Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"City staff had anticipated a $6-million savings by carrying out Mayor Rob Ford's controversial plan to privatize garbage collection; GFL is offering closer to $11-million in annual savings. But opponents of Mayor Rob Ford's plan to contract out garbage questioned whether the company's bargain bid -- GFL undercut the next lowest bidder by $3.5-million -- is too good to be true."

"Freedom Holdings generates 85% of its revenues and 95% of their margin lending from FFIN. FFIN generates the majority of its revenue from Russia. FFIN is a controlled entity by Freedom's CEO, who owns 75% of Freedom's stock and therefore has an overwhelming incentive to use FFIN as an illegal piggy bank to funnel funds from Russia into FRHC to manipulate its earnings or stock."

"Ginkgo is, we believe, a colossal fraud, a Frankenstein mash-up of the worst scams of the last 20 years: Enron’s abuse of related parties and special purpose entities; Intrexon, the father of synthetic biology scams, and its circular “revenue” charade; the vaporous grandiosity of WeWork and Theranos; and Ginkgo’s Siamese twin Zymergen, which fell 75% in a single day in August."

"I call Carvana. "Dealership says I'm out of warranty, but shop says dealership should do this." Carvana: "Let me check... no that car is definitely still under the 70,000 mile powertrain warranty. If it's a transmission issue, it's covered." Me: "What if it's not a powertrain issue?" Carvana: "The car is covered under a 4000 mile warranty from Silverrock." — Customer complaint"

"In addition to the China closure, we are seeing softness in certain end-markets across semiconductor and data center expansions. Accordingly, we are updating full year 2019 revenue to range between $354 and $362 million, which excludes $16 million of revenues in 2019 attributable to SMTC’s operations in China, and Adjusted EBITDA to $25.0 and $26.0 million,” said Smith. — SMTC"

""A number of people in our process actually advised that we not increase our bid significantly, that we move up in smaller increments, and I came up with the idea of bidding significantly higher because I thought it was the best way to cause Comcast to fold its tent, to ultimately cease bidding." — Robert A. Iger, CEO & Director, MasterClass on Business Strategy and Leadership"

"“Volumes delivery, asset utilization and cost management, each require discipline, determination, attention to detail and a mindset that every barrel and every dollar matter. That is the mindset and culture of today’s Suncor.” — Rich Kruger, Suncor CEO, February 6, 2025; “We also delivered on our goal of improving refining performance…” — Mark Lashier, Q4 2024 Earnings Release"

""our Company still believes in decentralized operations, because all of our businesses are very different and compete in different industries." — Don Logan; "we run [TWC] as a stand-alone business...we operate at arm's length [to the Parent] and have for years." — Glenn Britt; "the ‘one company’ strategy never got off the ground...each division did its own thing." — Steve Case"

"“During the first quarter [2010], local currency sales were up 69% in Korea... We believe that the momentum in Korea shows no signs of slowing.” — Des Walsh (May 2010); “While most of our markets performed well in 2016, we continue to work through the challenges in Brazil, Korea and China... In Korea, we face the [sic] number of challenges...” — Michael Johnson (February 2017)"

"Yes, actually, before our acquisition of Elesys, their profitability was like average of automotive components business as you may know. And since then, we have been improving their profitability at least twice, in some cases, 3x before the acquisition. So that's the contribution from Elesys. — Masuo Yoshimatsu, Chief Financial Officer, First Senior Vice President and Director"

"In 2015, HomeTeam grew 93,000 Taexx Tubes in the Wall installs to bring the life-to-date total to over 900,000 homes. In 2015, revenue grew 8.1%, which was primarily driven by an increase in Taexx system activation of 16.5. — FY 2015 Investor Presentation. We don't break out the size of HomeTeam at this point in time. We continue to see very positive trend. — Q3 2016 Conf Call"

"I have been a surgical nurse for 40 years and have seen many patients receive SCS...and many, many fail, or return to surgery for fractured electrode wires, misplaced wires, or infected battery pockets...spinal fluid leaks...severe headaches...[they] find out in 2-8 months that they wish they never had agreed to it ... — Anonymous (comment on a blog discussing the WSJ article)"

""One of the big challenges with direct tour leads is that there's very little vetting. There is no vetting, and there really is no accountability in terms of agent relationship. And so what we've seen, not a ton, but still what we've seen is a lot of consumers use the direct tour function just to basically schedule a free showing." — Founder, Realtor At Large Real Estate Group"

"There’s no transparency...this just started happening...they’re supposed to be invoicing us with flight times and stuff like that...there’s zero information...flying their staff from multiple locations to a case...I naively thought that they had a team here...then I realized we are flying in people from other locations...it really is ridiculous. — UCSF transplant administrator"

"On October 4, 1993, StarPress acquired all of the issued and outstanding stock of HealthSoft, Inc., a California corporation ("HealthSoft") in exchange for 320,000 shares of StarPress' Common Stock. StarPress also assumed a $320,000 note of HealthSoft, payable to a minority shareholder of HealthSoft. HealthSoft was a consumer health information and management software company."

"“Yeah, I’m talking about customers coming to KLA and they were saying, guys, we need you to develop this tool, as I mentioned, P2 can only be done by a clean tool. And they were really begging us to expedite.” — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group; “Correct.” — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group"

"Shareholders need to be satisfied that the peer group is appropriate and not cherry-picked for the purpose of justifying or inflating pay. In general, we believe a peer group should range from 0.5 to 2 times the market capitalization of the Company. In this case, Glass Lewis has identified 10 peers outside of this range, which represents approximately 62.5% of the peer group."

"Twist exhibits telling signs that its “growth” is about to hit the wall and that the end is near, beyond the accounting games that typically signal desperation: saturation in its tiny niche; competitive struggles; and an impending flood of disruptive, venture-backed entrants with newer DNA synthesis technologies, which even Twist’s customers describe as an existential threat."

"Just as the Company reaches a size at which continued M&A-fueled growth would require even larger deals, management is communicating that it no longer has sufficient cash flow to consistently support M&A from FCF on top of its fairly consistent $450-550M return of cash to shareholders, and that any M&A would have to come out of buybacks / dividends (if not the balance sheet)."

"CHD’s share price is inflated to an all-time high, and irrational valuation, as, we believe: 1) investors flock to the perceived safety of consumer staples amidst rising trade war tensions, 2) a belief that recent acquisitions will succeed in accelerating growth, and 3) recent price increases enacted to offset commodity inflation and tariffs can be reimplemented if necessary."

"Our Ukraine private investigator personally visited Kryvyi Rih National University and spoke with the Dean of the Faculty of Geology and Ecology who himself is a graduate of the program in 1989. He confirmed that the masters degree qualification did not exist in 1992. The official class of 1992 register also did not include Mr. Vannu Khounphakdee who claims to have graduated."

"Our Ukraine private investigator personally visited Kryvyi Rih National University and spoke with the Dean of the Faculty of Geology and Ecology who himself is a graduate of the program in 1989. He confirmed that the masters degree qualification did not exist in 1992. The official class of 1992 register also did not include Mr. Vannu Khounphakdee who claims to have graduated."

"With this expansion, we will more than triple our current capacity for residential standby generators and take further advantage of our world-class engine manufacturing facility that we more than doubled in the last two years. We are committed to supporting our valued dealer network and delighting the end customers that we serve. — Brian Melka, group president - Kohler Power."

"We believe shareholders benefit when equity of long-term incentive awards vest on the basis of metrics with pre-established goals and are thus demonstrably linked to the performance of the company...In this case, shareholders should be concerned with the Company’s failure to implement a performance-based long-term incentive plan with objective metrics and goals. — Glass Lewis"

"Yes in 2018 and 2019, I was there. I saw it. The freight was extremely high and not considered part of the cost of goods sold. Then the company moved with the supply chain optimizing the cost analysis and started making a decent gross profit in 2020. And clearly because the Company was paying extremely high freight, it was affecting the gross margin. — Former Oatly Accountant"

""Dropbox's stock soared 14%, and were jumping another 9.5% to a new record high of $39.50 on Friday. Reasons for the surge are anyone's guess, but it's led to a frenzy of M&A chatter around the enterprise software company...Much of the speculation has been focused on Salesforce (CRM) - given the increasingly cozy relationship between the two companies." — TheStreet, June 2018"

""We believe Adjusted EBITDA is useful to management, investors and analysts in providing a measure of core financial performance adjusted to allow for comparisons of results of operations across reporting periods on a consistent basis. These adjustments are intended to exclude items that are not indicative of the ongoing operating performance of the business." — NOVA 2019 10K"

"CEO Gerald Hassell: "It's part of our goals that if we get a 4%, 5% revenue growth in a range, we should be able to produce positive operating leverage" — CEO Gerald Hassell. CFO Todd Gibbons: "Our core fee business has been growing at about the 3% to 5% range...on the lower end of that, to generate positive operating leverage...is going to be challenging" — CFO Todd Gibbons."

"Cost cuts alone cannot help multiples expand and in order for the stock to see significant upside, there needs to be a credible revenue reacceleration story... now revenue growth requires a balance between price and unit growth. The company has to drive this process while reducing content and marketing costs, which makes the task even more difficult. — Barclays, November 2023"

"“So within our competitive set, which is like characterized as north of 50,000 employees and within the software and high-technology industry, something like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Salesforce, Twitter, these kind of players, the penetration of a carve-out fertility benefit is probably close to like 75%” — Benefits Lead at Technology Company, Tegus, 11/17/22"

"“Yeah, I think there’s overutilization when there clearly is not a clear clinical indication that it’s going to be beneficial for the patient...it’s probably advantageous to do a TransMedics case in that regard because I’ll be able to get the organ faster...for large centers, perhaps there is less clinical utility than for a small center.” — Senior medical employee at OrganOx"

"Project Zero had to do with the breaches. But it was discontinued at once as soon as the breaches committed by the group's management came to light. The outcome of this report was that the breaches at Ballroom were detected and were deleted in timely fashion from current bookkeeping records. In this connection there were no tainted sales figures, as we have stated repeatedly."

"When I was in that specific position, you would call on different agents ... and let them know that ‘hey I’m in Goosehead Insurance, have you ever thought about the idea [of joining Goosehead]’ And they would say, ‘oh yeah my friend tried that and went through the process and lost literally all of his money, I hate you guys, please never call me.’ — Former Franchise Recruiter"

"In light of our findings that: 1) Generac's core and clean energy business dealership growth is slowing and it has lost partners, 2) Its PWRcell solar competitive advantage vis-à-vis Tesla's Powerwall has diminished, and 3) Some Generac dealers are engaging in allegedly misleading and deceptive marketing practices, we believe the CMO's departure should be a serious red flag."

"Article 24: Prescribes penalties, including confiscation of ill-gotten gains and fines up to 2 million RMB, for “an individual” who “commits any act as prescribed in Article 7 of this Regulation” and (a) “organizes and plans any pyramid selling,” (b) “introduces, induces or coerces any other person to participate in pyramid selling,” or (c) “participates in pyramid selling.”"

"After reviewing the details provided, we regret to inform you that we are unfortunately unable to confirm this booking. In accordance with our internal policies and our responsibility regarding the accommodation of minors, as the information currently provided does not allow us to verify this requirement, we are not in a position to proceed with the reservation as requested."

"Our technical designer checked some of the returned pants and figured out that 12,000 pairs had been constructed with a women's front sewn to a men's back. That was when we realized we needed a quality-control team on the sewing side at all of our factories. We ended up donating the whole lot of pants--that was more than $100,000 in inventory. — Hasson in 2018 Inc. Interview"

"“a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected....” — Price Waterhouse. “It was a mess. It was probably the saddest group I’ve ever seen. Not the best-trained group, who are really understaffed...it was a very overworked team. They relied heavily on manual processes.” — Ex-Twist executive"

""...like [calendar 2023], [ELF] buil[t] quite some of the inventory. This [calendar] year they try to improve the performance of the supply chain, so they significantly cut their inventory, especially before the financial the year end, the financial annual report, and also for this [calendar] year. They continue to cut the inventory holding at their side." — Unnamed Supplier"

""From day one we've put our employees first, recognizing that happy employees lead to better business results," he said. Davis pointed out that, unlike any other outsourcing company with skyrocketing turnover rates – the industry average is approximately 150% – TaskUs has a 30% annual attrition rate, which leads to consistency for its clients." — Aaron Davis, TaskUs Director"

"“Our product development stems out of our own research and development labs. It comes from UCLA where we have the Mark Hughes Cellular Lab there, University of Mississippi where we have a botanical research lab in the Thad Cochran Center down there. We have doctors placed and scientists placed throughout the world, nutrition experts.” — Michael Johnson, Herbalife CEO, 9/3/08"

"Whatever they cost, the sensors and hardware necessary for the Aurora Driver are going to be part of the per-mile fee Aurora charges for the software under its DaaS model so they don't actually make the truck more expensive. There's “minimal” new hardware on the truck, so the base truck's price will be “roughly in line with what it costs to buy a truck today.” — Chris Urmson"

""The board should exercise objective judgement on corporate affairs and be able to make decisions independently of management. The roles of chairperson and CEO should not be held by the same individual." — NBIM; "We generally support proposals requesting the separation of the CEO and chair roles." — CalPERS; "The board should be chaired by an independent director." — CalSTRS"

"Benchmark 4 – Experts Description: Where the responsible entity engages an expert to provide a professional or expert opinion on the agribusiness scheme, and the expert opinion is disclosed to retail investors in a way that may lead them to place reliance on the expert's expertise, the responsible entity only engages an expert that is independent. — ASIC Regulatory Guide 232"

"at the time the 2012 profit plan was established, the compensation committee believed that it was challenging;" or the Board's belief that its "executive compensation programs are founded on the belief that there should be a substantial and meaningful connection between the compensation of our named executive officers and the amount and quality of our earnings" — HMA's Proxy"

"A number of people in our process actually advised that we not increase our bid significantly, that we move up in smaller increments, and I came up with the idea of bidding significantly higher because I thought it was the best way to cause Comcast to fold its tent, to ultimately cease bidding. — Robert A. Iger, CEO & Director, MasterClass on Business Strategy and Leadership"

"What AST is banking on now is SpaceX is building this new launch vehicle called Starship... the cost of that launch vehicle is going to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars each too, but somehow Abel and AST think they can get the price down, that SpaceX and Elon Musk are going to negotiate with them when they are actually a competitor. — Former AST SpaceMobile employee"

"“because we had to change parts and add resources,” — Lasertec CEO; “...the current source cost, together with the current stage cost, doesn't make sense. I don't think they can shave a lot compared to KLA and, in a 2x-led price war, it doesn't add up to me... we are around—we are $23-24 million.” — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group"

"We find it interesting that Amdocs executives continue to invest with each other after leaving the Company, and feel that this does not reflect well on how they may treat their stewardship of Amdocs – perhaps less as people building a company for the long-term than people looking to get a return on their personal investment, maybe through financial engineering if necessary."

"How can TurboTax disclosed Paying ARPR only increase 7% from 2020 to 2023 when (1) Online and Live average list prices rose 10% and 9%, (2) Intuit launched the highest ASP Full Service offering in 2021, and (3) we estimate that higher list ASP Live as a percent of total paying returns grew from 7% to 18% over the same period. We believe this suggests weak price realization."

"The other three members of Intuit's Audit Committee also raise eyebrows. While we don't question the accomplishments of Directors Burton, Dalzell, and Yuan in their respective fields (legal, technology, and engineering), we do believe Intuit's Audit Committee could be strengthened by the addition of executives with more extensive auditing and financial management expertise."

"We see a major red flag that REZI has made four separate revisions to its capex nomenclature on the Consolidated Statement of Cash Flow. The revisions make it appear as if REZI is trying to obscure its technology spending which we view as enormously important given its recent disclosure of ERP challenges and the importance of technology in its product and service offerings."

"The bull case - a multi-organ platform - leaves out a few inconvenient facts: it flopped in Europe; has no kidney product, the largest market by far, as a cheap device has a lock with 90% share; lung, its first FDA-approval in 2018, is a colossal failure; heart, approved in 2021, is crashing and burning; leaving it, best case, as a one-trick pony for a single organ - liver."

""Dated commercial strategy" — Barclays, April 2024; "Lost the passion for low-cost" — Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary, March 2024; "Systemic failure... to modernize" — SWAPA (Pilots' Union), December 2022; "Industry passed them by" — Southwest Shareholder, May 2024; "Outdated approach" — Bernstein, January 2023; "Sat out the industry's evolution" — J.P. Morgan Webcast, May 2023"

""In Canada, we're seeing sequential acceleration in growth." — Niraj Shah, Wayfair Q2 2019 Earnings Call. "And then Canada, I think we have a leadership position in the home market. We grew very quickly in Canada. I think we were able to offer selection to the Canadian customer the way they hadn't ever seen before." — Steve Conine, Goldman Sachs Global Retailing Conference."

""Anything is possible. I mean, there is no impossibility. I think I would rather say it is improbable given that there were no, there were no experienced people left." — Former Novomer scientist. "And by the way, it's not only the Novomer process. Just to be clear, I think all the guys who are in PHA struggle to compete in the polymer marketplace." — Former Novomer manager."

""Dated commercial strategy" — Barclays, April 2024; "Industry passed them by" — Southwest Shareholder, May 2024; "Lost the passion for low-cost" — Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary, March 2024; "Outdated approach" — Bernstein, January 2023; "Systemic failure... to modernize" — SWAPA (Pilots' Union), December 2022; "Sat out the industry's evolution" — J.P. Morgan Webcast, May 2023"

"It is the Board's job to “Establish the appropriate ‘tone at the top’ to actively cultivate a corporate culture that gives high priority to ethical standards, principles of fair dealing, professionalism, integrity, full compliance with legal requirements, ethically sound strategic goals and long-term sustainable value creation.” — Martin Lipton, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz"

"“too many inexperienced directors” — Former Chair Brian Derksen. “too many unengaged directors” — Former Chair Brian Derksen. “[Plantro/OneMove] use their nominating rights to nominate better director candidates [than Ronnie Wahi and Ted Prittie]. Today neither nominated directors have appropriate public board experience or level of engagement” — Former Chair Brian Derksen."

"“Darden’s portrayal of itself as a company that is strongly committed to shareholder engagement, that welcomes shareholder input and that values the views of shareholders rings somewhat hollow, to our ears, considering the Company’s corporate governance policies and its track record of dealing with investors and analysts who have been critical of the Company.” — Glass Lewis"