Callouts & quotes from 844+ activist slides

"Credit ratings depend on a number of qualitative and quantitative factors; however, in general Moody’s recommends retailers stay below 3.5x Adjusted Debt / EBITDAR to achieve an investment grade rating. — Moody's"

"Spruce Point finds it interesting the Conroy left Claire's during a period it received multiple comment letters from the SEC questioning its financial reporting practices around store-level economics and EBITDA."

"Plc accounts for 77% of Rio's shareholder base but generates <20% of group EBITDA, meaning Ltd is required to support Plc by transferring cash and profit reserves to Plc to fund distributions to Plc shareholders"

"Yahoo's termination of past partnerships in the next few months (TIPLA Deal, Sales of Patents, and other IP asset Sales) will bring its adjusted EBITDA back to reality this year – with virtually no profits left."

"The Board set a 2015 Adj. EBITDA target for management LOWER than the Company’s 2014 Actual EBITDA despite management telling shareholders that the Company was “on track” to soundly beat its $2.0 billion target"

"Amcor's projected synergies as a percentage of pro forma sales and EBITDA are the highest relative to recent paper and packaging transactions over $1 billion, and significantly higher than the peer set average."

"In plain English, HMA management could have missed EBITDA guidance by 9%—and EPS guidance by 26%—and they still would have delivered on 100% of the internal Board and Management plan for incentive compensation"

"Ancora agrees with RBA’s estimates that revenue synergy opportunities can yield $250 to $780 million of EBITDA – and sees additional opportunities for the combined company to gain market share and drive value"

"D&D is currently trading at a significant discount to its peers, based on FY2024 consensus EBITDA estimates. Illustratively, at the peer median of 19.2x EV / FY2024 EBITDA, D&D would trade at $71.54 per share"

"From local filings, we see that its EBITDA margin has fallen sharply over the past three years from 7.8% to 3.9% (Adj EBITDA from 8.2% to 6.0%), while operating cash flow amounted to just A$3 million in 2022."

"Management has historically been compensated on higher EBITDAP figures than reported to investors, and the proxy statement doesn't provide detailed calculations allowing investors to reconcile the difference."

"The fair value of the Company-owned retail stores nearly equates to Goodyear’s market cap and monetizing the stores at a ~13x EBITDA multiple (public peer average) would drive $4+ per share of value creation"

"GFL restated its Adjusted EBITDA a second time in Q2 2020 to make the USA Waste segment's margins look much better by +2.1% (210bps). The boost came from allocating more costs to the “Corporate” or account."

"Phillips 66 is far from achieving its 2025 mid-cycle EBITDA target, with analysts' 2026 estimates signaling a major shortfall – despite consensus forecasts assuming a reasonable mid-cycle price environment."

"Wells Fargo presents a non-GAAP operating income figure that has already added back SBC and amortization expense. They then add back over $600 million of amortization expense a second time to derive EBITDA."

"Bob Evans trades at a multiple of EBITDA even lower than that of many restaurant companies, with strikingly little value consideration for its growing and highly-profitable BEF Foods packaged foods business"

"~400 bps of improvement in MDLZ margins, bringing them in-line with diversified food peers (but well below snacks peers), would yield ~$1.4bn in incremental EBITDA (potentially worth ~$16bn to shareholders)"

"We believe management is playing fast and loose with booking adjustments to EBITDA. Reviewing the footnotes reveals that several of the adjustments are related to the recurring operations of the business."

"If we illustratively assume TheFork is sold at 5x CY26E revenue, similar to peer transactions, it would imply Tripadvisor trades at just ~4.5x EBITDA on a pro forma basis, an even larger discount to peers"

"If we illustratively assume TheFork is sold at 5x CY26E revenue, similar to peer transactions, it would imply Tripadvisor trades at just ~4.5x EBITDA on a pro forma basis, an even larger discount to peers"

"Our capacity to improve our margin profile provides us with the confidence to achieve the strategic planned target to increase adjusted EBITDA margin annually by 30 to 50 basis points. — CFO Michaud Q3'23"

"Based on our research we believe there is an opportunity for Tessera to deliver double-digit revenue growth, achieve best-in-class EBITDA margins of 60-70%, and create significant value for shareholders."

"We’ve reviewed comparable acquisitions in the uniform rental and services space. Transaction multiples suggest businesses in this sector should be valued at approximately 1.8x and 9.5x sales and EBITDA."

"In 2016, adjusted EBITDA included a contract loss provision of US$7.5 million resulting from a change in the estimate of development and engineering costs to complete a firm fixed price program — Maxar"

"Kornit's valuation is rich for a commodity-type digital printing company, and analysts are overly optimistic that it can sustain 20%+ revenue growth while expanding EBITDA margins from 7.6% to 17.8%."

"In the proposed transaction, Wendy’s, which currently has a market cap of $2.45bn and is currently trading at 8.9x ’08E EBITDA, is buying Triarc at 7.4x EBITDA for ~$600mm in an all-stock transaction"

"AOL's EBITDA growth ranked lowest among its peers and free cash flow growth was near the lowest quartile, while its CEO and CFO bonus payouts ranked in the 83rd and 96th percentile compared to peers."

"We estimate that the company will fall short of 2022E revenue and EBITDA by 35%, while we estimate that Levered Free Cash Flow in 2022E will be $74.3 million, or 80% lower than what forecasts imply."

"The business, as we scale it out, should move into EBITDA positive as we get into the end of the year and, again, move into the positive for the full year in 2015. — J.P. Morgan Conference 5/20/2014"

"MSCI first acquired 40% of Burgiss in Q1 2020. Spruce Point observes that MSCI avoids an explicit discussion of the true profitability of Burgiss, but rather focuses on its mid-teens EBITDA margin."

"From 2009 to 2011, AOL's revenue declined nearly twice as fast as total operating expenses, causing EBITDA and free cash flow to decline by a staggering $700 million and $575 million, respectively."

"Under the RTC Plan, Crown Castle’s fiber will achieve positive cumulative EBITDA – Capex by 2024, finally achieving Crown Castle’s stated intention that fiber would contribute to dividend capacity"

"Valued separately, we believe BEF Foods would realize a higher value than Bob Evans Restaurants, based upon the double-digit EBITDA multiples afforded to certain pure-play packaged food companies."

"Once the whiskey bubble bursts, and MGPI's braded liquor strategy clearly fails, investors will realize they own a mediocre ingredient Company, which would be valued at 1x sales and 8x – 9x EBITDA"

"In addition to strong organic growth, we have completed over 100 acquisitions since 2007, generally at an average adjusted EBITDA multiple of 7.0x, excluding platform acquisitions — GFL Prospectus"

"Fiscal 2017 performance targets consisted of adjusted EBITDAP, Corporate operating cash flow, Aerojet Rocketdyne bookings, and certain other individual goals and had a 12-month performance period."

"It is misleading to combine M&S with refining results when convenient to show higher EBITDA/bbl, but then exclude M&S when including it would show that opex/bbl is significantly higher than peers"

"Spruce Point believes management's long-term performance should be measured by EBITDA return on capital investment, or some measure of capital efficiency linked to the increased capital spending."

"It is misleading to combine M&S with refining results when convenient to show higher EBITDA/bbl, but then exclude M&S when including it would show that opex/bbl is significantly higher than peers"

"USCR's former CFO outlined expectations for continued EBITDA to Free Cash Flow expectations of 60% in late Oct 2016. Ever since making that forecast, USCR has fallen increasingly short of target."

"Our price target is based on the nature of a business unlikely to meet the market's overly optimistic expectations of captured market share, GGR revenue share and inflated target EBITDA margins."

"Lone Star's Adj. EBITDA margins are set to decline in FY25 by 150bps and the fine print disclaimer around the projected margin gives us considerable hesitation in believing they can be achieved."

"In fact, following the pre-announcement of recent results and initial 2018 outlook, we estimate that management’s EBITDA guidance for 2018 has fallen 17% below its original post-merger guidance."

"REITs operating across a wide range of real estate subsectors are currently levered at 6.1x net debt / forward EBITDA on average, with generally higher business cyclicality than CCI in our view"

"Although many additional opportunities are difficult to quantify, we have clearly identified at least $215 - $326 of annual EBITDA improvement that can be implemented to drive shareholder value"

"Although many additional opportunities are difficult to quantify, we have clearly identified at least $215 - $326 of annual EBITDA improvement that can be implemented to drive shareholder value"

"Most analysts value Pioneer through shorthand methods like a multiple of EBITDAX. We think the proper valuation is a long-term discounted cash flow of the resource opportunity. So we built one."

"SOFI is a financial engineering treadmill. Its reported EBITDA of $1,054 million is inflated by approximately $950 million through manipulated charge-off rates that feed into Fair Value models."

"We see significant downside risk as investors evaluate the evidence that SGHC’s EBITDA does not likely capture the non-controlling (minority) interest of its lucrative Raging River subsidiary."

"Assuming 2% comps and the Company’s unit growth plan, if EBITDA margins were to improve 100bps by 2008 (returning to 5-year average levels), EBITDA could increase by 41% from “reported” levels"

"Phillips is far from achieving its 2025 mid-cycle EBITDA target, with analyst's 2026 estimates signaling a major shortfall – despite consensus assuming a reasonable mid-cycle price environment"

"Avery is expensive relative to its specialty chemical and materials peers, even before our adjustments to its enterprise value for added debts, and normalization of EBITDA and Free Cash Flow."

"The carved out entity reported EBITDA that was $229 million higher than what was reported in the same year inside DuPont, meaning 500bps of costs were allocated to Axalta and stayed at DuPont"

"While the Company reported stellar results and a record EBITDA margin of 15.2%, the store manager says the sales were great but the store burned through cash and the bottom line wasn’t great."

"Despite our clear concerns and evidence that Avery is under increasing pressure, its one year forward EBITDA and EPS multiples have expanded over the past decade and are near all-time highs."

"We believe New TROX could easily lever up to 1.0x – 1.5x on a mid-cycle EBITDA basis and subsequently dividend the cash proceeds to shareholders while still maintaining strong credit metrics"

"Analysts expect Maxar to produce $181.3m of EBITDA in Q4'18 vs. $180.9 in Q4'17. But they do not account for the $24.6m one-time gain in their models. Maxar is set up to severely disappoint."

"For example, with clear evidence that EBITDA has been shrinking, margins contracting, and excess manufacturing capacity increasing, why has Saputo continued to add headcount year-after-year?"

"For FTAI to realize AP EBITDA through cash flows from operating activities (CFO) it must invest 101% of the book value of Inventory after the inventory is transferred from Leasing Equipment."

"Based on peers, we conclude that there are potentially material opportunities to improve ADT's cost structure as a standalone public company, enhancing both EBITDA margins and free cash flow"