Callouts & quotes from 804+ activist slides

"The amendments in this Update require that a statement of cash flows explain the change during the period in the total of cash, cash equivalents, and amounts generally described as restricted cash or restricted cash equivalents. — FASB"

"An efficient “low-cost” miner should be among the best in generating operating cash flow from its fleet. Riot screens as the worst among its closest peers while also among the worst when it comes to share dilution though ATM issuance."

"At or around the current valuation, we believe Match should be using 75% or more of its free cash flow, plus some or all of the approximately $900 million of available capacity under its 3.0x net leverage target, to repurchase shares."

"As a general long-term guideline, we expect to retain roughly half of our free cash flow... to support the growth of our business... and return the other half to our shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. — FY 2015 20-F"

"The Company has diluted shareholders at a rate of 20%+ p.a. and has generated negative cumulative free cash flow throughout its public history. This has resulted in just $0.53 cents of “Adjusted” EBITDA per share to existing holders."

"REIT investors ... consider AFFO a measure of "normalized" residual cash flow after eliminating non-cash and non-recurring expenses, and an indicator of a REIT's ability to pay dividends. — SEC complaint in the matter of VEREIT, INC."

"We looked at 150 bankruptcies over the past decade to see if we could find any other examples of public companies entering bankruptcy with (i) positive cash flow before debt maturities and (ii) asset values in excess of liabilities."

"It seems possible that as of 2018 at least, rent24 had been booking significant revenue without cash receipts – if that is a correct interpretation, seemingly the lack of cash flow would eventually become Vivion’s lack of cash flow."

"Where is the actual $5.6 million payment that was made in 2022? It is not recorded through the financing or investing section as related to the acquisition. Did it go all through the income statement and reduce operating cash flow?"

"During one visit, they stood in front of Fab 4A as machines were being delivered. At that moment, we came to understand the only purpose that the so-called fab serves: as a storage facility for overflowing finished goods inventory."

"athena wants everyone to back out the stock compensation because it’s a “non-cash” expense. Yet, it pays out cash taxes as part of its stock compensation scheme. At $28 million, that’s more than the company’s entire free cash flow."

"Management plans to use all free cash flow after dividends to repurchase stock and will increase leverage to 1.8x Lease Adjusted Net Debt / EBITDAR from 1.6x. We estimate share repurchases will be ~$10bn to $13bn from 2012 to 2015"

"..there will be times when CLR may outspend its internally generated cash flow. However, so long as it is earning the returns on investment in the incremental barrel produced by these borrowings... this should be of minor concern."

"DND is a high-quality business with competitive products and cash flows of a similar quality to peers. However, it has significantly underperformed its benchmark indices and self-selected peer group over all relevant time horizons"

"We estimate that more aggressive tax maneuvers (i.e. discrete items) by BR in FY 2022 resulted in approximately $20.6 million of cash flow benefits. We believe there are long-term limits to how much lower BR can push tax benefits."

""The best measure to judge a company's performance over time is growth of free cash flow per share, and we believe that's what drives long-term value for our owners." — Rich Templeton, Chairman and former CEO of Texas Instruments."

"Seventeen acquisitions since Jacobs took control of XPO, $6.1 billion of capital deployed, and it has generated $73m of cumulative adjusted free cash flow = a failed business strategy yielding a 1.2% return on capital investment."

"Spruce Point cannot account for at least $294 million in milestone payments. As later illustrated, milestone payments for Mobius and OrthoSpace appear to have been made, but where are they flowing through the cash flow statement?"

"Avery's NTM valuation relative to its closest materials and specialty chemical adhesive peers cannot be justified by Avery having higher free cash flow, or faster sales growth potential. It's dividend yield is also below market."

"Besides adding to the evidence that the real farm construction costs were a fraction of that implied by cash flow analysis, this farm project is significant as it is among those four transferred to an undisclosed related party."

"Amcor's financial control issues appear to extend to capital expenditures. Capex in 2018 was mysteriously revised lower, which lends further support to our opinion that its Adjusted Free Cash Flow cannot be taken at face value."

"The “enormous lengths” that Harmony goes to to keep sales rep in the dark once the prescription is faxed to the hub was a recurring theme of our interviews, suggesting questionable behavior at the next step of the process flow."

"The bull case has conducted no forensic work to identify evidence to suggest accounting manipulation of restructuring charges to hit numbers, material adverse risks to its tax policies, or reasons why free cash flow is peaking."

"WTRG cannot cover its dividend with free cash flow that money raised from investors through these programs could essentially be used to pay the same and other investors dividends, or "taking from Peter, to pay Peter and Paul.""

"BHP's c.US$19.9 billion of US onshore acquisitions has led to US$13.1 billion of write-downs, and negative pre-tax free cash flow(1) since purchase of US$9.4 billion for an asset currently valued by brokers at c.US$6.5 billion"

"Bunge may think it is a stable REIT by using FFO as a term and projecting ample “discretionary” cash flow. Based on our more conservative analysis, we see its discretionary cash flow as weak and not even covering its dividend."

"In another departure from conventional wisdom, Singleton eschewed reported earnings, the key metric on Wall Street at the time, running his company instead to optimize free cash flow. — William N. Thorndike, Jr., The Outsiders"

"If there is one way to sum up our past and future success...what it really comes down to [is] the Buffalo Wild Wings fan experience. All other value creation opportunities flow from brand strength — James Schmidt, COO, 8/16/16"

"“McDonald’s is a poor performing restaurant company in need of a turnaround” — Market perception (2002-2003). “McDonald’s is a global brand business with strong momentum and significant cash flows” — Market perception (Today)."

"Absent these extreme, and often repeated restructuring measures, Spruce Point estimates AVY’s Adjusted Free Cash Flow would be approximately $265m, or a 13% decline from 2019 – continuing its multi-year cash flow contraction."

"Absent these extreme, and often repeated restructuring measures, Spruce Point estimates AVY's Adjusted Free Cash Flow would be approximately $265m, or a 13% decline from 2019 – continuing its multi-year cash flow contraction."

"At a $36 share price (adjusting for ~$4 of equity value ascribed to the NWC at the Mall and International Stores), Borders would trade at 7x '08E EBITDA, 7.5x '08E EBITDAR and approximately 11x '08E Maintenance Free Cash Flow"

""I think in your presentation, you guys had stated $110 million of free cash flow. Is that still kind of the target?" — Kevin Ellich – Craig-Hallum Capital Group; "Yes, that's right." — Joshua Proffitt – CFO & Treasurer, LHCG"

"AOL (assuming initial maximum leverage of 2.5x OIBDA or $4.8 billion) is projected to generate approximately $4.1 billion of free cash flow over the next three years and $7.6 billion of cash flow over the 2006 - 2010 period."

"To understand why NQ’s results were much worse than expected, investors need to realize that prior audits of the company were likely not as rigorous, and the extra scrutiny made it harder to fake profits and cash flow in Q4."

"Margins are already “industry leading” and yet Rollins is now talking about SG&A initiatives. With such strong cash flow, why is Rollins only now making these investments with the Rollins family and management selling stock?"

"Margins are already "industry leading" and yet Rollins is now talking about SG&A initiatives. With such strong cash flow, why is Rollins only now making these investments with the Rollins family and management selling stock?"

"The quick headlines are $3 billion of segment operating income by 2020, and free cash flow generation of up to $5 billion for shareholder return programs and debt repayment. — Richard Kramer, CEO of Goodyear (September 2016)"

"We believe Alpha's cash flow statement does not give an accurate view of its core cash flow because it includes divested businesses, and fails to capture the critical cost of operating the Dominion Terminal export facility."

"Free cash flow conversions, 125% in 2015, average for the last five years, 119%; so just stellar result. We did dip our toe in the water in 2015 on AR factoring, so that isn't 125%. If we take that out, we're still at 119%."

"We believe that Tempus is extremely dependent on keeping the perceived value of its equity high because it is among the most aggressive issuers of stock-based compensation at 77% of revenue and 283% of operating cash flow."

"The current stock price is so dislocated that the Company should immediately start using a portion of its cash flow to repurchase shares (e.g., 50% with the other 50% for debt paydown) until it reaches its leverage target."

"Stryker 10-Q Note 7 said, "The aggregate purchase price of our acquisitions, net of cash acquired was $31 and $23 in the three months 2021 and 2020" which does not match cash flow statement 3m figure of $27m — Stryker 10-Q"

"We are advocating for a comprehensive, multi-year capital return program comprised of an accelerated share repurchase (ASR) this year and a minimum percentage of future cash flow dedicated to share repurchases thereafter."

"While capital lease adds have been increasing, capital lease repayments modelled by research analysts reports we’ve seen, have repayments falling. As a result, we believe Adjusted Free Cash Flow will disappoint investors."

"BHP should seek to avoid making badly-timed acquisitions paid for in cash and instead return the substantial upcoming excess cashflow to shareholders by way of post DLC unification 14% discounted off-market share buybacks"

"We are advocating for a comprehensive, multi-year capital return program comprised of an accelerated share repurchase (ASR) this year and a minimum percentage of future cash flow dedicated to share repurchases thereafter."

"“When folks inside Gingko are showing us data—I think it's about 50/50 where experiments work or fail within the different workflows... There are still failures there when we're developing.” — Gingko Bioworks executive #2"

"Despite ~50% increase in revenue, ~800bps of margin expansion and improved free cash flow over the last two years, NFLX’s share price is down more than 40% from recent highs and has nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels"

"Spruce Point’s warns that Evoqua’s final 10-K Annual Report made multiple alarming revisions to its “Growth Opportunities” around margin expansion, cash flow improvements, and capabilities servicing complex contaminants."

"Elevated DSOs signal cash flow collection issues. The problem is also suggested by an accounts payable specialist posting on the company review website Glassdoor. Kratos is now expanding discussion about DSO in its 10-K."

"Based on a forensic review of Amcor and Bemis' statements on capex, we believe it is materially underspending either to boost near-term cash flow, or in support of our view, that its business is in rapid organic decline."

"As Archer has admitted (contradicting its own prior statements), the most recent aircraft, Midnight M001 SN001 N703AX, is 'a pre-production model, the aircraft will not be flown for credit toward FAA type certification'."

"While we believe there are substantial cost savings opportunities at GRP, the Company could produce a dramatic increase in free cash flow simply by increasing the utilization even in the absence of EBITDA/MT improvement"

"HASI appears to have booked non-cash interest income from SunStrong PIKs totaling $26.4 million over 2019-2021 per SunStrong’s cash flow statement, which is approximately 9.5% of HASI’s interest income during this time."

"XPO has abandoned its attempt at expanding organic revenue disclosure post Q1’18. Through YTD Q3’18, organic quarterly revenue growth has averaged 10.8%, yet equates to just 3.2% YTD organic operating cash flow growth."

"Even as management has spent nearly $1B on acquisitions since FY15, revenue, Adj. EBITDA, operating cash flow, and free cash flow have remained largely flat, while free cash flow per share is down over the same period."

"Director Geller's Nova biography highlights his involvement in Parkit and DealFlow which are shown on Leonite Capital's archived website. However, there is no mention of the firm's involvement in MetroButler of Nexeon."

"Paringa said that its coal project had “a clear path to predictable, strong cash flows”. They also promoted a “Secured US$205 Million Sales Contract”. Sales never materialized and the share price ultimately collapsed."

"We observe that a number of cash flow line items which ought to correspond directly to changes in balance sheet line items at times demonstrate inexplicable discrepancies. These discrepancies are at times significant."