Callouts & quotes from 2,092+ activist slides

"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"

"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."

"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"

"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"

"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."

"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"

"Yes. Evoqua was a customer. They're an OEM, they take and put things together and sell the package. So for example, they would buy Gould's pumps and put it into a package and deploy modular treatment packages. Yes, there was competitive overlap though fairly small in UV line to disinfect water like cryptosporidium. I think there will be revenue synergies, but they'll be harder than people think. — Former Xylem Executive"

""Yes, we will help broadcasters to become popular. We estimate about 10% of the revenue of Momo is from this type of activity. Sometimes we will pay this cost to help a broadcaster." — Super Agency #6; "We have to. This is just the same as Taobao fake sales. Everyone does it. Each month about 10-20% of our revenue is us spending money on broadcasters. We share the loss equally with the broadcaster." — Large Agency #11"

"Great brands define markets. As a leading branded consumer products company, Heinz must make marketing and innovation its core competency... Trian believes Heinz should reduce the amount that it currently spends on deals and allowances (20% of gross revenue) and reinvest those funds in creative consumer advertising, innovative new products and packaging and cross-marketing initiatives — Trian White Paper: May 23, 2006"

"“...we are also thrilled to announce the formal opening of our Global Business Services Center in Manila that took place during the third quarter...our Manila team now includes almost 150 team members, who are part of iRhythm's global clinical operations, customer care, finance, human resources, information technology, and revenue cycle management functions.” — iRhythm CEO Blackford on Q3 2023 Earnings Call, 11/2/23"

"“The Company periodically provides customer incentive programs including product discounts and volume-based rebates, which are accounted for as reductions to revenue in the period in which the revenue is recognized. These reductions to revenue are made based upon reasonable and reliable estimates that are determined by historical experience and the specific terms and conditions of the incentive.” — Kornit 2016 20-F"

"The cost of revenue for our movie theater and traditional outdoor billboard network increased 101% from $28.5 million in 2007 to $57.3 million in 2008. The increase is primarily attributable to:...3) increased leasing costs associated with time we rent on movie theater screens as a result of an increase in the number of theaters we lease in our network from 10,930 in 2007 to 27,164 in 2008. — FMCN 2008 20-F filing"

""There are other oddities in Satyam's books, like fluctuations in the amount of unbilled revenue the company recorded. Unbilled revenue is work done for a customer but not yet invoiced. Analysts who follow outsourcing companies like to see unbilled revenue because it represents future earnings. But there is little documentation associated with the number, so unbilled revenue is easy to fudge." — NY Times, Jan 2009"

"[2023 profit sharing was] definitely underwhelming. And it's probably going to continue that way for another year or two... We have a little bit of a revenue problem right now, right?... We also have a lot of cost creep on the expense side of the house, right? So in order to have profit sharing, you have to have profits. And so those profits have been shrinking. — Southwest Captain Damian Jennette, February 2024"

"[2023 profit sharing was] definitely underwhelming. And it's probably going to continue that way for another year or two... We have a little bit of a revenue problem right now, right?... We also have a lot of cost creep on the expense side of the house, right? So in order to have profit sharing, you have to have profits. And so those profits have been shrinking. — Southwest Captain Damian Jennette, February 2024"

"[2023 profit sharing was] definitely underwhelming. And it's probably going to continue that way for another year or two... We have a little bit of a revenue problem right now, right?... We also have a lot of cost creep on the expense side of the house, right? So in order to have profit sharing, you have to have profits. And so those profits have been shrinking. — Southwest Captain Damian Jennette, February 2024"

"[2023 profit sharing was] definitely underwhelming. And it's probably going to continue that way for another year or two... We have a little bit of a revenue problem right now, right?... We also have a lot of cost creep on the expense side of the house, right? So in order to have profit sharing, you have to have profits. And so those profits have been shrinking. — Southwest Captain Damian Jennette, February 2024"

""So we’ve got Alex [Fala] who is our FO. He’s been with me for just on a year now and he’s stepping into the role as acting CEO to free myself up to go out and find that global CE that we’re looking for; who knows how to grow a business from that $20 million of revenue to over $100 million of revenue, and in quick order." — Vaughan Rowsell, Exit Interview: Vaughan Rowsell steps down as CEO of Vend, Idealog, 2016"

"[2023 profit sharing was] definitely underwhelming. And it's probably going to continue that way for another year or two... We have a little bit of a revenue problem right now, right?... We also have a lot of cost creep on the expense side of the house, right? So in order to have profit sharing, you have to have profits. And so those profits have been shrinking. — Southwest Captain Damian Jennette, February 2024"

"In 2019, after merging the Trading & Logistics segment within CAAP - Met, AMR reverted back to allocating freight revenues among segments. Shouldn't the total freight revenue of $363m have been allocated to the new CAAP – Met? Why did 2018 freight revenue decline from $363m to $341m without explanation, but total coal revenues were unchanged? Lastly, how did the new CAPP- Met segment increase revenues by $328m?"

""It is one service, I think it has the highest retention numbers of any of our service offerings. So we have proven to our customers over and over again that we provide a very effective mosquito service, but if there's still high skepticism, and I think it'll make up less than 2% of our business last year. It will be probably under $20 million in revenue or around $20 million of revenue." — CFO Cynkus, Q1 2014"

"Using the Wayback Machine, we get a clearer picture of Nussey’s role at Descartes. He was intimately involved in financial planning, revenue analysis and working closely with the sales and finance organizations. In addition, he was responsible for optimizing the operational performance of the company. Furthermore, as a CA and CPA he should have been familiar with Descartes and its basic accounting principles."

"AMR has an unusually high freight and handling cost. The reported costs match the reported revenues, which make it appear as if there is no net impact on its financial statements. However, AMR does absorb transportation costs, specifically to move the coal to the ports for the export market. Yet, plenty of its peers also export significant volumes abroad and don't report nearly as high freight costs per ton."

"Spruce Point believes there is significant downside to TASK's share price as the Company is overvalued on both its revenue and EBITDA multiple and should trade at best in-line with peer valuations, and at worse a material discount to reflect the numerous concerns we've documented in our report including substandard disclosures, and evidence of increased financial pressures with its largest customer Facebook."

"“But I think what's also clear, and you'd understand this, we're not spending cash. So, appropriately, they put GAAP revenue, but there's no cash revenue that we're spending over at Ginkgo right now because we have credits that go back from 2018 when they got $40 million worth of equity in Genomatica as part of our Series B and in exchange, they gave us a bunch of R&D credits.” — Senior Genomatica employee"

"And then lastly, in terms of utilization, I know you're maybe not ready to break out a specific revenue number. But I think, according to our model, I think the current utilization still came lower than we modeled. — Julia Qin. Yes, good question. As we've discussed, our expectation is to have an annuity in the range of 45,000 to 65,000 per instrument. And that's what we're seeing currently. — Larry Mehren"

"Beginning in 2004, the Azerbaijani government embarked on the privatization of its interest in Azercel. As detailed below, this was unusually structured and could have been devised to enable the theft of state assets, facilitate illegal and highly suspect payments to entities owned or controlled by the Aliyev family, and provide for an ongoing corrupt revenue source in the form dividends and a put option."

"[Y]ou can see as you move to the right, national accounts spaces for clients with employees over 1,000. We have about a little over $2 billion of revenue in that space and 4,000 clients. — Chris Reidy, CFO; And so this business -- our upmarket business is a little less than 20% of our overall [ES] revenues. So just to kind of put things in context. And it's 2,000 to 3,000 clients. — Carlos Rodriguez, CEO"

"Most importantly for the near-term future, we believe that Dexcom faces a particularly steep revenue growth cliff of at least ~18 months as the rate of incremental U.S. T1 CGM penetration decelerates, as the Libre 2 competes directly with the G6 at an ~80% discount, and as the Company fails to make traction in the T2 market without a down-market CGM offering until late 2020 / early 2021 at the earliest."

"Bunge’s historical EV / Revenue multiple averaged 0.35x before the Viterra deal was rumored in May 2023. We believe that the combined Company’s fundamentals have weakened since food consumption trends have changed and Bunge has reported lost market share in certain regions and segments. As a result, we believe Bunge’s new multiple should be structurally lower than its historical trading multiple range."

"With regards to what bookmakers spend with data providers, here is what a sportsbook will pay as a revenue share. The only way to reach 5% of GGR is for Genius to fully trade for the sportsbook (this is called outsourced trading services and is a tiny part of GSG's business). My sportsbook and every other one would never outsource their trading to Genius and not pay 5% of GGR. — Betting Industry Expert"

"As the in-vehicle devices do not have value to the customer on a standalone basis, the delivery or installation of the in-vehicle devices does not represent the culmination of a separate earning process associated with the payment of the up-front fee. Accordingly, we record the amount of the up-front fee as deferred revenue upon invoicing and recognize that amount as revenue ratably. — Fleetmatics 10-K"

"The cost of revenue for our movie theater and traditional outdoor billboard network increased 101% from $28.5 million in 2007 to $57.3 million in 2008. The increase is primarily attributable to...increased leasing costs associated with time we rent on movie theater screens as a result of an increase in the number of theaters we lease in our network from 10,930 in 2007 to 27,164 in 2008. — 2008 20-F"

"widespread accounting violations — SEC. "pushed employees to maximize end-of-quarter revenue, yet failed to devise and maintain sufficient internal accounting controls to accurately record revenue." — SEC. "improperly under-reported certain expenses" — SEC. "engaged in two additional practices over the course of several years that systemically overstated inventory and understated expenses." — SEC."

"Based on the 2023 AGM proxy filing list of companies used as a reference for compensation benchmarking purposes. These are companies “that are in our industry or have similar lines of business, are competitors for our executive talent, are large, complex organizations with global reach and / or similarly sized from a revenue and market capitalization perspective” — BlackRock 2023 AGM Proxy Filing"

"“What’s different [for Southwest] vs. some of the smaller domestic airlines is that Southwest has the network depth & breadth, balance sheet and brand to pivot quickly. Unfortunately, they have been slow to move, while industry costs ballooned. Given the lack of pivot, the revenue outcomes for Southwest have, frankly, not been acceptable in the current environment.” — Melius Research, April 2024"

"“Porch provides ERP and CRM software to a wide variety of home services companies. Those companies can pay us with typical software fees or we really encourage those companies to pay us by providing us access to their consumer, to their homebuyers, where we then generate B2B2C transactional revenues as we help those consumers with key services for their home.” — Porch's CEO At Gateway Conference"

"“What’s different [for Southwest] vs. some of the smaller domestic airlines is that Southwest has the network depth & breadth, balance sheet and brand to pivot quickly. Unfortunately, they have been slow to move, while industry costs ballooned. Given the lack of pivot, the revenue outcomes for Southwest have, frankly, not been acceptable in the current environment.” — Melius Research, April 2024"

"Spruce Point is concerned that management is sacrificing liquidity for faster top-line growth – growth which is not reflective of improving fundamentals, but which we believe is simply attributable to (1) a shift in how management accounts for operating leasebacks and (2) a rapid re-adoption of operating-type sale/leaseback agreements which are now being recognized as revenue in full up front."

"What’s different [for Southwest] vs. some of the smaller domestic airlines is that Southwest has the network depth & breadth, balance sheet and brand to pivot quickly. Unfortunately, they have been slow to move, while industry costs ballooned. Given the lack of pivot, the revenue outcomes for Southwest have, frankly, not been acceptable in the current environment. — Melius Research, April 2024"

"What’s different [for Southwest] vs. some of the smaller domestic airlines is that Southwest has the network depth & breadth, balance sheet and brand to pivot quickly. Unfortunately, they have been slow to move, while industry costs ballooned. Given the lack of pivot, the revenue outcomes for Southwest have, frankly, not been acceptable in the current environment. — Melius Research, April 2024"

"It’s extremely competitive. A D2D operation is extremely expensive. Your cost per lead over the past 5 years has probably quadrupled. D2D would cost you 55%-70% of first year revenue, but a Google lead would cost 25%. But now Google is starting to get to 50%-60% so now there’s almost an indifference point. The only difference is you can dial digital up and down with a budget. — Industry Expert"

"What’s different [for Southwest] vs. some of the smaller domestic airlines is that Southwest has the network depth & breadth, balance sheet and brand to pivot quickly. Unfortunately, they have been slow to move, while industry costs ballooned. Given the lack of pivot, the revenue outcomes for Southwest have, frankly, not been acceptable in the current environment. — Melius Research, April 2024"

"The differences between the SAIC report and the credit report for Dianguan are mainly attributable to different presentation methods. In the SAIC report, we presented revenues and costs on a net basis, while in the credit report we were suggested to present on a gross basis. The net profit and net asset (total equity) in the two presentations had no material differences with each other. — QTT"

"If the first-year sales declines in Volker and Aspen were indeed just a temporary product of integration, and if they immediately returned to their (approximate) previous growth trajectories – perhaps supported by temporarily pent-up demand among customers – Hill-Rom could have benefited heavily from one-off accelerations in both businesses. Could management have been spring-loading revenue?"

""Our compensation-to-revenue ratio came in at 34.8%. This is the low end of the range of what we have been running for the last several years. We have been running in the 35% zone. It is down almost a half point from our 2009 margin and really is consistent with our focus of realizing the benefits of beta flowing through to our shareholders." — Larry Fink, BlackRock Earnings Call (1/25/2011)"

"Porch provides ERP and CRM software to a wide variety of home services companies. Those companies can pay us with typical software fees or we really encourage those companies to pay us by providing us access to their consumer, to their homebuyers, where we then generate B2B2C transactional revenues as we help those consumers with key services for their home. — Porch CEO At Gateway Conference"

"For the twelve-month period ended on December 31, 2018, the Specialty Cheese Business generated revenues of approximately A$192 million (CDN$182 million) and later revised at closing to For the twelve-month period ended on December 31, 2018, the Specialty Cheese Business generated revenues of approximately A$192 million (approximately CDN$171.1 million). — Saputo 2018 and 2019 Annual Report"

"Based on the 2023 AGM proxy filing list of companies used as a reference for compensation benchmarking purposes. These are companies “that are in our industry or have similar lines of business, are competitors for our executive talent, are large, complex organizations with global reach and / or similarly sized from a revenue and market capitalization perspective” — Bluebell Capital Partners"

"Limbach trades at over 18x our estimate for its FY26E Adj. EBITDA, a large premium when compared to peers. We believe this premium is unwarranted considering the Company's decelerating organic revenue growth, non-existent free cash flow growth, and its aggressive accounting methods which we believe may overstate earnings quality and obscure the true underlying volatility of the business."

""Three big initiatives of asset velocity, structural costs and the long train principles; I would say those are the three great building blocks that capture some pretty substantial course of what we're doing." — June 2011 Detailed Plan; "Revenue growth is integral to achieving lower OR and is dependent on maintaining strong personal relationships with customers." — Current Detailed Plan"

"AtriCure's valuation implies that the company's outlook is brighter than at any point in the last decade. But with the company's core surgical ablation market almost completely saturated, and the relentless improvements in catheter ablation technology accelerating, AtriCure is facing both rapidly decelerating revenue growth and the threat of technological obsolescence, simultaneously."

"Former Intuit employees with knowledge of the TurboTax business corroborated our concerns, noting that (1) the state AG settlement damaged the brand and was a bad look for the Company, (2) growth expectations for TurboTax are too optimistic, (3) the costs to deliver human-intensive Live offerings are significant and increasing, and (4) TurboTax revenue really isn't subscription based."

"Spruce Point believes that Stryker doesn't cleanly provide investors with Mako sales figures. However, based on our research, we believe the market fails to appreciate both the size of the business, and the pressures it is under from disruptive pricing and sales from Zimmer Biomet, the #2 player in the industry. Mako revenues could exceed $1.0 billion, with prices dropping up to 30%"

"False Claim: Vivion tenant Rent24 is a related party and represents a significant portion of the Company's business. The Facts: Vivion's shareholders have no ownership interest in Rent24. While Vivion's Founding Shareholders were early investors in Rent24, this stake was sold on September 1, 2017. Rent24 currently accounts for less than 2.5% of Vivion's revenue. — Vivion Investments"

""CGI's corporate performance - and stock price - warrant scrutiny. Among them are decreasing cash flow - a key metric of financial health - and falling bookings of new business, as well as various "accounting conventions" that have improved CGI's earnings, in part through recognizing revenue already counted by Logica plc, a big technology company CGI bought last year." — Newsweek"

"Capitalize on Corporate Infrastructure Investments. In recent periods, we have made significant investments in our senior management and corporate infrastructure in anticipation of future revenue growth... We therefore anticipate that, to the extent our revenue grows, we will be able to leverage this infrastructure base and increase our operating margins. — Kratos 2013 10-K, p. 9"

"For this year 2023, Burgiss is projecting slightly above $90 million of forecasted revenue with a mid-teens standalone EBITDA margin. Together with the benefits we bring to the business, we're projecting 20% top-line growth in the near term and gradually expanding margins. I would point out that we do expect this to be dilutive for the next 12 months. — Burgiss Deal Call Aug 2023"

"We were further troubled, as the Synlogic press release on June 12, 2019, announcing the $80MM Ginkgo investment stated that “At the closing under the foundry services agreement, Synlogic paid Ginkgo $30MM for “synthetic biology services to be provided over an initial period of five years....” – yet Ginkgo disclosed only $70-150K in its related party deferred revenue disclosure."