Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"COOKING PASTA: The first step in any pasta recipe is to put water in a big pot and salt it. Nobody ever says how much salt to put in the water, because it’s simple: the water should be salty, Atlantic Ocean salty…And why is salt important in there? Because salt is water-soluble, and as the water enters the pasta, so does the salt, which makes the pasta taste like something. — The Frankies Spuntino Cookbook"

"NQ Yu Lin: First, we have already made all the bank savings public. We are probably the first listed company globally that is this transparent. Further work is still ongoing. The $1.6 billion in the Standard Chartered Bank is the investment money from the convertible bonds. Second, the issue with ZTE Corporation is a misunderstanding by the media. The interviewee does not have enough knowledge — NQ Yu Lin."

"COOKING PASTA: The first step in any pasta recipe is to put water in a big pot and salt it. Nobody ever says how much salt to put in the water, because it’s simple: the water should be salty, Atlantic Ocean salty…And why is salt important in there? Because salt is water-soluble, and as the water enters the pasta, so does the salt, which makes the pasta taste like something. — The Frankies Spuntino Cookbook"

""Also, substantially all of our servers are tested and assembled in our facilities, and more than half of our final server and storage production is completed in San Jose, California." — SMCI Disclosure; "Revised DIGITIMES estimates suggest that the server market shipments growth could decelerate to 4.3% in 2023 (revised from 5.2% previously) after posting an expansion of 6.1% in 2022" — DIGITIMES Research"

""We continue to remain focused as a Company and our Board of Directors on deleveraging. I think that when you look at our targets going out 2015 and 2016, our leverage ratios during that time period, particularly when you take into account an IPO during that time period, that our leverage ratios go to our long-time stated objective of 2.0 times our EBITDA." — Peter Huntsman, President & CEO, September 2013"

"「この1年ほど、業界は全体的に低迷しています。TSMCは投資を控えてきました。また、インテルも1年以上前から検査装置などの発注を控えてきました。」 — 半導体製造装置企業の上席幹部として長年の経験を持ち、レーザーテックのCEOに親しい人物; 「TSMCは発注を延期しています。アリゾナ州の建設計画は保留状態です。仕入れ先に対してそう言っています」 — インテルの上席エンジニアとして長年の経験を持ち、極端紫外線関連の製造について管理責任を持つ人物; 「サンノゼ市の工場にはレーザーテック製の装置が3台しかありません。また、工場は装置を増やす気はありません。私の元同僚のうち何人かは、オレゴン州に異動させられました。まず、数人をアリゾナ州に異動させて、その後、アリゾナ州から（オレゴン州の）ポートランド市に異動させました」 — インテルのマスク工場を現場で担当していた、レーザーテックの元フィールド・サービス・エンジニア"

"“Despite price increases, customer retention at 86.5% is now actually above pre pandemic levels.” — CFO Ingall-Tombs, Interim 2022, Sept 28, 2022; “Despite price increases, customer retention is up over 1 percentage point year-on-year at 86.6%.” — CFO Ingall-Tombs, 2022 Preliminary, March 16, 2023; “Despite price increases, customer retention was stable at 86.7%.” — CFO Ingall-Tombs, H1 2023, July 27, 2023"

"On December 3, 2024, Robert Aarnes, our President, ADI, adopted a Rule 10b5-1 trading agreement, pursuant to which he may sell up to 47,000 shares of the Company’s common stock. The trading agreements is intended to satisfy the affirmative defense of Rule 10b5-1(c) under the Exchange Act. The duration of the trading agreement is from March 4, 2025 to December 31, 2025. — Resideo Technologies, Inc. (Form 4)"

"“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"

"“discounting is part of Nevro’s approach now” — Former Nevro executive; “a stupid move”; “one of the dumbest moves you could ever make.” — Ex-executive; “drastically” cut pricing... “cutting off your nose to spite your face” — Competitor; “Nevro really wins this”... “it’s a price war because none of the stim companies have created great customers.” — Ex-Nevro executive; “the hardest it has ever been” — KOL"

"“these are not well-recognized journals or high-quality data points...find it very interesting that there may be some internal inconsistencies...” — PWS endocrinologist #1. “I predict that I can achieve similar plasma levels and clinical efficacy with both an oral formulation and at low cost, even if it requires off-label prescribing. I'm totally in. That is an easy win for me...” — PWS endocrinologist #1."

"In the spring of 2003 the board was made aware of Kahn’s increasing tendency to become mired in the day-to-day management details, a person familiar with the situation said. Also at issue were sales projections that repeatedly turned out to be overly aggressive, turf battles between the company’s corporate merchandising division and store buyers and a faltering private label program, this person continued."

"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"

"If it becomes necessary, we are confident Phillips 66 could follow a similar path by: Making appropriate management changes; Closing the current $2-$3 per barrel refining EBITDA gap between Phillips 66 and Valero; and Generating $15 billion to $20 billion of after-tax cash proceeds from the sale of Phillips 66’s CPChem stake, European convenience stores, and a portion of its non-operated midstream stakes."

"You should assume that as of the publication date of our reports and research, Muddy Waters Capital LLC (possibly along with or through our members, partners, affiliates, employees, and/or consultants) along with our clients and/or investors and/or their clients and/or investors has a short position in all stocks (and/or options, swaps, and other derivatives related to the stock) and bonds covered herein."

"A former BLI scientist provided extensive color on the Beacon’s instability and reliability issues: “not robust enough to ensure good results”; troubleshooting was difficult; instrument requires an overwhelming amount of training, support, and documentation and customer still couldn’t get it to work; product has too many steps to get it to run properly, requiring handholding by members of BLI’s R&D staff."

"You should assume that as of the publication date of our reports and research, Muddy Waters Capital LLC (possibly along with or through our members, partners, affiliates, employees, and/or consultants) along with our clients and/or investors and/or their clients and/or investors has a short position in all stocks (and/or options, swaps, and other derivatives related to the stock) and bonds covered herein."

"The KLA Xenon works. The Ushio tin source failed. ASML is different. They're using tin and they're using IR laser to ignite it. That's ASML. The KLA technology is published, It uses a frozen Xenon gas with IR laser as the originator. Ushio uses molten tin like ASML, but instead of using IR, they're using discharge electrodes, which is terrible. And the concept of maintaining two propellers creates a mess."

"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."

"“Relative to India, you have to be careful about what you read out of all the press and all the things that are going on in India. But stepping back, we view, as we've always viewed India, is a very, very important market, a market that fits nicely within a diversified portfolio in American Tower.” — Tom Bartlett, ATL, CFO, EVP American Tower Corp at REITWeek®: NAREIT's Investor Forum Chicago June 6, 2013"

"“There’s a machine in development, and they hope that it will be able to do it, but it hasn’t done it yet.” — Former executive; “To me, that’s fraudulent.” — Former executive; “So, they’re trying to cover up that it’s not there, and it’s really a tough place to be.” — Former executive; “He never would admit that it was a mistake, because in his own mind he’s too brilliant and powerful.” — Former executive"

"Second of all, I bring 45 years of experience in the energy business to this, along with board experience and governance. This is a company that has good people, has a rich history, and great assets that don't necessarily belong together. So, I'm excited for the opportunity. I'm excited to bring my experience one more time to the game. And I think the opportunity here could not be clearer. — Sig Cornelius"

"“I do belong to the camp where I think there is clear space for a product that is oral and has the tolerability that we believe our TYK2 agent has and has a efficacy that is comparable to biologics to carve a really important space in the market. And we do look at that opportunity as a really meaningful opportunity for us.” — Giovanni Caforio, Chairman & CEO, Guggenheim Partner Oncology Day, February 2019"

""We believe a separation of our retail business from the remainder of Valero by way of a tax-efficient distribution will create operational flexibility within the businesses and unlock value for our shareholders... As independent companies, both retail and the remaining business will be better-positioned to focus on their industry-specific strategies." — Bill Klesse, Valero Chairman and CEO, July 31, 2012"

""During the fourth quarter, we achieved our strategic priority targets for shareholder distributions and asset dispositions." — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, January 31, 2025; "Yesterday afternoon PSX announced it will acquire Pinnacle Midstream for 5 50mm... While the deal looks fine on its own, we suspect investors will react negatively to PSX's decision on capital allocation." — TPH & Co., May 21, 2024"

"IT IS ORDERED that Defendants, Defendants' officers, agents, employees, and all other persons in active concert or participation with any of them, who receive actual notice of this Order, whether acting directly or indirectly, are permanently restrained and enjoined from advertising, marketing, promoting, or offering any Multi- Level Marketing Program unless such program has the following characteristics:"

"“I understand it’s not a human, but it’s an organ that’s going to go into a live human. It just blows my mind that they’re hiring people who are not qualified to be doing the stuff that they’re doing... they’re scrambling and can’t do it... these poor people are just stressed beyond words and have had a week of training.” — Organ procurement technician at a high-volume Northwest academic transplant center"

""Toys "R" Us and Babies "R" Us are premiere franchises with strong global brand recognition and a collection of high quality product offerings including toys, children's apparel, and baby products and accessories. We are excited by the prospect of partnering with the management team and employees to strengthen the long-term operating and financial performance of the businesses." — Matt Levin, a MD at Bain"

"“Notwithstanding Defendants’ express and implied representations that Herbalife offers a retail-based business opportunity, in truth the only way to achieve wealth from the Herbalife business opportunity is to recruit other Distributors.” — FTC v. Herbalife International of America, Inc., et al. (July 15, 2016). Case No.2:16-cv-05217, Complaint for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable Relief, at p.23."

"IT IS ORDERED that Defendants, Defendants' officers, agents, employees, and all other persons in active concert or participation with any of them, who receive actual notice of this Order, whether acting directly or indirectly, are permanently restrained and enjoined from advertising, marketing, promoting, or offering any Multi- Level Marketing Program unless such program has the following characteristics:"

"“Mr. Tan has not sold a single share of Qutoutiao during the IPO or after the IPO, and has taken the CEO role to drive the business forward. All the shares owned by Mr. Tan are founder’s shares, and Mr. Tan has not earned any share rewards for his role as the CEO or Chairman of the Company. Mr. Tan has not pledged any of his shares to obtain cash advances either.” — Qutoutiao (quoted by Wolfpack Research)"

"You should assume that as of the publication date of any report or letter, Muddy Waters, LLC (possibly along with or through our members, partners, affiliates, employees, and/or consultants) along with our clients and/or investors has a short position in the stock (and/or options of the stock) covered herein, and therefore stands to realize significant gains in the event that the price of stock declines."

"The customer concentration is striking when one adds the volumes from a just a few others, whose questionable practices we detail in other sections: UCSD, which we estimate does 100 TransMedics cases; University of Utah, which we suspect will do over 50; and a center run by another Lebanon-trained physician, who told us he’s on track for 50 OCS pumps in 2024; and one in LA using 50 – another 250 devices."

"The fiscal 2019 Cintas EPS used in the incentive plan calculations was $7.60. This EPS figure differs from the Company's reported diluted EPS from continuing operations because it takes into consideration various one-time, extraordinary financial impacts that occurred during the fiscal year, which consisted of acquisition-related integration expenses and a gain on the sale of an equity method investment."

""They did 140% (total volume) recently. Having said that, even though I really believe in Philip, Nuvei and SafeCharge, I think it (volume growth) will now go a little bit down. They had the pitch and utilized the services, products in the background, Nuvei on the high risk in the states. Now they find a place where they have to start competing in the less risk markets." — Former Nuvei Employee Interview"

"[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"

"“For the lithium-ion cells, the y-axis labeling here doesn't say depth of discharge. It says "discharge energy percentage." So, all of these axis definitions need to be clearly defined. They don't follow any protocols that are commonly adopted in the field. What does discharge energy percentage mean? What's the denominator? What's on top? And how is this comparison made?” — Solid-state battery researcher"

""ISS' quantitative analysis indicates that CEO pay significantly outranked peer companies within similar sector and size ranges, while 1- and 3-year TSRs were at or near the bottom ranking of the same peer group. Specifically, relative TSR performance has been at the lower end of the bottom quartile of peers while CEO pay has been in the top quartile." — ISS Proxy Advisory Services, Hess Core Report 2012"

"“...It [ANTA] has the final say on the human, on the subsidiaries and also final say on, I think the HR to how to say this. Three positions in the subsidiary have to be picked by the Anta group. One is the HR manager and one is the finance manager and that is really important to the Anta group, and also they can be, they have the final say also on the general manager and also the top management.” — Mr. A"

""We have no intention to fill Steve's job at this point," Axelrod said in a telephone interview this morning. "I'll take the time to review the organizational structure to determine our needs to grow from a $2 billion company to a $4 billion one within two to three years, and so Steve's job may or may not be filled. We are certainly not going to fill it today." — Axelrod, Home Textiles Today, Feb 5, 2003"

""in terms of the numbers, it's less material. So, that's why we didn't refer to it. It's relatively a small company at this stage, but we believe that together with the breadth of the customers' opportunity that we have that we acquired through Vubiquity now, the opportunity is significant moving forward to create those synergies. But it will take some time naturally." — Tamar Rapaport-Dagim, CFO, Amdocs"

""The Board of Directors shall have the exclusive power and authority to administer, interpret and apply this Agreement...All such actions, calculations, interpretations and determinations done or made by the Board of Directors in good faith shall (i) be final, conclusive and binding...and (ii) not subject any member of the Board of Directors to any liability to the holder of Rights" — HMA 8K May 24, 2013"

"Adnan Al-Kaisy said he had switched over to Nevro and then he started seeing what you've noted. He had seen 20 to 30 patients with no sustained benefit. He was seeing explants. So he started spreading his business around. He didn't bash Nevro completely. But he's gotten to a point where he thinks other devices like Boston Scientific are a better option. — KOL and key player in the SENZA-RCT pivotal trial"

"“nearly impossible to use”; “it has a lot more side effects”; “you have to repeatedly dose it during the day at these high levels and put the person at significant risk...DCCR was designed to get around these problems...allows us to not only have a better safety profile but also allows us to have efficacy with doses that are half to a third of what can be used with diazoxide today.” — CEO Anish Bhatnagar"

""For a lot of our clients, we saw they were willing to cut our price by almost half in order to get the brand names." — Former NuORDER Account Executive. "When we were developing multiple languages, we came across issues with translation and data implementation." — Former NuORDER Account Executive. "Instead of releasing ahead of the market, you are chasing the market." — Former NuORDER Account Executive."

""The FTC settlement is an acknowledgment that our business model is sound and underscores our confidence in our ability to move forward successfully, otherwise we would not have agreed to these terms." — Michael O. Johnson, chairman & CEO, Herbalife. "The terms of the settlement in no way change our business model as a direct selling company but simply build upon current procedures." — Michael O. Johnson"

"“At the center of our strategy is really this agent platform, the Data Vault, which allows you to experience data, view data, see data from all of its sources, taking in data in a Web 3 format where all Web 2 formats such as video and telecom and things that were not traditional data sources are able to be seen, viewed and experience within the Data Vault.” — M&A Call 5/20/25, DVLT CEO, Nathaniel Bradley"

"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."

"Spruce Point interviewed a former Stryker / Mako robotics salesperson with over a decade experience in surgical robotics. We learned many startling insights into industry dynamics, notably that Mako has been using “Joint Value” pricing strategies to lower the robot’s upfront cost, but now just cut prices in response Zimmer – it’s second largest competitors – who gives away robots for free to gain share."

"Ironically, AOS is covered by small regional U.S. stock brokers, many which do not have a physical presence in China. Thus, we believe their ability to have on the ground and up-to-date intelligence on the key aspect of AOS’s China business may be limited. It does not appear that analysts have come to grips with the broken nature of the China business, and many hold out hope for 20% upside in the stock."

"“Lies and fraud. In a sense, I understand why they choose such strong words.” — Former senior scientific employee of IonQ; “What I think people feel, is that the leadership has been blinded by money, maybe. This is the speculation between some of us. And what they're basically building is just a gigantic house of cards...everybody knows it's fake essentially.” — Former senior scientific employee of IonQ"

""We do have a plan to start working down some of our inventory through the back half of the year. It's nothing dramatic. It's going to take place over the next 6 months on a very gradual basis." — CFO Rowland, Q2 2022. "So we have really good insight into the inventory. The levels are healthy and normalizing and they're not sitting on any excess inventory -- is reported back to us." — COO Pine, Q4 2022."

"“Third Point was the largest pre-transaction shareholder at ~60 million shares and the architect of the 2012 Board reorganization (which we continue to applaud),” and, later, “With its 2012 reorganization, Third Point brought a shareholder advocate and adult supervision to the table.” — Gabelli & Co. report; “These were good directors, and they were part of needed change at Yahoo!.” — The New York Times"

""The rumors are true! Dropbox has acquired stealth collaboration startup Cove for its talent, namely the brilliant engineering duo and couple Aditya Agarwal and Ruchi Sanghvi." — Tech Crunch. "It's important for us to integrate deeply into a variety of different experiences, as we transition to Dropbox not being just an app on your phone. Our ambitions are much larger than file-sharing," — Drew Houston."

"Our primary competitors include EmbanetCompass and Deltak, which were acquired in 2012 by Pearson and John Wiley & Sons, respectively, both of which are large education and publishing companies. There are also several new and existing vendors providing some or all of the services we provide to other segments of the education market, and these vendors may pursue the institutions we target. — S-1 offering"

"“Electra signed an agreement For the construction of an office campus for the Amdocs Israel company in Israel, the activities of Amdocs Israel's employees will be concentrated in the center. The campus will include 4 offices, development areas and 3 underground floors. The total expected consideration in respect of the execution of these projects is NIS 330 million” — Google Translate (from TASE filing)"

"they had big trouble with the light source; they were struggling because of the short lifespan and then it needed replacement and after replacement they needed one month to tune the light source...so the tool was only available for maybe 60% or 70%...customers needed to buy more equipment than they originally planned to cover their requirements. — Longtime semiconductor industry executive based in Japan"

"“And we also have a large number of members who are quite long in the tooth who were very jaundiced shall we say about BHP’s ability to pick mergers and acquisitions over the years. We’ve seen a lot of essentially investments wasted and many of the members think that we could invest better than you guys…” — Australian Shareholders’ Association Member at BHP’s Retail Shareholder Presentation, May 4, 2017"

""Capital expenditures were $190 million for the year ended December 31, 2019 compared to $169 million in the year ended December 31, 2018. The increase in capital expenditures is primarily driven by increased investment to drive growth and improve cost productivity. Free Cash Flow in 2020 is expected to be approximately $350 million, with capital expenditures of approximately $200 million." — Sealed Air"

"No, it's a great question. So here's kind of how I roughly look at it. Active subscriptions leads me to look to retention and market share... And so months under subscription gives me a little snapshot there to say are we meeting that mission of having long-term proximity being closest to the veterinarian. And so that's how I look at that metric and that's a key success metric. — Kevin Wilson, Heska CEO"