Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

""[Dauman] took a short-term financial gain beginning in 2011 by selling kids TV hits including SpongeBob to Netflix. That now appears to have backfired by encouraging young viewers to abandon Nickelodeon and other ad-supported channels and go online where they can watch shows whenever they want, without ads." — www.deadline.com/2015/08/viacom-philippe-dauman-heir-apparent-1201493629"

"“Elliott’s consultant and candidate for CEO – Larry Lawson, a former Spirit AeroSystems CEO – is legally restricted from taking the job and is on Elliott’s payroll. Elliott has agreed to pay him approximately $28 million over next two years, raising the question of whether he would truly serve the interests of ALL Arconic shareholders.” — Arconic’s Letter to Employees, April 7, 2017"

""The officers of the Corporation shall be elected by the Board of Directors and shall include a Chief Executive Officer, President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary. The Board of Directors of the Corporation, in its discretion, may also elect a Chairman of the Board of Directors (who must be a director)..." — BlackRock, Bylaws, Article IV – Officers – 4.1 designation"

"“They’re going for a cost win versus a quality one right off the bat. IDT’s pitch is more quality, a little bit more expensive, and is able to compete with Twist. There are customers that won’t sacrifice quality over cost because what they’re doing is extremely important in the syn-bio space and extremely well-funded in the academic market.” — Former employee now at a key competitor"

"Turning to our Pro business. We are successfully executing a holistic strategy to grow our wallet share among Pros. In the third quarter, total and comparable store sales to Pros exceeded the company's total sales growth of 25.2%. Consequently, Pros accounted for 40.7% of our third quarter sales, up from 39% in the second quarter of fiscal 2022. — Floor & Decor Q3 2022 Earnings Call"

"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"

"If I had to pick one platform, say hybridoma versus Berkeley Lights, for our antibody discovery effort, I tend to be more comfortable with the hybridoma approach, just because it's more robust, it's more reliable. Some of the issues we often encounter are the reliability of the instrument, and we haven't really gotten good hits derived from Berkeley Lights. — Pfizer senior scientist"

"“There really is nobody. And when I say nobody, nobody, not a carrier, not a VC-backed start-up, nobody that takes every component of what it means to manage a fertility benefit and addresses it. And so at the end of the day, a lot of people have marketing materials and have a lot of claims, but there is a reality.” — CEO Peter Anevski at 2022 JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, 1/11/22"

"“But the stimulators — devices that use electrical currents to block pain signals before they reach the brain — are more dangerous than many patients know, an Associated Press investigation found. They account for the third-highest number of medical device injury reports to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with more than 80,000 incidents flagged since 2008.” — Associated Press"

"CFO Reagan: “You're thinking about the Health margins, we are now -- and we continue to believe that the Health margins, which were very strong in the quarter, continue to be sustainable.”; CEO Krone: “We were able to sell part of the business that really wasn't in our portfolio. Clearly, that would have been lower-margin for us.” — JPMorgan, Leidos Earnings First Look, Oct 29, 2019"

"“Insulin resistance should be improving because insulin levels come down. But I’m just really surprised they haven’t reported either the HOMA-B, the insulin production rate and the insulin resistance. I don’t know why they haven’t reported that in either of the papers that I’ve seen.” — Trial investigator; endocrinologist; one of the most published authorities on PWS and hyperphagia"

"This e-mail, any attachments and the information contained therein ("this message") are confidential and intended solely for the use of the addressee(s). If you have received this me Ce message electronique ainsi que tous les fichiers joints et les informations contenus dans ce message (ci apres "le message"), sont confidentiels et destines exclusivement a l'usage — Email Disclaimer"

"GlobalOnePay Inc was a named division and legal entity of Pivotal Payments Inc. and is still listed as “Active” according to Texas state filings with CEO Fayer as Director and President. We see from Texas legal filings that on April 5, 2016 it assumed the name of Fifth Manhattan, for which it is conducting business. The form was signed by a former legal counsel of Pivotal Payments."

"Sakamoto specifically suspects that QuantumScape is “pulsing” its cells…“If they start to form dendrites, they can pull it back by reversing the current,” he said…there is nothing that stands out as an obvious breakthrough magic material or magic coating that enables fast charge,” Sakamoto said. “There is no trail of evidence that would explain how they made a leap in performance…”"

"The impending release of the Libre 2 is no secret to the Street. Nor are its new technological features. However, as we discuss, we believe that the evened playing field between the Libre 2 and G-Series will bring downward pricing pressure on the increasingly-commoditized CGM market – and that this could have disastrous consequences for Dexcom to an extent ignored by the sell side."

"Spruce Point believes that the ongoing proliferation of third-party 3D printing labs in the clear aligner space will only incentivize further R&D directed at clear aligner development: whereas Align was, until recently, the only major player in the clear aligner space, materials producers now face a broad and rapidly-growing number of potential customers for clear aligner plastics."

"Spruce Point believes that Dropbox overstates free cash flow with a simplistic presentation that is analytically flawed and ignores two material costs such as: 1) Costs required to repurchase shares related to employee compensation programs, which are operating in nature, and 2) Costs associated to pay for infrastructure, which are effectively deferred capital expenditure payments."

"Numerous problems with the instrument's software; customers are constantly blindsided with software and hardware changes, resulting in bugs, delayed experiments, need to re-learn how the equipment functions; expert stopped software updates to avoid unanticipated bugs; "wasn't worth it"; both software and hardware behave unpredictably with "no transparency into why things go wrong.""

"Spruce Point believes CLEAR trades at an unwarranted premium to other subscription businesses geared toward consumers. We believe it is facing formidable competition to solve the TSA and airline pain points which are the checkpoint and checked baggage areas. We also believe its valuation is materially higher once adjusted for the TRA liability, lease, and fully diluted share count."

"We believe it will be difficult for Zillow to grow as long as its Premier Agent business is in decline. Our estimates for 2024 assume continued weakness in Premier Agent offset by strong gains in its Rentals business paired with a comparable operating expense structure to 2023. Based on these estimates, we believe Zillow could produce $200 to $260 million of free cash flow in 2024."

"Spruce Point believes that investors need to pay careful attention to USCR's capital expenditure (capex) program. In 2017 for the first time, USCR gave hard capex guidance, which explicitly stated it included capital leases. USCR is becoming increasingly dependent on capital leases (>50% of total capex for the first time in 2017) and has missed its capex forecast every single time."

"Ex-employees and hospitals described two key mechanisms of systematic billing fraud: 1) flying in non-local procurement teams by jet when a local team is already available at its hub and could be driven, indicating the sole purpose was to exploit the customer via unnecessary air transport charges; 2) sending staff on multiple jets to the same location to further inflate the charge."

"Each post is devastating, the adverse effects one particularly so: “today marks week 6...we have seen zero improvements...his behavior has actually worsened significantly...he generally appears to feel ‘unwell’...like he’s been hit by a bus every morning...I’m just so frustrated and worried for him...”: “behaviors have been off the charts...the medication just isn’t going to work.”"

"To help accelerate our involvement with this trend, earlier this month, we closed on the acquisition of Enbala Power Networks, a leading distributed energy resources technology company based in Denver, Colorado. Enbala's best-in-class technology will enable us to participate in the market for grid services, which we see as a growing opportunity. — Generac Press Release, Oct 5, 2020"

""If you look at the roadmap, they're not hitting the roadmap. Look at slide 19, they say the most usable qubits, it's not true." — Former executive; "the leadership at IonQ is not necessarily interested in actually getting things done as promised" — Former senior employee of IonQ; "it's a lot of bullshit and in sort of a bubble." — Ex-IonQ employee, senior member of technical staff"

"“…We find many of your responses to the shareholders’ concerns to be misleading, self serving, and defensive…Given the inconsistencies in many of your recent communications, we expect that the shareholders would welcome Elliott’s nominees to the Board to ensure proper and timely execution and to avoid risk of backsliding.” — David H. Batchelder, Relational Investors LLC, March 2013"

"“Those ad-free platforms are becoming more appealing as Viacom channels make up for the decline in ratings points by cutting back on programming minutes and packing in additional commercials. By one count, time devoted to ads on BET in primetime was up 15% in Q2 vs the period last year, while MTV and VH1 were up 11%. Nickelodeon’s ad time increased 6% from 7 AM to 7 PM.” — Source 1"

""We have great assets, we are in Northwest Florida, 300,000 of our acres are within 40 miles of that new airport. We have development expertise; we have an extremely strong balance sheet to weather whatever storms coming our way. We have a new international airport unprecedented in the United States and we are poised for growth." — Britt Greene, CEO, Raymond James Conference 3/9/10"

""We are a technology company with a host of patents" — Fran Rathke, GMCR CFO; "I would define our company today as really a single serve beverage company that is sitting on top of this magnificent technology, call it disruptive technology platform" — Larry Blanford, GMCR CEO; "ETF on the rapid-growing single-serve market" — Jim Cramer; "We are the iPod of coffee" — GMCR Management."

""[D]omestic interest rates and domestic inflation will be substantially influenced by the behavior of the economy to whose currency it is tied (the USA in this case). It was, in essence, the potential effect of such ties upon the Hong Kong economy which led to the abandonment of the sterling link in 1972 and then the US dollar link in 1974." — Hong Kong government policy memo, 1983"

""If you do the math on cell line development, you can figure out how big the market is, how much you should charge, all those things. Other people have talked to me about this said, well, this is how I do the math. And I say, that's how I do it as well. It's not that big of a market. In fact, it's really small. I probably had some friction there around this." — Former BLI executive"

""Obviously, Florida is the strongest. I mean it's just crazy how much Florida is growing." — CEO Smith, Analyst Day Oct 4, 2023. "Clearly, when you look at our states of Florida and Tennessee and South Carolina are just -- have great funding programs and are very, very active. Florida is clearly experiencing just an incredible amount of migration." — CEO Smith, Q1 2024 Feb 9, 2024."

"“I would say overall probably 25% of the patients are satisfied with Nevro, maybe less. We first started seeing a diminution at about 6 months, and it really became prevalent at close to a year. I would say on average, towards the end of the first year of the implant, we saw a huge drop off in efficacy.” — Ex-Nevro consultant/speaker and one of the most prominent KOL's in the space"

"“I’ve implanted a hundred stimulators in some years but last year it dropped to 50 or 60. The rules for pain clinics in opiate management in Florida changed... Regardless, I think that the end result of us being more stringent with patients that we allowed to enter the practice was a decrease in the overall numbers of stimulator implants.” — One of Nevro’s highest volume implanters"

"I heard that the Washington Post is working on a report because there is some concern that companies are giving kickbacks to some surgeons or hospitals for using the machine; this is something that is not published...I heard that there is a reporter working on TransMedics, specifically. — Transplant surgeon and division chief of the liver program at a world-renowned academic center"

"I heard that the Washington Post is working on a report because there is some concern that companies are giving kickbacks to some surgeons or hospitals for using the machine; this is something that is not published...I heard that there is a reporter working in TransMedics, specifically. — Transplant surgeon and division chief of the liver program at a world-renowned academic center"

""So when you add those things up, you're at about 10% (organic growth), and that's before we get into a new $1 billion-plus program win, and that's for the Reserve Health Readiness Program for the DoD, where that's, again, another $1 billion program over 5 years. And that will also be a nice effort added to our organic growth." — CFO Reagan, Morgan Stanley Conference, Sept 16, 2020"

"I agree with you 100%, and I agree with you on your take on Neil Cowen’s PK paper. I do believe it was slightly manipulated...Off-label, certainly people could use it...you’re completely right. If this is really such a good drug, people can use diazoxide and suspension exactly the same way for pennies on the dollar. — Ex-senior Soleno employee #1, key role in clinical trial program"

"“she gets the families really well in that she provides them a lot of hope and support...and parents feel really good after seeing her and feel inspired and motivated... I don't know if I'd use the word quack, but not super evidence-based... you can hear me hesitating — I'm not giving my full-throated support.” — Pediatric endocrinologist, leads one of the largest PWS clinics in US"

"Therefore, we strongly urge the Company to table all major divestiture decisions – unless the Company is absolutely certain of both the strategic rationale and value-creation, on an after-tax and risk-adjusted basis, and polls its shareholders in this regard – until after shareholders have the opportunity to vote on the composition of the Board at the upcoming 2018 Annual Meeting."

"Therefore, in regards to the school tax treatment problems, our state unified tax system is equally applicable regardless of whether it's a private school or a public school, a profit school or a non-profit school, a domestic funded school or foreign funded school. They all have the same chance to enjoy our unified preferential tax policy. — Official Chinese Tax Regulation Excerpt"

"MW: We see there were $684 million in loans made to HASI's equity method investments [in 2021]. Do you have a breakdown on that? ... There is also a subordinated loan made to Vivint Solar Asset 3 for $140 million—is that HASI's loan? HASI Investor Relations: Yes, that is right. SunStrong is a majority of the loans to Hannon's equity method investments and Vivint 3 is $340 million."

"“the cost of goods are pretty horrendous” – the gross margins “were pretty shitty…yeah, they were negative for sure.” ... “...the waste at the manufacturing plant exceeded 60%. They only had like a 30% yield. My guys were there almost every week trying to figure out how to improve the manufacturing process.” — Longtime oligonucleotide manufacturing expert and executive; ex-Agilent"

"Researchers demonstrated the potential for malicious activity to remotely compromise the ELDs and send instructions to vehicle components to cause the vehicle to behave in unexpected and unwanted ways...Commands passed into the vehicle network through an ELD could affect functions such as vehicle controls and the accuracy of the console display. — FBI Private Industry Notification"

"Except the said three terms, as the reason and background that Party B assigns the equity to Party A, the statements (including but not limited to those Mr. Jiang Nanchun from Focus Media Holding Limited made to the principle of Party A on November 27 2009), whichever is given in written or oral form, shall be guaranteed real by Party B and the representative on behalf of Party B."

"Additionally, the purchase price consisted of contingent consideration of up to $6.0 million, or 141,226 additional shares of common stock, if certain conditions relating to retention of certain VIEVU customers are met as of the first and second anniversaries of the acquisition date. The fair value of the contingent consideration as of the acquisition date was $5.8 million. — Axon"

"Screening tests have to be really cheap, and in kidney, serum creatinine and proteinuria are very good tests. They're actually excellent tests. And you're going to have to do very well to beat serum creatinine and proteinuria by enough to justify a thousand dollar test if you're doing screening. [emphasis in the original] — Dr. Philip Halloran, Inventor of the Molecular Microscope"

"The officers of the Corporation shall be elected by the Board of Directors and shall include a Chief Executive Officer, President, Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary. The Board of Directors of the Corporation, in its discretion, may also elect a Chairman of the Board of Directors (who must be a director)... — BlackRock, Bylaws, Article IV – Officers – 4.1 designation"

"“So, that was the intent. We never achieved it.” — Novartis expert; “So, it's basically a failed purchase.” “Yes.” — Novartis expert; “You would have sent it back if you could get the money back?” “Yes.” — Novartis expert; “The running cost for this machine is much, much higher... With that kind of throughput, this Berkeley Lights machine doesn't really pay out.” — Novartis expert"

""I will work harder to fulfil my duties and responsibilities as a businessman. I will do all that I can to help the national economy through investments and job creation." — Lee Jae-yong, August 2022; "Now is the time to be daring and defiant. [...] Futuristic technology will determine our fate. We need to invest in technologies that are not of today." — Lee Jae-yong, October 2022"

""There’s so much variability in the flights, it depends on aircraft, it depends on. If the Kentucky Derby is going on, you can’t find a plan anywhere, and they jack the prices up like crazy. There’s really a lot of variability in air travel and they do not commit to a price on their air travel. It is very hard to pin them down" — Transplant surgeon at a high-volume academic center"

""Our customer doesn't come to us expecting a Nordstrom's level of in-store shopping experience. They want value, treasures, merchandise on the floor and clean restrooms, and we need to meet those expectations," [CEO Steve] Fishman said in 2005. ... "We're an enigma," he said at an investor conference this month. "It's been a real challenge for the marketplace." — CEO Steve Fishman"

"The batteries in EVs and other devices inevitably will deplete, and sadly many of those batteries end up in dumpsites today. Batstone, who is overseeing impact and sustainability for American Battery, adds that "...beyond redeeming the waste, every battery ABTC recycles is one less scoop of earth that will be dug to extract valuable metals for battery production." — David Batstone"

"Хотел бы уточнить о возможности размещения четырех детей из ДНР в вашем отеле 22-27 марта 2026 г. для размещения их в семьи. Милые девочки возрастом 14-16 лет. Трое - сироты, у еще одного ребенка где-то родители на Украине. У всех удочерение на финальном этапе, их уже ожидают семьи. С каждым ребенком будет сопровождающий в номере. Подскажите, пожалуйста, доступные варианты и цены."

"Хотел бы уточнить о возможности размещения четырех детей из ДНР в вашем отеле 22-27 марта 2026 г. для размещения их в семьи. Милые девочки возрастом 14-16 лет. Трое - сироты, у еще одного ребенка где-то родители на Украине. У всех удочерение на финальном этапе, их уже ожидают семьи. С каждым ребенком будет сопровождающий в номере. Подскажите, пожалуйста, доступные варианты и цены."

"Хотел бы уточнить о возможности размещения четырех детей из ДНР в вашем отеле 22-27 марта 2026 г. для размещения их в семьи. Милые девочки возрастом 14-16 лет. Трое - сироты, у еще одного ребенка где-то родители на Украине. У всех удочерение на финальном этапе, их уже ожидают семьи. С каждым ребенком будет сопровождающий в номере. Подскажите, пожалуйста, доступные варианты и цены."

"With an annualized dividend of $1.52 per share, the stock yields 7.8%. The good thing is that its AFFO payout ratio for the year was 76%, and the core FFO payout ratio was 80.9%. The forward AFFO and FFO payout ratios at the midpoint are 77.75% and 83%, respectively. Given the relative predictability of REIT cash flows, I'm not worried about dividend safety. — Seeking Alpha author"

"We agree that the Libre’s lack of an alarm has been a major hurdle preventing wider Libre adoption among T1 diabetics, who were the earliest CGM adopters. However, with the impending inclusion of an alarm in the Libre 2, we believe that the playing field between Abbott and Dexcom will largely be leveled – and that the economic consequences of this could be devastating for Dexcom."

"The fact that we have seen the same management team behave in a similar manner in response to similarly negative industry trends – all leading up to a dramatic guidance revision after executives enriched themselves during the Dot com boom/bust – makes us worried that current investors in DOX are headed for a similar fate as those who were left to sue for securities fraud in 2002."

"Elliott Associates, L.P. and Elliott International, L.P. (collectively, “Elliott”) request that the Board of Directors of the Company (the “Board”) grant an exemption under the Rights Agreement (the “Exemption”) from the Ownership Limit allowing for the acquisition or ownership of outstanding Common Shares by Elliott of up to 14.9% the outstanding Common Shares (the “Exemption”)."