Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

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

"“those items are just warnings...you're not going to run into those issues hardly ever”; “I've never ordered an EKG...that's what I tell doctors, these are just warnings...technically speaking, you don't have to do anything...you can just prescribe it, which is what we do.”; “I do not run any EKG's...I don't check lab work...remember, most naroleptics are...pretty damned healthy...” — Anonymous high-volume Wakix prescribers"

"“There are two ways to make profit as a distributor within Herbalife. It’s the retail component, right? So you distribute it, buy the discount and that represents about two-thirds of the profit opportunity. And then there is a royalty component and that royalty component allows a distributor to earn on other distributors they bring into the business.” — John DeSimone, CFO of Herbalife, Bank of America Conference (9-14-2010)"

"On December 13, 2018, we entered into a Purchase and Sale Agreement ("PSA") to purchase a leasehold interest to a parcel of land located in Maricopa County, Arizona for a period of 84 years, on which we intend to construct our new headquarters. The purchase price of the land lease was $13.1 million. It is also contemplated that we will prepay the rent under the lease in the amount of $10.9 million. — 10-Q filed May 10, 2019"

""This pattern suggests that Phillips 66's board is using these repeated proposals as a shield against activism while failing to deliver tangible governance reform that shareholders clearly seem to support," Prof. DesJardine wrote: "If the desire to declassify is genuine, one would think the board would accept the remedy that Elliott has proposed." — Mark DesJardine, associate professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business"

"D2D has proven a sales boon to some big pest control players, and a bust to others who have tried and failed at D2D for myriad reasons: evolving consumer attitudes, an untrained sales force, the sheer cost of running a robust D2D program, the stress of maintaining quality service promises when sales flood in, and below-average client retention (nearing 50 percent cancellation rates, depending on who you ask.) — PCT Magazine"

""When we started this off, it used to be we had our own device. We bought our own cartridges, and we could use them as we pleased. And then they took our machine away and said, 'No, you can't.' It's the lack of control over the device and now the lack of control over travel. So, they've really boxed everyone into a corner to use their transportation services." — Transplant surgeon at a high volume West Coast academic center"

"“He does. He has his paid - the biggest whore in my field in cardiac surgery was a guy named Abbas Ardehali at UCLA who was going around telling everybody that every heart should be put on the OCS system... He’s got his box of golden PowerPoint slides, travels around the world, and probably makes $100,000 per year in consulting fees.” — Prominent transplant surgeon, leadership role at a West Coast academic transplant center"

"“nothing short of outrageous” — Tom Cotton; “found a way to game the system.” — FDA oversight committee member; “Mr. Aronin refused to provide much of the information requested by congressional investigators” — WSJ; “declined to attend a November 2014 hearing organized by Messrs. Cummings and Sanders, citing travel outside the U.S...Mr. Aronin’s absence was noted with an empty chair and a placard with his name on it.” — WSJ"

"I think it's just a nice, little additional drug in the whole spectrum of narcolepsy. And this is not, in my opinion, not a big wow...I think I'm not alone in this opinion...if I could only select from all the narcolepsy drugs, so I could only have one drug for all of my patients, I think it would not be pitolisant. — Physician at one of the largest sleep/narcolepsy centers in Europe, began prescribing pitolisant in 2016/17"

"When I joined, I quickly learned that Hilton did supply chain and money. So he was supply chain and money, and Rodney did sales and marketing. And there was no FP&A (financial, planning and analysis). So if you think about a traditional company, you're looking for accounting and FP&A. Nope. There was zero finance because when I went looking, Tom Kelly, who is named CFO, he is really the accountant. — Former Monster Employee"

"In addition, Tim Christoffersen and Dave Satterfield, our Chief Financial Officer and Controller, have served in those positions since only June 2004 and February 2004, respectively. Accordingly, our finance team has worked together for a relatively short period. Any failure of our finance team to communicate or work together effectively could adversely affect our business and results of operations. — MPWR's S-1 IPO Filing"

"“As you move clients off of the legacy platforms onto the new platforms across all your client segments, do you ultimately get a margin benefit?...” — Rod Bourgeois, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. “...[P]art of the reason we're moving our clients to common platforms is to eliminate costs that today are being really used to maintain old legacy platforms that aren't focused on innovation.” — Carlos Rodriguez, ADP President & CEO"

"Using an ‘all-in’ tax rate of 23%, we arrive at a tax liability of approximately $5.75 billion, an amount markedly below the $10 billion in tax leakage that PSX has guided to. PSX, in the aforementioned presentation, noted that its adjusted bases in its Midstream assets approximated $4.4 billion. This is inconsistent, to a considerable degree, with the work we and other professionals have performed. — Robert Willens C.P.A."

""Third, Helly Hansen's earnings performed as expected in Q2 and year-to-date." — Dean McCann, CFO, Q2 2019 Call; "It's now our fastest-growing asset." — Dean McCann, CFO, Q2 2019 Call; "But in reference to Helly Hansen, our integration efforts and their financial performance are both proceeding on plan." — Stephen Wetmore, CEO, Q1 2019 Call; "they in fact did hit their stretch targets" — Stephen Wetmore, CEO, Q4 2018 Call."

"Zebra had a really big first mover advantage because of how quickly they went to Android. And now I would say four or five years later, there's just a lot more people doing the Android products because if you want to do something that's mobile, you really have only two choices, you have Android and iOS; and Apple doesn't give up iOS, so there you are. — Former Zebra Senior Product Manager (via Tegus Interview, Dec 1, 2023)"

"Yeah, that's the unfortunate thing about machine vision and fixed industrial scanning is it's built to last. You don't have a refresh rate as fast as you do with the PC or the tablet or a handheld side. Those are fast refresh like two years, three years max. Machine vision, you're hoping to install it and let it run for 20 years. Those are the types of run rates so you can get out of their products. — Former Zebra Employee"

"Mozzarella was one of their biggest products, and they lost business from their biggest customer due to the cheese prices. Guys like Pizza Hut and Domino's need a special kind of cheese that can be frozen, and Saputo doesn't offer that right now, so that limits their opportunities. The big customer where they lost business was Little Caesars, which uses fresh mozzarella, but got upset with Saputo. — Former Saputo Executive"

"We’re a very simple compensation structure: sales gross, margin, cash from operations and EPS [been] like that for years, 25% each. That’s for our annual bonus. By having those four, particularly gross margin, it creates financial literacy within the company. Given all employee bonus[es], and when one component is gross margin, the natural thing to ask is what’s gross margin and how do I get it? — CEO DB Conf June 11, 2019"

"“The loss of PPG’s entire paint business at Lowe’s (to Sherwin-Williams) was a surprise. We had actually thought PPG might gain a price point at Lowe’s following the merger of Valspar and Sherwin, Lowe’s 2 other paint suppliers, and Lowe’s history of having at least 2 reasonably strong paint suppliers (3 in recent years) in order to maintain the competitive intensity amongst its suppliers.” — Deutsch Bank research, 2/28/18"

"Interest revenue is earned on term loans originated and purchased and held for investment in accordance with the specified period of time and defined interest rate noted in the loan contract. Interest revenue is recorded net of amortized direct origination costs and is included in service revenue in our consolidated statements of operations. Interest revenue was not material for all periods presented. — Intuit FY 2024 10-K"

"“...at the end of the day and I think this applies across all of marketing automation and digital marketing or e-mail marketing in general is that most customers are still just doing the basics. So they're uploading a contact list, they're creating a couple of segments. Those segments are not very sophisticated. Maybe they pull in a bit of personalization, then they send an e-mail.” — VP at Constant Contact, Tegus, 5/20/23"

"On USM, it's been -- we've indicated in the past that we -- it was roughly previously about 25% of EBITDA from Aerospace Products, but as we have ramped up the MRE business that percentage is going down to where it less than 15% of EBITDA at this point. And we'll continue as a percentage to decline because that's not a high-growth business. So hopefully, that helps. — FTAI Aviation Q1 2024 Earnings Call April 26, 2024, CEO"

""About 20% of the products business does go through retail. This is predominantly still serving the professional contractor. So this is the pro going into a Home Depot or Lowe's to pick up our products as well as First Alert. And so First Alert is probably the one piece of the business that does predominantly go direct to the consumer or service the DIY market." — REZI Comment on First Alert, BofA Conference, November 2023"

"Using an ‘all-in’ tax rate of 23%, we arrive at a tax liability of approximately $5.75 billion, an amount markedly below the $10 billion in tax leakage that PSX has guided to. PSX, in the aforementioned presentation, noted that its adjusted bases in its Midstream assets approximated $4.4 billion. This is inconsistent, to a considerable degree, with the work we and other professionals have performed. — Robert Willens C.P.A."

"“I just wanted to share, and I hope this is not happening to any of you...my son...started Vykat 7 weeks ago...he was going alright (no appetite change though), but a week and a half ago his legs and feet started to swollen [sic] rapidly, to the point it was hard to walk...he was given a week of diuretics and we stop Vykat...his legs and feet are fine now...has it happened to any of you?” — Parent in Vykat discussion group"

"The increase was primarily due to growth in our subscription customer base including customers from the acquisitions of ShopKeep and Upserve, which combined accounted for $7.4 million of software and payments revenue in the quarter, and when further excluding acquisitions which were not included in the same quarter last year, software and payments revenue grew 47% in the three months ended December 31, 2020. — Q3 2020 MD&A"

"The Muddy Waters report appears to have given rise to many questions that have not yet been sufficiently discussed. The question must also be asked - it has already been raised by various shareholders, particularly by Mr. Klein - why the board of management is acting as if it is not proceeding against Muddy Waters out of generosity. Or is it true what Muddy Waters says: has our company no legal redress against this report?"

"Beginning in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017, we reported Closed sales net of a 3.5% allowance adjustment... We will assess this allowance amount at the end of each fiscal year to establish the appropriate allowance for the subsequent year using the trailing five years data referenced earlier as the starting point, normalized for outlying factors, if any, to enhance the accuracy of the allowance. — Broadridge 2017 10-K"

"“It’s all the same, as far as I can tell,” — Ushio field engineer who maintains light sources on Lasertec ACTIS A150 machines at Intel Oregon fab. “I work a lot with the boots on the ground at Lasertec, and they complain about having to maintain their light sources...[they] feel that management made some compromises....” — Ushio field engineer who maintains light sources on Lasertec ACTIS A150 machines at Intel Oregon fab."

"Isn’t it strange that accounting, industry and business scandals and problems have befallen Lumber Liquidators, Tile Shop and Floor & Decor. Yet, despite many clear and obvious signs to us of Floor & Decor’s revenue misstatements, disclosure omissions, accounting policy changes and leadership associated with prior scandals, its equity value reflects “success” in an otherwise difficult to impossible industry to make money?"

"Former employees we interviewed indicated a widespread awareness of and concern inside Ginkgo about its related-party/round-tripping business model: fear inside the company it may not be able to go public or could “be slammed by regulators”; indicated “confusion” at what Ginkgo counts as revenue and questioned if “money actually passed hands”; and suggested that concern around the circular flows was widespread internally."

"The Company reclassified prior year comparative figures in the condensed consolidated statement of cash flows to conform to the current year's presentation. In addition, the Company reclassified certain prior year comparative figures from interest expense to net sales to conform to the current year's presentation. This change in presentation did not have an impact on the Company's financial condition or operating results."

"“A laptop is more powerful than a 30-qubit quantum computer.” — Leading quantum computing scientist; “It does not reflect the scientific, technological reality.” — Leading quantum computing scientist; “The elephant in the room is that you need a very large number of physical qubits per error-corrected logical qubit in order to actually start to reap the benefits of quantum computing.” — Leading quantum computing scientist"

""Hess Corporation (NYSE: HES) announced today the election of former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn to its Board of Directors." — Press release August 2, 2012; "We are also adding...directors to the board. Last August, we met with a search firm to begin identifying candidates.... Before I continue, I would like to recognize our existing directors...former Senator Sam Nunn...will be retiring from our board." — John Hess, March 2013"

"“There’s really no big difference. We could switch anytime if needed. Oligos are much more of a commodity. Oligos are just very short gene fragments. They are easy to make, they’re cheap, and they’re much more of a commodity than a gene. Oligonucleotides are just very short gene fragments. They could be like 20 nucleotides long. They are single-stranded, and they’re very, very cheap.” — Abbvie R&D Director; Twist customer"

""As part of our e-commerce strategy, we went live in September with Nibbl, an innovative B2C platform. Nibbl delivers curated specialty cheese boxes, direct-to-consumers in Ontario and in Quebec. We made excellent progress during the quarter with our awareness and marketing campaigns and significantly grew our e-commerce volumes. We are now actively working on expanding our distribution across Canada." — Q3 2022 Conf Call"

"Meta Audience Network Terms: 3. Implementation.: Violations include “misusing or deriving data from the technology (e.g., the Audience Network SDK, Meta tags, or Meta APIs', as applicable) made available to Publisher by Meta (the "Audience Network Tools"). Meta may modify, suspend, or terminate Publisher's access to, or discontinue the availability of, the Audience Network Tools at any time.” — Meta Audience Network Terms"

""ClearScan is the first checkpoint CT solution to receive both Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Tier II and European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) C3 certifications. Its multiple detection algorithms and auxiliary hardware have scanned more than 10 million bags at major airports in the U.S., the Netherlands, Singapore, the U.K., Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Turkey and South Africa." — L3Harris, May 30, 2019"

"In addition, we offer a variety of merchant services to provide value added support to our merchants and supplement our software and payments revenue solutions. Merchant Services revenues are generally one-time revenues associated with the sale of hardware with which our solutions integrate and the sale of professional services in support of the installation and implementation of our solutions. — Lightspeed IPO Prospectus"

"“Jean-Charles Schwartz discovered the histamine 3 receptor, and he discovered a molecule to target it, and then built a company around it. He had no idea what he was doing, no idea what he was doing. He has no idea how to commercialize pharmaceuticals. We were more surprised about how they did the trials. It was really poor. We’re lucky to have FDA approval. Put it that way.” — Ex-senior employee in a medical liaison role"

"“What [Bill Ackman] doesn’t understand is they’ve never been as strong as they ought to be in software and technology, so they made up for that weakness by having a high-touch business model, with high degrees of client service. They have 700,000 clients, great relationships, great retention, and they do that through service. The service costs money...” — Lee Cooperman, ADP Board Member (1991-2011), CNBC (August 7, 2017)"

""So again, I know that some are very anxious that we hold those shares. Others, very anxious that we sell those shares or swap those shares and so forth. We've got a very close handle on that, and it is our objective to be able to monetize those shares this year and. And to bring in another, at least, $1 billion into the company and into the cash flow of the company." — Peter Huntsman, Chairman, President & CEO, May 2018"

"Guangzhou Anda is a limited liability company incorporated in the PRC and is owned as to 35.0% by Mr. Chen Dinglong, 32.5% by Mr. Ding Qingliang and 32.5% by Ms. Lin Lisui. Mr. Ding Qingliang is the brother-in-law of Mr. Ding, an executive Director, and Guangzhou Anda is a connected person of the Company under Rule 14A.11(4)(c) of the Listing Rules. — The 25 February 2010 Announcement of Continuing Connected Transactions"

""So again, I know that some are very anxious that we hold those shares. Others, very anxious that we sell those shares or swap those shares and so forth. We've got a very close handle on that, and it is our objective to be able to monetize those shares this year and. And to bring in another, at least, $1 billion into the company and into the cash flow of the company." — Peter Huntsman, Chairman, President & CEO, May 2018"

"While the Registrant still believes ACV is a leading indicator of revenue opportunity in existing clients and new clients, we believe the disclosure of the metric may imply a certainty in our actual results that does not correspond to the level of estimation inherent in the metric. Thus, we removed the metric as we do not consider it to be meaningful to investors given the risk of misinterpretation. — SEC Response Letter"

""Your consultants promote many of your Young Living Essential Oil Products for conditions such as, but not limited to, viral infections (including Ebola), Parkinson's disease, autism, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, insomnia, heart disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), dementia, and multiple sclerosis, that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners." — FDA"

"I laugh at that number...There's no way they are doing 300 launches by 2025; by 2035 it would still be a stretch. — Senior Engineer, launch broker; We are, all around in the industry, in the same spot. Even within Astra and at [our small launch company], I'm looking at [1/10th Astra's number] rockets, and we are freaking out – are we really going to have enough customers for this? — Senior Engineer, small launch provider"

""the fundamental challenge is dollars per kilogram," and by that metric, it simply costs a lot more to launch a single small rocket with a single small satellite than it does to launch a single large rocket bundling many small satellites aboard it." Said Bruno, "While it is disheartening, a huge number of start-ups for micro launchers" are going to be "destroyed" and "that market [will not] recover." — ULA CEO Tory Bruno"

"Firstly, we do not intend to pursue synergies through a reduction in sales and marketing or R&D costs — Amcor Management. We haven't quantified the benefits of any revenue synergies but we would clearly expect to be able to grow at higher rates over the longer term than we would independently — Amcor Management. One of the consistent highlights for the business has been our working capital performance — Amcor Management."

"“We acquired the shares from WXZ1 before the offer for initial consideration of 261.2m, which was settled in Dec 2021. The second consideration of EUR 52.1m is the difference between the initial purchase price and the mandatory takeover offer price for the IMMOFINANZ shares, which followed shortly after. 320.9 is the price for the shares with 313. After deduction of some liabilities at WXZ1.” — A representative of CPI PG"

"Zooming out from our quarterly results in the latest state of play in the real estate industry. Two years ago, we introduced our new growth strategy and broke down the massive TAM opportunity for Zillow. This quarter, we've released a refined and better way to size that opportunity, resulting in a $30 billion accessible TAM of customers already in our funnel and raising their hands to connect. — Zillow Management (Q4'23)"

"“because everybody is like, how is it possible that some of these hospitals are doing so many TransMedics? Because financially, it’s not possible to do too many...usually you tend to be believe that centers that use the device a lot – maybe they have some incentive to use it that much...Houston, maybe...Henry Ford, maybe....” — Transplant surgeon and division chief of the liver program at a world-renowned academic center"

"“because everybody is like, how is it possible that some of these hospitals are doing so many TransMedics? Because financially, it’s not possible to do too many...usually you tend to be believe that centers that use the device a lot - maybe they have some incentive to use it that much...Houston, maybe...Henry Ford, maybe....” — Transplant surgeon and division chief of the liver program at a world-renowned academic center"

"“So, when you have a soft endpoint like this and it's not 100% backed up by some of the other objective endpoints, like, say, a DEXA scan to show improvement in fat and fat muscle ratio has changed or the HOMA-IR is overall trending downwards or unchanged for a metabolic signal. I was kind of a little surprised that they didn't have any of that as label claims.” — Ex-Soleno employee #1, key role in clinical trial program"

"“So, I really think the government is going to come in, and they’re really going to shake this up, and I think the glory days of we’re going to charge $100,000 for a TransMedics device, and you have to use our people, and you’ve got to use our expensive jet - I think all that is over. I think the gravy train is coming to an end, honestly.” — CEO of a major OPO (Organ Procurement Organization), longtime industry executive"

"The Company defines subscription-based paying membership accounts as registered accounts through which users have purchased the Company's subscription-based membership services and whose membership subscriptions are active at any point during a given period. Some paying merchant members purchase membership services from more than one Company platform which contributes separately to the revenues of each platform. — 58.com"

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

"Yeah. Now to be sure, I have seen companies who I thought were very aggressive just in their tax basis. I couldn't name names, but I've seen some pretty aggressive stuff... I believe at least one of them, it's sort of an open secret in the industry that I've heard from a couple of tax lawyers, at least one of them is going through a whole series of audits right now. — Interview with Former RUN Executive B, November 2021"

"On October 20, 1998, the Registrant, VDC and the Committee of Unsecured Creditors of the Registrant ("the "Committee") entered into, and the Bankruptcy Court approved, a Stipulation Regarding Motion of VDC Corporation Ltd. for Reconsideration and Partial Stay of Confirmation Order Pending Completion of Fed. R. Bankr. P. 2004 Examinations to Investigate Grounds for Possible Revocation of Confirmation (the "Stipulation")."