Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"“...overall, we're focused on making changes that are both good for our customers and good for Autodesk and shifting more of the billing patterns for our enterprise business agreements to annual billings is one step to help us achieve that goal... ...it's a change that we think is better for our customers and better for Autodesk and will help us make Autodesk a more valuable company over time.” — Deborah Clifford, Fmr CFO, September 2021"

"I was working at ANTA's HQ. I don't know about the Yundong company's registration, or its management shareholding and relationship [to the HQ]. Maybe it [ANTA] needs Yundong to make management more convenient. How to say, I [referring to ANTA] registered a company, how to deal with the finance, etc., I'm not very clear, mainly Yundong handles HR related things. Regarding other things like operations, we go ahead and handle those. — Mr. B"

"“I think so, yeah. I think for Berkeley Lights to be able to have its place; you would want a use case where you're sorting the cell out of that nano-cell and using it for downstream applications. But if you're not doing that, Berkeley Lights is replaceable if you don't want to isolate a cell, you just want to get cells, cytotox data, which is what we were doing at Takeda; I would replace it with IsoPlexis today.” — Takeda lead scientist"

"“...overall, we're focused on making changes that are both good for our customers and good for Autodesk and shifting more of the billing patterns for our enterprise business agreements to annual billings is one step to help us achieve that goal... ...it's a change that we think is better for our customers and better for Autodesk and will help us make Autodesk a more valuable company over time.” — Deborah Clifford, Fmr CFO, September 2021"

"We also expect to have lower equity earnings associated with the ULA business as a result of the number and mix of launches expected in 2019 compared with 2018.... The largest single item that is driving the margin reduction next year, though, is actually our ULA equity earnings. Those are actually going – we expect those to be down nearly $150 million or so from this year's estimate of the equity earnings from ULA. — LMT Q3'18 Conf Call"

"Our ASP is $23,500 but for easy math that's a $10 billion annual opportunity just in the United States. Okay, that's just a huge number, we don't look at it that way. We switch up, we look at it as from a bottoms up. How can we establish a number of centers and physicians to be able to treat this population. We know we have an unlimited number of patients that need the therapy. — CEO Tim Herbert, RBC Capital Markets Healthcare Conference"

"Q: Once the installation is up and running, is there a minimum number of tests required to be done under the reagent rental agreement? A: Yes, there is a target, a sort of an expected volume for most of the labs. There is an expectation that they (hospitals) are a part of evaluating and determining (expected volume). So it doesn't help us at all, nor any company really, to create a situation where — AXDX Investor Relations Representative"

""There's certainly a group still behind the scenes pulling the strings at this Company and I'm not prepared to say any more about that." — Former GFL Employee; "You'll never find them, and you don't want anything to do with them..." — Former GFL Employee; "I felt the Company had to go in a different direction and it wasn't going there. I also had ethical concerns and had no interest in continuing with the Company." — Former GFL Employee"

"We believe that GFL is relatively better insulated from COVID-19 volume declines due to a significant portion of its revenues coming from residential customers and fewer landfill assets which translates into less decremental margins. We continue to see a pathway for GFL to improve its margins and FCF every year over our forecast period, driven by still strong pricing, cost rationalization, and a larger solid waste footprint. — JP Morgan"

"And then, looking out to 2018 and then maybe even beyond that, do you still feel comfortable with the 20% sales growth that you shared during the IPO process? We've just completed what is a six-week process we go through for both a bottom up and a top down for every item and every customer. We still stand by our growth targets for the future and don't have any updates to those targets at this point for next year. — Q3 FY17 Earnings Call"

""[T]he outsiders (who often had complicated balance sheets, active acquisition programs, and high debt levels) believed the key to long-term value creation was to optimize free cash flow, and this emphasis on cash informed all aspects of how they ran their companies – from the way they paid for acquisitions and managed their balance sheets to their accounting policies and compensation systems." — William N. Thorndike, Jr., The Outsiders"

""And the aerospace business, I mean, pretty much we are catering in all of these businesses that PCC also caters to, right? And have roughly about almost $6 billion in this. I mean, I referred to the 40%, $5.6 billion or something like this, the exact number, all right? Then when you look into the automotive business, it's probably more than Novelis' there that you would have to look at, right?" — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, September 28, 2015"

"On March 31, 2017, the Company acquired a portion of another partner's interest in DTA for $13,293 thereby increasing its ownership in DTA to sixty-five percent... the Company has concluded that it does not have the power to direct the activities that most significantly impact its economic performance and therefore is not the primary beneficiary. Accordingly, the Company continues to apply the equity method of accounting. — Q1 2019 10-Q"

"Agilent Technologies manufactures probes for microarrays using a proprietary DNA synthesis method based upon inkjet printing technology. The method, in which layers of DNA nucleotides are "printed" onto desired microarray feature locations to synthesize probes, circumvents many of the limitations of light-based synthesis methods, and is capable of producing oligonucleotide probes of unprecedented quality and length. — Agilent 2008 Paper"

"“their problem is still error rates...and that’s why they’re losing money”; “a situation where you need to make multiples of everything just to be able to deliver”; “very high error rates that require that either they create duplicates or multiples of each order, which makes it non-economic, or they have to apply complicated error correction...that also is very expensive.” — Longtime industry executive who has advised Twist’s management"

"The term “Board Material” used herein means all minutes, resolutions, or other records of any Board and/or regular or special committee meeting, and all documents provided, considered, discussed, prepared, or disseminated, including materials on board portals, in draft or final form, at, in connection with, in anticipation of, or as a result, of any meeting of the Board or any regular or specially created committee thereof — Footnote 4."

"straight 9 to 12 months. Because you know what, in that short space of time, by making that commitment, you are going to create a foundation for life. Absolutely. Not just for yourself, but a legacy, a legacy for your family, for your children, and their children’s children. — Herbalife independent distributor audiovisual presentation (11-28-11). Online Business Systems is an Herbalife affiliate overseen by Shawn Dahl (Chairman’s Club)."

""Second, our goal has been to diversify our revenue outside of the United States and this acquisition increases our international revenue for this business by a factor of 6 and expands customer penetration into 75 additional countries. At the consolidated level, the acquisition adds an additional three points of international revenue bringing our total for the company to approximately 13% international revenues." — CEO M&A Call Feb 2020"

"“No, I’m going to be hands-off” — Trial investigator #1. “I want to make sure there isn't a patient out there — maybe there's another secondary genetic condition that's triggered by this drug that may cause cardiac arrhythmia or convulsions...based on the channelopathies for how the heart works, how the brain works. I'm concerned about channelopathy defects.” — Trial investigator and physician; one of the leading KOL's in the PWS field."

"straight 9 to 12 months. Because you know what, in that short space of time, by making that commitment, you are going to create a foundation for life. Absolutely. Not just for yourself, but a legacy, a legacy for your family, for your children, and their children’s children. — Herbalife independent distributor audiovisual presentation (11-28-11). Online Business Systems is an Herbalife affiliate overseen by Shawn Dahl (Chairman’s Club)."

"Before the current update the game was overpriced, had a flawed (probably manipulated) voting system and operated with sometimes incredibly amateur 3D designs - but it was still fun. Now it's overpriced, has a flawed voting system, bad 3D designs, AND it's nearly unplayable, it's a mess! Full of incredible stupid changes on user interface and annoying glitches! Not fun anymore. I regret I wasted money on this... "game". — Boglárka Ónody"

"We believe the Street is structurally misunderstanding the magnitude of the cybersecurity-related costs that Mercury will face going forward, as well as the delays in revenue contract award opportunities it will face in its high-growth “command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence” (C4I) segment – expected to be a $100m business. Mercury does not even have a CISO at present, and only recently replaced its departed CIO."

""The chip produced at U-M is about as big as a postage stamp...the quantum chip developed at U-M could be scaled up to include hundreds of thousands of electrodes, Monroe said." — 2005 article on Chris Monroe's purported "quantum chip"; "We know how to build a quantum computer with 50-100 qubits with trapped ions right now," said Monroe. — 2016 article quotes Monroe claiming to be able to a 50-100 qubit ion trapped computer "right now""

"With respect to our patents and intellectual property, we have a broad portfolio of patents on portion packs, on brewers, on the system of the – of both portion packs and brewers. And certainly to the extent that any other product might infringe on our intellectual property, we take that very seriously and we would, in fact, rigorously defend our intellectual property. — GMCR CEO Larry Blanford, Q3 2011 conference call on July 27, 2011"

"Certain of our receivables may include the ability to defer required interest payments in exchange for increasing the receivable balance at the borrower’s option. We generally accrue this paid-in-kind (“PIK”) interest when collection is expected, and cease accruing PIK interest if there is insufficient value to support the accrual or we expect that any portion of the principal or interest due is not collectible. — HASI 2021 10-K, p. 88"

""In their own words, they do have a clearly defined strategic direction, and you can talk the talk, but you might not walk the walk...They are clearly not walking the walk. At all." — Phillips 66 Shareholder A; "Looking at [Phillips 66's] strategic direction, significant divestment and cleaning up of operations would be certainly beneficial. Getting back into what they do best, which is integrated refining." — Phillips 66 Shareholder B"

"They were public, but they didn't hire leaders who were capable of leading those functions...For example, in pharmacy, they were really interested in compounding. Even in product development. There really weren't any experts there, even though we were doing a lot of that...There was a mass exodus of all the early employees. And it was just because the company really didn't value them. — Spruce Point Interview With Former HIMS Executive"

""They all want to be omnichannel, which means that they want to gravitate towards brick and mortar over time...ALEX AND ANI, Amazon Books, Aritzia, b8ta, Ballard Design, Blue Nile, Drybar, Dyson, E.I.F Cosmetics, Frye, Kendra Scott, Monica & Andy, Morphe, Nespresso, NYX, Peloton, Sage, Shinola, SoulCycle, Superdry, UNTUCKit and Warby Parker." — Arthur Coppola, Chairman & CEO of Macerich, Macerich Q3 2017 Earnings Call, October 31, 2017"

"The Audit Committee concluded that Dan Bodner, Verint's Chief Executive Officer, or any other current executive officer of the Company, did not participate in unlawful activities or wrongful conduct. Nevertheless, the Audit Committee did note that the product revenue management practices described above, while not unlawful or violative of accounting principles, were not best business practice and should be remedied. — VRNT 03/20/08 8-K"

"We have received investor feedback advising it would be best for us to eliminate the related party obligations, expenses, balances, and reporting associated with Cuattro since 2013. The Transactions address these concerns and are in the best interest of our stockholders. We believe the Transactions will eliminate distractions and allow us to more strongly focus on our collective success in 2019 and beyond. — Scott Humphrey, Heska Chair"

"“Diazoxide I use regularly, and I use it in babies... is it worth the difference? Obviously, when we participated in the trial, we weren't aware of the costs and so on... it's probably just the diazoxide, where the extended release probably makes no difference at all... half to $1 million is a bit excessive for something that you could do for a year, for $1,000 at most.” — Trial investigator, endocrinologist, key opinion leader for PWS"

"“The most important thing in this business is not doing your own work. The most important thing is to develop your market and get the hourly pay. All of your members are your market. The bigger your market, the bigger your hourly pay will be. They will all be connected to you.” — Ms. Ping, Guangzhou; “I still have profit even if I don’t do anything.” — Ms. Zhang, Guangzhou; “Even if I do nothing I still get paid.” — Ms. Chen, Guangzhou"

""The Report also quotes two advertising agents who claimed to be “core” advertising agents for QTT - the truth is, Hunan Jie Jisuan Computer Tech Company (湖南皆计算网络科技有限公司) is one of QTT’s agents with year-to-date transactions amounting to only RMB0.4 million; as for Shanghai Jusou Info Tech Co.(上海聚搜信息技术有限公司), we do not have any direct business relationships with that particular advertising agent per our internal check." — Qutoutiao, Inc."

"It is getting worse and worse!!! Everything was fine at the beginning, the rewards were interesting, there were regular quests (and different ones). The articles were a lot cheaper. I went from 300,000 (in-game) cash to 60,000 in a few weeks without changing the way I play. I sent e-mails but nobody wants to tell me why. It is a shame because when I will be out of cash, I will not be able to play anymore. — Mélissa (Google Play Review)"

""Our acquisition strategy has really been focused on rebuilding our pipeline over the last 2 years [...] our plan is still to keep rebuilding that pipeline, continue the path that we are on from a diversification standpoint, and most importantly, sort of stay disciplined on matching the risk that we take with a particular BD or partnership or license or acquisition with the value that we pay for it" — Aradhana Sarin, CFO, March 3, 2020"

"Lasertec customers who have recently visited Lasertec’s headquarters confirmed seeing highly unusual levels of inventory - "pretty scary...pretty weird" - and other red flags: their "factory floor for finished goods is full.. a substantial amount of finished goods inventory that’s either not passing [evaluation]" or "customers have deferred shipment"; "literally no space left on their final inspection bays before the equipment ships.""

"[We] plan to submit for Shonin approval in Japan later this year...We have also accelerated our efforts into Japan where we are moving forward with an application for regulatory approval. Japan is the second largest ambulatory cardiac monitoring market in the world, where reimbursement has historically been very good and physicians have been expressing strong interest in our technology. — iRhythm CEO Blackford on Q4 2021 Earnings Call"

"Almost no career opportunities, non-existent training, terrible technology infrastructure, and overly bureaucratic. The fact that there is actually a committee to oversee other committees that set internal policies kind of says it all. Unimaginative senior management that is always reacting to competition. Bloated middle management while underinvesting in products, services, and line employees that actually drive revenues. — Glassdoor"

"I just wanted to talk a little bit about implementation of End-to-End. I think in North America, we're kind of at a 2-year point for that being put in place, and I understand it was the lead market. There was going to be a lot of learning and adjusting. But it looks like you're still -- share trends are still not clearly where they need to be in the U.S. — Lauren Lieberman, Barclays Analyst, on P&G's Q4'17 Earnings Call, July 27, 2017"

""We think that MHP could evaluate a potential sale/spin of the Education segment (22% of MHP profits). We view the Education properties as relatively low growth (LSD) and low margin (essentially 10-15% since 1995) — which put it at odds with much of S&P Ratings, M-H Financial, and Platts. Education has also struggled in recent years amid tough times for local/state budgets, and lagged competitor Pearson." — J.P. Morgan, August 1, 2011"

"“its not like anything that required the device but they would use it out of convenience, which is a very expensive backup plan...even when it wasn’t clinically indicated”; “we’ve since remedied that.” The “surgical director is very mindful of cost...and questioned if we’re using it too liberally, like on organs we would have taken otherwise before TransMedics was available...the cost has been a concern.” — UCSF hospital administrator"

""Today, 30 years after the birth of the company, Novamerican Steel is shedding the final vestiges of its outdated past and publicly marking the start of our very different journey." — Corrado De Gasperis, Barzel's CEO, Feb 13, 2009. "On September 15, 2009 (the "Petition Date"), the Company and its U.S. subsidiaries filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code" — Barzel Bankruptcy Filing, Sept 15, 2019."

""Peter is in Seattle. He also has a house somewhere like in; I don't know, New Hampshire or something like that. But generally, the management is virtual. Thomas Kramer, the CFO, goes in every day. But Peter not, Jungsang not, Chris not, and they are supposedly opening a Seattle office and a New York office and a Boston office because people don't want to move. Peter would show up at the office maybe once a month." — Former executive"

"Our third strategic pillar of growth is expanding our connected customer experience. On the 13-week to 13-week basis, our fourth quarter e-commerce sales increased 45.1% from last year and 61.7% when measured on a 2-year compound annual growth rate basis from fiscal 2019. As a result, our fourth quarter e-commerce sales penetration rate increased 190 basis points to 16.4% from 14.5% last year. — Floor & Decor Holdings, Inc. (Q4 2021)"

"As a result of performing the above, we identified the greatest potential for fraud in the following area, and our specific procedures performed to address it are described below: Revenue recognition (topside journals posted to revenue): Using our analytics tools we performed an analysis over the top topside journals posted to revenue near to year end and obtained the rationale and corroborative evidence for such journals. — Deloitte"

"The Commission tested the communication of advertisements containing testimonials that clearly and prominently disclosed either "Results not typical" or the stronger "These testimonials are based on the experiences of a few people and you are not likely to have similar results." Neither disclosure adequately reduced the communication that the experiences depicted are generally representative. — FTC Section 255.2 Consumer Endorsements"

"I don't think there's any way that anyone can ensure retail sales, except to look at the evidence of how many people do we have who came back to Herbalife with a garage full of product and said, you know, "I've been duped into this, and here's my product. I can't sell this product. I'm not able to sell this product"? The evidence is to the contrary. The evidence is considerably to the contrary. — Charles Patterson, Herbalife Attorney"

"In a somewhat surprising tactic, PSX management talked down the potential SOTP upside (i.e.. [stating that the Company is] fairly valued), with ~1.0x multiple market premium vs. peers reflective of some of that value capture... [PSX considers the] potential uplift would be further reduced by meaningful compression on the "remainco", with the stand-alone Refining business closer to a 5.0x EBITDA business... — Piper Sandler, March 2025"

"“...we got to the latter part of January and spent a good part of February trying to figure out what the heck was going on and what we had to do.” — Dave Cote, Executive Chairman; “In short, we screwed up... We significantly underestimated the magnitude of the material and freight inflation...” — Robert Johnson, CEO; “Some of you may be wondering why I don't get more involved. The answer is, I have...” — Dave Cote, Executive Chairman"

""I am a cardiac surgeon. Our program does about 60 heart transplants a year. We do not do lung transplants. We do Impeller liver transplants; I’m not involved in those. We use TransMedics in 10-12% of our cases a year. For disclosure, I was on the FDA panel that voted to approve TransMedics, so I’m very familiar with that product. We began to use it about two years ago." — Cardiac transplant surgeon at a major Midwest academic center"

"“The single-cell stuff is really interesting, but you can sequence single cells already. We already have single cell processes in place, and we can use cell sorting to get to those cells. That's correct. So, it is a really fancy cell screening instrument. That's a good way of putting it, actually. You can do that stuff, but you can do it much more cheaply with methods that scientists actually use.” — Bristol Meyers Squibb employee #1"

"A significant portion of UOL's revenues and profits come from dial-up Internet and DSL access services and related services and advertising revenues. UOL's dial-up and DSL Internet access pay accounts and revenues have been declining and are expected to continue to decline due to the continued maturation of the market for dial-up and DSL Internet access, competitive pressures in the industry and limited sales efforts — UOL Disclosure"

"New systems that are coming out will be lower cost, and they will also test more than one sample at a time. Accelerate has a module that can do one sample at a time and you need 7 hours to process the sample, so all other samples will wait till this is done. What do you do? You need to buy the second system to truly incorporate it into rapid AST testing. It is modular with Accelerate, but then you pay a multiple. — Avails Medical rep"

"Box is one of the most predictable models in all of software. All right. So when we think about Box at $1 billion scale, we expect that the customers that we already have today are going to contribute more than 75% of that revenue. So those best-in-class customer economics and the trends we're seeing are the biggest reason that we're so confident in our path to becoming a $1 billion company. — CFO Dylan Smith, BoxWorks, October 2017"

""Ultimately we believe that the measures that TI has announced so far look sensible and put the company on track for improving trends." — Credit Suisse, February 27, 2019; "We have met TI management on the road, feedback from investors so far on the new CEO is positive and that he comes across well." — BAML, February 27, 2019; "Telecom Italia boss Luigi Gubitosi is sending the right signals." — Lisa Jucca, Reuters, February 21, 2019"

""As part of its lawsuit, Boots Capital sought . . . to object to the appointment of our new CEO Steven Moskowitz to the Board and its resulting expansion of the Board" — Crown Castle Inc. Investor Presentation. "Boots has interfered with the Fiber review at multiple stages through unneeded & baseless litigation . . . by seeking to keep our CEO, a critical input in the review, off the Board" — Crown Castle Inc. Investor Presentation."

"Not so much because again, they're tied to Nvidia, which is this high, you know, the Lamborghini of AI chips. If they were pivoting to inference, they would want to be running the Toyota Camrys of inference chips – which is kind of what the Google TPUs and the Amazon [Inferencia] and [Azure] Maia and all that kind of stuff is. Those chips are designed to be super-efficient and get you from A to B. — Former Nvidia Principal Architect"

"“I just didn’t think it worked...they’re basing so much on subjectivity.” Regarding the negligible BMI outcomes: “yes, not that remarkable...it didn’t really change the weight...they got a statistician who did all this remarkable testing and, oh, we came up with something...so I think they played with the data until they finally got something that worked.” — Trial investigator and physician; one of the leading KOL’s in the PWS field"

"Across the three machines, we’d have daily issues. Some consumable parts within, such as mirrors and the like, that when they were approaching their end of life, we’d see an uptake in issues, but it wouldn’t warrant shutting the tool down just because the end goal was trying to maintain 24/7 operation based on customer needs. So, there was a balance between sacrificing a little bit of speed and functionality for maintaining uptime."

"Regarding your question 2.5: The freeXmedia transaction was reviewed in great detail at that time both internally and externally. We have commissioned appraisal reports et al and sought legal advice for the acquisition of freeXmedia. Neither the external consultants nor the supervisory board or shareholders objected to the transaction. We thus have no reason to assume there was anything unlawful about the transaction. — Dr. Metzner"