether it's Lasertec or KLA is open optic. There is no window anywhere because you cannot put windows in EUV. So, it's a big, big chamber or two chambers are connected with a phalange." — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group"

""Shareholder returns continue to underperform peers similar in size and industry (as well as the broad industry and market index) over the last 1- and 3-fiscal year periods, while CEO compensation outranked most peers." — ISS Proxy Advisory Services, 2012 Hess Core Report. "The Company has been deficient in linking executive pay to corporate performance, as indicated by the "D" grade received by the Company in Glass Lewis' pay-for-performance model." — Glass Lewis 2012 Hess Corporation Proxy Paper."

"BlackRock clearly stated that climate risk is an investment risk, but actions speak louder than words. The appointment of the CEO of the world’s largest oil producer to BlackRock’s board undermines its own stated climate commitments. At a time when financial institutions need to take a collective approach to addressing the financial risks from climate change, BlackRock shareholders expect climate-competent, not climate-conflicted, directors — Brad Lander, the New York City Comptroller, 19 July 2023"

"As a holder of the residual value or other such interests, we are more exposed to losses on the underlying collateral because the interest we retain in the securitization vehicle or other entity would be subordinate to the more senior notes or interests issued to investors and we would, therefore, absorb all of the losses, up to the value of our interests, sustained with respect to the underlying assets before the owners of the notes or other interests experience any losses. — HASI 2021 10-K, p. 30"

"…A shareholder of a professional corporation or of a foreign professional corporation qualified to render professional services in this state shall not enter into a voting trust, proxy, or any other arrangement vesting another person (other than another person who is a shareholder of the same corporation) with the authority to exercise the voting power of any or all of the shareholder's shares, and any purported voting trust, proxy, or other arrangement shall be void. — California Corporations Code"

""2018 was the best year in TaskUs history," said CEO Bryce Maddock. "Jaspar and I started this company with $20,000 and a one room office in the Philippines; so, I am a bit awestruck by the accomplishments of our team this year, which include the Blackstone investment, being named one of the world's 100 best places to work by Glassdoor and growing to over 15,000 people worldwide. I am so proud of what the team has accomplished." — TaskUs Announces Meteoric Growth in 2018, Jan 24, 2019, Businesswire"

"I'd like to now speak about our Q3 results in the context of the key drivers of our business: people, products, traffic, and revenue. Starting with people, we ended the quarter with 10,700 full-time employees and just under 800 contractors, bringing our overall head count down 14% year over year and down 32% over the current management's tenure. We will continue to be disciplined on our head count and our thoughtful work on this area has helped appreciably on expenses. — Mayer on Q315 Earnings Call"

"“Exactly. I would say that the person that was the director of R&D, pretty much overseeing the project, was actually a Ginkgo employee at first, so he had really little say because he was an insider from Ginkgo, so he couldn’t really tell them what you’re doing is not the perfect thing. I work for Motif, and I need to have the best result for Motif. And so, you can promise me everything or anything, but at the end of the day, you have to deliver commercial strains for us.” — Current Motif executive"

"The entire optical system inside Lasertec’s EUV inspection tool needs to be replaced at least every year: “...it coats the source of the EUV light until it develops a few mono-layers of coating...and gradually you lose it...and have to replace it”: “I heard every year that they have to replace the optics...the refurbishing of those optics costs at least a million dollars or more...they need to replace mirror number two, mirror number four, and that could cost at least half a million dollars each.”"

""We got to put all that together when we put our 2022 guidance together formally, but I would say the initial receptivity (related to the Chilicon Power acquisition) continues to be strong. Our project remains online and on target and the internal excitement here around what we can do with that product line is -- if you talk to Ross Minick (Chief Marketing Officer) and his team, he's incredibly bullish on what we're going to be able to do with that longer-term" — CEO, Generac Q3 2021 Earnings Call"

""I am 70% Sofia [Terumo], probably 15% Medtronic React 71, and 15% Penumbra. It used to be that we were 100% Penumbra when they were the only thing out there... Their Jet7 catheter sucks and they know it." — Neurosurgeon; "Penumbra used to always beat itself. Once something new came out, Penumbra would come out with something better. But now Medtronic has the React 71, and that is kicking ass. In our shop, we have shifted 40-50% of our business from the Penumbra Jet to Medtronic..." — Neurosurgeon"

""And just having the Bakken or Utica standalone, they would not be self-funding. They could not get access to the credit markets and that's a real issue." — John Hess, January 2013. "Even without any initial debt, Singer's ResourceCo would likely be a sub-investment grade credit with limited stand-alone debt capacity. As a result, ResourceCo's ability to fund growth in the Bakken and hence realize future value for Hess shareholders would be harmed." — Hess Presentation to Shareholders, March 2013."

"“With the anticipated sale of INVISTA, DuPont will be a smaller company with the potential for higher growth and profitability...But unlocking that potential means doing things differently. If we are to meet our earnings growth objectives – which we will – we cannot support the complexity and cost entailed by diverse and specialized organizations and processes. The actions we are announcing today are necessary to ensure the near- and long-term competitiveness of DuPont.” — Press release, 12/1/2003"

""With the anticipated sale of INVISTA, DuPont will be a smaller company with the potential for higher growth and profitability...But unlocking that potential means doing things differently. If we are to meet our earnings growth objectives – which we will – we cannot support the complexity and cost entailed by diverse and specialized organizations and processes. The actions we are announcing today are necessary to ensure the near- and long-term competitiveness of DuPont." — Press release, 12/1/2003"