Callouts & quotes from 1,061+ activist slides

"The Company has significantly less financial leverage than its peers allowing it to acquire smaller building products companies that are currently operating at trough levels of profitability"

"LSPD is a significant outlier to other POS and financial technology peers as it relates to the amount of receivables it carries on its balance sheet, and its allowance for doubtful accounts."

"BEA HK has a relatively lower proportion of customer deposits as compared with its peers, the bulk of which are more expensive time deposits, which in turn leads to a higher cost-of-funding"

"GoDaddy is a scale-leading infrastructure business trading at 11x FCF; replaying Starboard's Splunk/Wix/Salesforce margin-expansion playbook can close a 37% peer gap and re-rate the stock."

"In the five years preceding our involvement, Autodesk’s share price significantly underperformed design software peers, the broader software market, and the overall market, as shown below."

"Capital return (cash dividend + buyback) of 40 to 50% of net income is the minimum level that should be targeted immediately for each of Mobis, HMC and Kia to be comparable to global peers"

"A sharp increase in operating expenses as a percentage of sales have resulted in AOL's EBITDA margins declining from 34% in 2009 to 16% in 2011 and falling substantially below peer levels."

"Lightspeed commands a lofty valuation rivaling best-of-breed peer Shopify, despite an inferior business, that since inception in 2005, has shown no evidence of generating economic profits."

"It is instructive to recognize that Crown Castle’s tower peers have chosen not to pursue low-return small cell projects and have instead decided to allocate capital to higher-return areas"

"Tessera's stock price had dramatically underperformed the broader equity markets, the PHLX Semi Index, and all three of the Company's Proxy Peer Groups over almost any measurement period."

"3M’s MedSurg segment used to deliver leading organic growth. Today, peers and end markets are performing better than in prior periods, yet Solventum’s MedSurg business is performing worse"

"In recent materials to Shareholders, Hess measures itself on a 10 year basis against only 6 of its 9 integrated proxy peers. Average market cap of these 6 is over 11x greater than Hess(1)"

"Cognizant's stock price performance tells the story of deep underperformance across all relevant benchmarks, including its closest peers, over all time periods during the last five years."

"Time Warner has underperformed its peer index by 51% under Parsons; splitting into four SpinCos (AOL, Content, Publishing, Cable) plus a $20bn buyback unlocks $30-45bn — a 35-54% premium."

"TSR as CEO of Lucent was (55%); as CEO of Alcatel-Lucent was (58%); dramatically underperformed S&P 500 and Peers. Interlocking relationship with Dr. Kleinfeld at the HPE/Arconic Boards."

"We believe that 3% SSS is conservative - it is in-line with better-performing peers, and 3 years of 3% SSS would just get Olive Garden's AUV back to the $4.8 million of a few years ago."

"Arconic continually boasts about innovation that is "industry-wide;" for which little incremental benefit (vs. peers) accrues to Arconic, and which Arconic struggles to actually deliver"

"Under CEO Mike Hennigan, MPC has shown the most visible improvement among their peers over the past 3 years in both reliability, unit cost and profitability. — Scotiabank, June 30, 2023"

"Under CEO Mike Hennigan, MPC has shown the most visible improvement among their peers over the past 3 years in both reliability, unit cost and profitability. — Scotiabank, June 30, 2023"

"Under CEO Mike Hennigan, MPC has shown the most visible improvement among their peers over the past 3 years in both reliability, unit cost and profitability. — Scotiabank, June 30, 2023"

"Underperformance (CCI +17.0% cumulatively) compared to both peers (AMT +23.5% and SBAC +60.5%) and market (S&P 500 +30.2%) in last 2 years; outperformance relative to REITs (IYR +9.2%)"

"We believe that 3% SSS is conservative - it is in-line with better-performing peers, and 3 years of 3% SSS would just get Olive Garden's AUV back to the $4.8 million of a few years ago"

"As the costs of solar systems inputs (PV modules, batteries, meters) decline overtime, the use of the weighted-average method lowers Sunnova's cost of goods sold relative to its peers."

"Despite not having the size and scale to compete with larger peers, and known to have historically pursued a copy-cat like strategy to mimic products, CHD commands a premium valuation."

"Does DOL – a value retailer demonstrating concerning fundamental trends – deserve to be valued on par with higher-growth industries, and completely out of line with its industry peers?"

"To make FIGS LTM Gross Margin more comparable with peers, we deduct “Selling Expenses”. By our estimate, FIGS’ LTM Gross Margin is inflated by 2,040 basis points, from 50.7% to 71.0%."

"In fact, GSX and its platform Gaotu have consistently been underperforming its major competitors ever since 2018. However, its stock performance has been steadily outpacing its peers."

"AOL's existing peer group, which serves as the foundation for benchmarking executive compensation, consists of companies that are too large. — Independent compensation consulting firm"

"AOL's existing peer group, which serves as the foundation for benchmarking executive compensation, consists of companies that are too large — Independent compensation consulting firm."

"Phillips 66’s refining kit is comparable to peers Marathon and Valero – its underperformance is primarily driven by poor operational execution, rather than the quality of the assets."

"TWC compares favorably to its industry peers across most of the ratings criteria discussed by Moody’s and S&P and in the benchmarking analysis that was reviewed in this presentation."

"Phillips 66's refining kit is comparable to peers Marathon and Valero – its underperformance is primarily driven by poor operational execution, rather than the quality of the assets."

"In an industry driven by capital allocation, Crown Castle’s ROIC has underperformed that of its peers for more than a decade, and the gap is widening with continued fiber investment"

"Phillips not only loads more discounted crudes than peers, but also receives lower pricing on its WCS due to Central Corridor positioning vs. peers primarily running WCS in the USGC"

"Since 2014, the delta in operating underperformance is now ~1,500 bps as the core Expedited LTL OR has deteriorated ~825 bps and LTL peers have seen ORs improve ~675 bps on average."

"Upon announcement of the Fox deal, a new compensation package for Mr. Iger provided him a total compensation opportunity more than 2.5x the median of Disney’s General Industry Peers"

"Upon announcement of the Fox deal, a new compensation package for Mr. Iger provided him a total compensation opportunity more than 2.5x the median of Disney’s General Industry Peers"

"Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) stock has underperformed its peers for a decade. Now, the CEO is talking down the value of his own company's shares, saying they are already fully valued..."

"We believe that the average of brokers' valuations for US Onshore, of c.US$6.5bn, is well below recent transaction prices, trading valuations of US listed peers and intrinsic value"

"PERI's EBITDA per average employee is similarly out-of-line with its advertising technology peers and closer to technology companies such as Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Facebook."

"On the surface, PERI's revenue multiple appears in-line with its small cap advertising technology peers. However, it likely trades at a premium because of inflated revenue results."

"Why should FSCT shares be valued on par with a peer group which is both more profitable and is projected to grow more than twice as fast (even before taking COVID-19 into account)?"

"We believe there is evidence that Danimer’s EBITDA margin projections are overly optimistic based on the margin profiles of both its self-selected peers and chemical/plastic peers."

"In fact, the average market capitalization of Office Depot's peers used for the purpose of determining compensation is 11.5 times larger than Office Depot's market capitalization."

"The RTC Plan calls for a balanced approach to capital allocation that maintains robust growth investment above peer levels and accelerates the dividend to $8.00+ per share in 2023"

"Central Corridor, Atlantic Basin / Europe and US Gulf Coast assets are fundamentally attractive and should drive equivalent profitability with peers on a constant accounting basis"

"Solventum trades at a lower multiple than each of its subsidiary peer groups, and it even trades at a discount to 3M, of which Solventum was historically the best performing part."

"If we assume that MPWR's inventory metrics should be in line with industry peers, and that $245 - $265m of revenue is overstated, it implies ~$93m of inventory is also overstated."

"Hess's low exposure to N.A. natural gas means minimal impact from collapsing natural gas prices; Highest exposure of peers to oil means favorable impact from escalating oil prices"

"Phillips 66 not only loads more discounted crudes than peers, but also pays lower prices on its WCS due to Central Corridor positioning vs. peers primarily running WCS in the USGC"

"Huntsman has the HIGHEST CEO base salary despite being one of the SMALLEST companies in the Proxy Peer set and failing to achieve its 2014, 2016, and 2018 Investor Day commitments"

"Phillips 66 not only loads more discounted crudes than peers, but also pays lower prices on its WCS due to Central Corridor positioning vs. peers primarily running WCS in the USGC"

"Relative to its hospital peers, HMA has demonstrated consistent, escalating underperformance on both same-store admissions and same-store adjusted admissions over the past 5 years"

"We believe by following best practices and focusing on superb execution, Darden can become a lean restaurant operator, outperforming the peer group average of 30.7% labor expense"

"We believe by following best practices and focusing on superb execution, Darden can become a lean restaurant operator, outperforming the peer group average of 30.7% labor expense"

"The 5.4x EBITDA multiple paid by Golden Gate to acquire Red Lobster compares to Darden's current multiple of approximately 9.5x and the peer group average of approximately 10.5x."

"This discounted multiple should serve as a stark indication to management and the Board that shareholders have less confidence in Autodesk’s future performance relative to peers."

"Dollarama's margin profile is grossly out of line with peers, and we find evidence of aggressive accounting and questionable business practices that can partly explain the issue."

"“Shareholders need to be satisfied that the peer group is appropriate and not cherry-picked for the purpose of justifying or inflating pay.” — Glass Lewis 2011 proxy paper on AOL"

"Elliott has constructed a peer group of comparable companies that best represent, in our view, peers for each area of the Company's business units prior to the split of AA/ARNC."