Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"「これに関しては顧客と一体になって、彼らのニーズについてしっかり確認しなければいけません。需要があって、コミットがあること。というのも、今現在、極端紫外線の量産が実現するタイミングが見えない。そのため、投資の課題としては厄介です。装置を開発しても、想定している市場が成り立たなければ、他の用途はありません。あの装置はひとつの用途にしか使えません。極端紫外線マスクを検査すること、それだけです。ウェハー検査用の高度な装置の開発の肝は、人がウェハーを作っていることであって、どんな技術で作っているかは関係のないのです。それこそ、顧客と一体になって、彼らのニーズについてしっかり確認しています。いずれ、彼らと協力して開発していくことになります。しかし、現時点ではこれほどの投資に踏み切りたくなるほど、強い関心を示していらっしゃらない」 — Richard P. Wallace, CEO of KLA"

"Porch was required to recognize a compensation expense under FASB ASC Topic 718 in the aggregate amount of $33,231,717 with respect to Mr. Ehrlichman’s share purchase from Lowes. This amount is being excluded from the 2020 Summary Compensation Table as Porch was not a party to the transaction and does not view the stock purchase by Mr. Ehrlichman as compensatory. — Porch Prospectus Jan 29, 2021"

"“…many of our clients have continued to expand their workforce as they successfully grow their own businesses. Our existing clients grew in aggregate by approximately 100,000 lives in 2020 despite the significant disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic. Because of our utilization-based model, as our employees grow, we grow too.” — David Schlanger, 2021 JPMorgan Healthcare Conference Transcript"

""With more modern technology than what's used in the traditional whiskey-making process, Cleveland, Ohio-based distiller Cleveland Whiskey has refined a proprietary scientific method. But thanks to his experimentation, his current process takes about a week from the beginning of production to bottling and shipping, compared with the years it takes using traditionally methods" — CNBC August 2015"

""And we believe that the listing in New York in particular in the multi-capitalisation which will approach $20 billion once the synergies are factored in, will put us sort of mid-way in the S&P500 index and create index buying that actually will create flow forward, right. You typically talk about flow back in cross border deals. We would expect flow forward." — CEO Dalia, Deal Call Aug 7, 2018"

"“Most doctors that do stimulators only implant six a year. They don't do that many, so they're nervous. They're insecure about it. And the reps are knowledgeable and very aggressive They can run the show. So when you're doing half a dozen a year and they're not all with Nevro and you've had a couple of bad outcomes, the reps blame you, and the doctor accepts it.” — High volume implanter and KOL"

""all communication goes through the TransMedics people." — Ex-procurement surgeon; "I always had to report everything to whoever my clinical lead was that day...everything had to be like, take a picture or video and send it to whoever was running the case remotely"; "they did my job...they were me until they got promoted or asked to start doing some support." — Former TransMedics OCS specialist"

""For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022 and June 30, 2021, a hypothetical 10% decrease in the value of the Canadian dollar, the British pound, the Euro, the Indian Rupee and the Swedish Krona versus the U.S. dollar would have resulted in a decrease in our total pre-tax earnings of approximately $12.8 million and $19.3 million, respectively." — Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (SEC filings)"

"“The beauty of the technology is saying there is no rush...it can sit there as long as you need it to. You don't have to rush... when the liver arrives, they will sit on that - they will just park it in the corner and wait until the doctor wakes up and is rested... our clinical specialists are gone up to 40 hours long because there's no rush for procurement.” — Senior ex-employee at TransMedics"

"“The Ushio source [had] degradation. So, the same people who came to me and said, wow, we won the war, and we got Lasertec; it’s all good with Ushio. There was this celebration. The same people came to me two years later and said, yeah, by the way, everybody in the field has taken the sources out, and we’re replacing it with Isteq.” — Leading EUV lithography expert close to Lasertec’s customers"

"With one of the major bottlenecks preventing more widespread in-house 3D printing demand now gone with the expiration of key Align patents and the development of new software, Spruce Point believes that the cost savings and workflow efficiency offered by in-house printing will trigger a new wave of demand for 3D printers among orthodontists, posing a significant threat to Align's case volumes."

"A reversal of impairment for tax credits aided net income in 2014 and 2015, yet was not adjusted for in the adjusted net income reconciliation. In 2017, the exact opposite occurred, and Globant recorded a loss of $1.6M related to the recognition of the allowance for impairment of tax credits. In this instance, Globant treated this item as an adjustment and added it back to adjusted net income."

"MSCI pays fees to Royalty Pharma plc (NYSE: RPRX) for advice on science-based thematic ETFs while Morgan Stanley is a top shareholder of RPRX, CEO Fernandez is on RPRX's Board, and Fernandez's son is employed at RPRX. Morgan Stanley was also a lead underwriter in Royalty Pharma's IPO. These factors add to our concern about nepotism-like dealing between MSCI and Morgan Stanley related entities."

"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."

"Lasertec’s actinic EUV tool is so defective and unreliable that TSMC, Intel, and Samsung have all quietly substituted non-EUV alternatives for inspecting EUV masks, improvising with KLA’s legacy Teron DUV tool plus electron beam inspection - indicating that actinic EUV is useful if and when it works but is not essential and certainly not a “monopoly” that justifies Lasertec’s absurd valuation."

"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"

"Aqua failed to establish that the sewer system under Aqua’s ownership will affirmatively promote the service, accommodation, convenience, or safety of the public and the evidence did not establish that any benefit to be realized from the proposed transaction would outweigh the harms to current Aqua water and wastewater customers or existing Willistown sewer customers. — Judge Jeffrey A. Watson"

"Each Reporting Person, as a member of a “group” with the other Reporting Persons for the purposes of Section 13(d)(3) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, may be deemed the beneficial owner of the Shares directly owned by the other Reporting Persons. Each Reporting Person disclaims beneficial ownership of such Shares except to the extent of his or its pecuniary interest therein."

"Bai, R, et al, Proven isolation of the pulmonary vein antrum with or without left atrial posterior wall isolation in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation — Footnote 10; Kim, JS, et al, Does isolation of the left atrial posterior wall improve clinical outcomes after radiofrequency catheter ablation for persistent atrial fibrillation? A prospective randomized clinical trial — Footnote 11"

"This quarter, our cash conversion cycle increased seasonally to 92 days from 82 days in the prior quarter. Both day sales outstanding due to collections and inventory days increased to position stock for the second quarter offset-- was offset by increasing days payable. Our near-term target is to stay in the range of 85 to 90 days for the cash conversion cycle. — SMCI Conference Call (Q1 2019)"

"“What consumers want is sound, independent information. But they, along with experts and doctors, are bombarded with manipulative advertising and industry-funded drug and device studies that can incorporate shady or even illegal tactics to obscure bad science and conflicts of interest.” — Excerpts from “Doctor Who? The corporations behind WebMD’s friendly, free advice”, In These Times, 8/28/12"

""We have found that Medco has given favorable treatment to Merck drugs. As a result, in some cases, consumers have been denied access to the drugs of competing manufacturers. In addition, the merger has made it possible for Medco to share with Merck sensitive pricing information it gets from Merck's competitors, which could foster collusion among drug manufacturers." — Federal Trade Commission"

"“The business in Europe, which is, let's say, the purest general Flexibles business that we have at scale, which is a $3 billion-plus business had good sales growth last year and picked up momentum in the second half. So if anything, that business you would say is winning in the market and that's the expectation and it's been the experience as well.” — CEO Delia, FY 2018 Earnings Call Aug 2018"

"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"

"Absolutely, I mean you can buy a great aggregate business but if they are almost out of reserves, then what are you buying? The true value is the rock in the ground. Whenever we would buy a company, we would go out and do extensive drilling just to verify what they were saying and to prove to ourselves the rock was a certain quality and there was X amount of tons of reserves. — 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"

""had 3 tenants basically go bankrupt" — Q4 2024 earnings call. "Yeah. So when we bought it, these leases were in place. And so they've already been addressed as far as the CapEx. So ...some of these boxes have been vacant for some time and now the tenants are just now getting to the build-out side of it, but we took credits for the landlord side of it when we acquired it." — John Albright, CEO"

"“I asked Ushio what was wrong with their source, and they wouldn't say...if your source is not stable, then the intensity of light coming in through it fluctuates...so you have a stability issue...they gave us the data, and we had about six to seven different models of Ushio data...the bottom line is that there is something wrong.” — Leading EUV lithography expert close to Lasertec’s customers"

"In its most watered down sense perhaps everyone has restructuring experience (and John Hess more than most), but when taken as a meaningful mark of having effectively turned around an organization, not one of John Hess’s Nominees have experience on par with what Karl Kurz helped accomplish at Anadarko, David McManus helped execute at Pioneer, or what Harvey Golub achieved at American Express."

"[T]he outsiders (who often had complicated balance sheets, active acquisition programs, and high debt levels) believed the key to long-term value creation was to optimize free cash flow, and this emphasis on cash informed all aspects of how they ran their companies – from the way they paid for acquisitions and managed their balance sheets to their accounting policies and compensation systems."

"Spruce Point used Similarweb to evaluate the organic search interest in Perion. By far the #1 organic search topic is "PERI Stock IR." Of the top ten organic search topics, six relate to Perion’s stock or investment. There is only one technology specific Perion search keyword "Perion Cookies" in the top ten. Perion’s core search monetization solutions don’t even appear until #20 on this list."

"That $3,000 [per customer] of renewal value is not real value. You should be very skeptical there... and you know, I would say there's significant creative license taken in calculating those renewal values. They're nowhere near what they should be; they're not being conservative... and in those numbers, in fact, it's the opposite. They've been quite aggressive, right? — Former RUN Executive A"

"The Company will not comment on the veracity of the information relating to Panjiva. However, the Company believes that it is inappropriate to compare Panjiva’s data in respect of imports into the United States to the Group’s sales worldwide (other than the PRC) which approximate the figures under the column headed ‘HK filings’ in the above table. — Man Wah Holdings Clarification Announcement"

"“Yeah, the back one with the backlit IonQ logo, yeah, I never saw that.” — Ex-IonQ physicist; “I’m pretty sure that photo is either a photo op, or else there’s some very easy way to get inside it.” — Ex-IonQ employee, physicist; “I’ve never seen that in person, but I had seen the computers in person when I was there, and they were just in unfinished steel boxes.” — Ex-IonQ employee, physicist"

"In the summer of 2013, Huang was charged with ‘criminal defamation’ for criticizing a Chinese company. His trial in September of that year lasted one day and was closed to the public, at Silvercorp’s behest. Silvercorp was also granted standing. In the end, Huang received a two-year sentence and was returned to the same overcrowded cell to serve out the rest of his term. — Hindenburg Research"

"In terms of a competitive landscape, there are definitely players that took a chunk out of each individual aspect of the market that they targeted. There are companies in antibody discovery like AbCellera, for example, or even Sphere Fluidics, where for a substantially lower capital expenditure investment, you can do more or less the same stuff. — Leading academic institution/ex-BLI scientist"

"Investments at August 31, 2018 of $180.3 million include the cash surrender value of insurance policies of $160.2 million, equity method investments of $14.9 million and cost method investments of $5.2 million. ... Cintas reached an agreement to sell a cost method investment to a third party. The anticipated gain on the sale will be recorded upon consummation of the sale. — Cintas SEC filings"

"Pepsi: China MediaExpress promotes our products to tier 2 cities and towns by its large scale inter-city bus network, which is highly helpful to our sales expansion. CMCC: China MediaExpress' network penetrates large target audience precisely. It fits our products very well. Lenovo: ChinaMediaExpress' media cost is much lower than traditional media, which is the main reason that we chose CCME"

"“the worst-performing product is definitely the lung...that organ is preserved on ice just as well, if not better, because of the complexity of the physiology and anatomy of the lung...it’s pretty expensive...the majority of the cases can be safely preserved on ice...this is a method that was working pretty well.” — Former employee in senior roles including medical safety and clinical affairs"

""We took a $30 million impairment charge on the Reveal Imaging acquisition, reducing the overall margins by 1.2%. While Reveal and the engineering products business are our most profitable, we did not ship nor expect to ship enough units near term of Reveal units to produce the financial results necessary to support the purchase valuation a couple of years ago." — SAIC Q2'2014 conference call"

"If we roll out in more countries and regions through various sales channels, it is possible to aim for sales of 100 billion yen, but we will strive to be the Global Sharp Top without taking such an approach — Kao Group Cosmetics and Skin Protection Business Growth Strategy Briefing, September 2023; Killer Strengths, Just Needs a Killer Growth Strategy — SMBC Nikko Securities, October 03, 2023"

"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"

"So I'll give you a little bit of background on the food hall as far as where they are just as an opportunity...So they're looking at more end of the year opening [2021] and when we sign this up, we thought it was going to be summer of this year, so a couple of months ago. And so, but they're making very good progress there about 80% built out. — CTO's CEO on Q3 2021 Earnings Call, October, 29"

"“no, unfortunately no” — Longtime ex-TSMC procurement executive. “it’s not a tool to support production because the production demands you have to quite frequently monitor and quite frequently check the EUV mask breaks.” — Longtime ex-TSMC procurement executive. “things are not well” — Lasertec executive. “Yes, a lab tool. Yes, not a production tool.” — Longtime ex-TSMC procurement executive."

"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?"

"“to the best of our knowledge, the Company does not grant performance-vesting incentive awards” — Glass Lewis. “far from ideal” — Glass Lewis. “unconvinced that the proposed changes to the 2012 LTI plan will adequately link pay and performance” — Glass Lewis. “leads us to question how committed the compensation committee truly is to linking equity pay to corporate performance” — Glass Lewis."

"“...I think the fundamental issue sort of comes down to whether the IDTF, the CCTs, if you will, the clinical technicians, are they part of the product or are they not? And I think from the beginning of time, we view those as separate items. And I think the FDA has a bit of a different perspective right now that we're working through.” — iRhythm CEO Blackford on Q2 2024 Earnings Call, 8/1/24"

"“As we discussed, including the Shanghai subsidiary, there are unclear relationships, including Lin Sankuang’s Yunnan subsidiary. As far as I understand, the boss Mr. Ding, holds shares in many of these subsidiaries, and many are his family members’, it could be his family is holding them for Ding, this is also a possibility. But basically we all say that these companies are ANTA’s.” — Mr. C"

"“If you grow your Industrial EPS...4% a year over the next couple of years, that gets you to $2.00 [EPS in 2018]...Now I'm going to run the company to a higher number than that...So if you get 5% organic growth, if we're able to do the job with margins, if we execute the way we think we can execute...we're going to be substantially above 4% annual growth” — Jeff Immelt EPG Conference 5/20/15"

"Our results are very promising: an important ML task that took more than 40 days to run on our in-house systems completed in just four days on a fraction of a TPUv2 Pod, a 10X reduction in training time. This is a game changer—the dramatic increase in training speed not only allows us to iterate faster but also allows us to avoid large up-front capital expenditures. — eBay (via Google Cloud)"

""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)"

""We're helping and serving families. Let's say you're helping a family, one family a week. One family a week. You look at the compensation, its about $4,320, which is equivalent to about $50,000 in part time income. If you're like you know what? No, I'm really looking to get to 6 figures. I really want to just go all in and change my life. Guess what, you're able to do that." — WFG Recruiter"

"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"

""Audit-Related Fees include professional services performed by the Company for its clients' benefit on the design and/or effectiveness of the Company's internal controls relative to the services the Company performs for its clients, and reviews of compliance with performance criteria established by the Company for the services the Company performs for its clients." — Proxy Statement Language"

""I think Verint is stalling. That is part of the reason I left to be perfectly honest. Verint got stuck in its old ways." — Former Verint Employee; "It feels like Verint is slowing down." — Former Verint Employee; "Verint's culture is toxic." — Verint Competitor; "Verint has been complacent and I believe it has been a cultural challenge for them [in embracing the cloud]." — Verint Competitor"

"All of our Point of Care laboratory and other non-imaging instruments and consumables are supplied by third parties, who typically own the product rights and supply the product to us under marketing and/or distribution agreements...A loss of, or disruption in, the supply of consumables we are selling to an installed base of instruments could substantially harm our business. — Heska 2020 10-K"

"Well, of course, there's the antimony side. We received this $43 million award. You're going to start seeing news. We've already procured mining equipment and processing equipment, that will all be coming. I'm going to start construction on that Phase 1 plant next year. So news flow and things related to that to get into production with the antimony by mid to late next year. — CEO (Dec 2025)"

""I was actually one of the top three surgeons...I probably did 100 to 150 livers." — Transplant procurement surgeon previously working with TransMedics. "They hired somebody from England" who "brought quite a large number" of surgeons who "were never trained in the United States...they’re not licensed to practice medicine" — Transplant procurement surgeon previously working with TransMedics."

"Compounds that inhibit the H3R with high affinity contain a basic amine linked to an aromatic or general lipophilic region that is connected to either (1) a second basic site, (2) a polar group, (3) a lipophilic region, or (4) an acidic group, resulting in pharmacophores that comprise significant similarity to the predicted pharmacophore for hERG blockers (Fig. 1). — Scientific paper excerpt"