Callouts & quotes from 2,092+ activist slides

""We're in the third year of the 3-year program. We target $475 million this year. That's on top of $680 million done last year and then $550 million in 2016. Those costs have not flowed all to the bottom line on our side, because we're offsetting whether it's currency headwinds, declines in revenues, this past year, about 4.7% in constant currency." — William Osbourn, Xerox CFO"

"CFO Rowland: "We're also excited as we continue to lean in and drive a conversion of our revenue portfolio towards digital, that roughly 50% of this backlog is higher-margin digital business." — Investor Day Sept 2021; CFO Rowland: "And then, of course, our backlog has a higher digital mix. And so that will naturally bring with it some higher margins." — Q3'22 Earnings Nov 2022"

"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."

"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"

"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"

"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"

"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"

""The costs attached to each of the receivable balances have essentially been absorbed as we generate the revenue in any particular quarter. So as the cash comes in, there is no additional cost attached to that. And the reason that those receivables are there is because there is no meaningful service component attached to them either." — Scott Flanders Q1 2018 Earnings Call"

"Basically, for these, we acquired, as you know, on the 2nd of November. We acquired the companies, so we had 2 months, November and December. And for the 2 months, basically, the contribution was, in terms of revenues, more than EUR 25 million, and in terms of EBITDA, it was more than EUR 10 million, between EUR 10 million and EUR 15 million. — 2015Q4 transcript in 2016/2"

"To estimate 2016 revenues per program, we used the following data and estimates: Our revenue cohort assumptions for 2016, 2016 revenues by school disclosed in company filings, 2016 top ten programs by new student enrollment, Tuition data (credits to complete degree and cost per credit) obtained on schools websites where available, UNC enrollment data (from FOIA request)."

"During 2016, expenses were reclassified from sales and marketing expenses to cost of revenue and general and administration for one of our businesses. The expenses moved to cost of revenue are traffic acquisition costs in nature and more appropriately classified as costs of revenue, and the other costs more appropriately classified as general and administrative expenses."

"ISS is a leading North American water treatment solution and services provider that brings access to a durable and highly recurring revenue stream as well as a diverse and attractive industrial verticals. With approximately 75% recurring revenue, ISS is known for dependability and bringing mission-critical water treatment expertise to our customers. — CFO Rowland Q2 2023"

"Expanding Our International Presence. We intend to continue to grow our presence in international markets in order to meet the needs of our existing customers and accelerate new customer acquisition in key geographies outside of North America. We expanded into ten countries during 2019 and 2018, which has accelerated our revenue growth in those markets. — DV Prospectus"

"We cannot reconcile REZI's acquired revenue from 2022 during the critical acquisition of First Alert. REZI also closed three other small acquisitions during this period and generally reported the revenue contribution from acquisitions to total and segment revenue. REZI implemented multiple restructuring programs in Q4'22 despite First Alert performing ahead of plan."

"I feel like it was the wrong decision to make. So when you're down in market share and you're down in volume because of competition, the last thing we need to do is take a price increase to try to, they're trying to make the revenue goals, but at the end of the day, you can't let volume erode to make your overall profit. — Former Monster Employee Familiar With Sales"

"I don’t think there’s another option. That’s what you have to do. — UCSF administrator; They increased their revenue in liver in 2023 by pushing every liver program not to use their OCS system as an a la carte item, but as part of their NOP program. We’ve pushed back saying we don’t need your surgeon and we don’t need your aviation company. — USC transplant surgeon"

"“Those -- the businesses that we have been winding down -- we're out of the third-party rental business, we'll be out of third-party services business by the end of this year. So the $40 million or so of revenue that we had in this year's results for those businesses that we're getting out of will basically be nothing next year.” — Steven Strobel – CFO, Hill-Rom"

"Warning: Oatly's largest investor Verlinvest describes Genius Foods, a Scottish gluten-free brand with a presence in Europe, as a success. Verlinvest made a "significant investment" in 2014 when gluten-free was the latest hot trend in the food industry. Since then, revenues haven't materially changed, while operating losses have doubled even with restructuring."

"A former employee described concerns about WTRG's ability to meet its long-term goals leading up to the Peoples transaction. By looking carefully at the three-year period leading up to the transaction announcement in 2018, we find evidence that water revenue per customer was declining in two of three segments, while return on equity and EPS were also falling."

"In our GetSmarter business, students enroll with and pay tuition directly to GetSmarter, and we recognize the full amount as revenue. We then pay the university partners their share upon course completion, and this expense will make up the first part of a new cost line on our P&L called curriculum and teaching — Catherine A Graham, CFO (2Q’17 Conference Call)"

""But with the introduction recently of Lightspeed Payments, we now have the ability to earn a much larger portion of the transaction value, and this will become a growing portion of our revenue over time." — CFO Nussey, Q1 2020 Conf Call. "But overall, kind of our 2.6% and 65 to 70 basis point net. That's been holding for us." — CFO Nussey, Q1 2021 Conf Call."

"“The question that we're getting a lot from investors is how to think about EPS growth and should EPS growth just follow and marry revenue growth, or is there opportunity and would management and the Board come off their 19% and 20% margin range or even perhaps get more aggressive on share repurchases or get more aggressive on M&A.” — Oppenheimer, Aug. 2016"

"In Q2, I briefly discuss the increase in account receivable as a result of our strong revenue growth. We saw the impact of strong revenue growth on receivables again in Q3 as AR increased by $29.7 million from Q2 of 2021. We are implementing a new order to cash process as we onboard, new clients and expect to reduce our DSO in 2022. — CFO on Q3'21 Conf Call"

"“...Verint’s revenue disclosures are lacking...it does not provide inorganic revenue, maintenance revenue, or cloud revenue, metrics we believe would help us better judge the quality of revenue, the contribution to growth of different revenue streams, and organic growth.” — Samad Samana, Jefferies research analyst, Jefferies Research Report January 10, 2019"

""It will do 20 thousand tons and if you took the last 12 months on commodity prices, it would have done $200 million in top line revenue." — Doug Cole (YouTube). "it's at least an order of magnitude off on the revenue side. I could see tens of millions if everything went right, but where are you going to get the volumes you mentioned?..." — Lithium Expert"

"We believe Nuvei is a mixture of acquisitions which on average have been acquired at approximately 5.6x revenues. We estimate up to 40% of revenues are acquired and do not deserve to increase the value of the entire company given numerous issues we've identified with specific acquisitions such as Base Commerce, Smart2Pay, SafeCharge and Vantage Payments."

"Viterra’s website removed its historical consolidated financial information. However, a link to its 2022 financial statements can still be found which shows that actual revenue was $53.8bn which is 22% above the $44.2bn result in 2024. Even worse, Viterra disclosed that it effectively booked repurchase agreements as revenue and had to make a restatement."

"“...we are pleased to share that $150 million announced cumulative savings will drive a $100 million improvement in operating profit for the fiscal year 2020 [relative to 2017]. With these savings, along with modest low single-digit revenue growth, we believe we can achieve an operating margin of 13% in fiscal year 2020.” — 5/25/17 FQ4 2017 earnings call"

"“I know that some of you are already doing the math, running the math and are probably saying, ‘Heck, what are they doing? They are paying at a multiple that's above the average multiple.’ You won't understand how the multiple here has to be calculated if you don't apply these backed-by-contracts revenues on a highly profitable basis.” — Klaus Kleinfeld"

""Sales advertising and other revenue increased by 22% as a result of a higher number of daily monetizable search grades we deliver to Microsoft Bing and others. Our daily number of searches was 17.7 million compared to 12.2 million last year. In addition, we added 13 new publishers to our network during the quarter." — Perion Q1'21 Earnings Announcement"

""Sales advertising and other revenue increased by 22% as a result of a higher number of daily monetizable search grades we deliver to Microsoft Bing and others. Our daily number of searches was 17.7 million compared to 12.2 million last year. In addition, we added 13 new publishers to our network during the quarter." — Perion Q1'21 earnings announcement"

""Chief Revenue Destroyer," — Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO). "When Blackwell starts shipping in volume, you couldn't give Hoppers away." — Jensen Huang (Nvidia CEO). "A year ago or so, an H100 was $5-6 per hour. Now, it's around 75 cents, maybe less. Hardware typically depreciates in three to five years, but that's happening in a year now." — CEO of host.AI"

"Given the issues we have highlighted regarding Procept's revenue recognition, gross margin accounting, and DSOs, we are concerned that Procept has never had a lead audit partner who has audited a publicly-listed company with more than $150 million of revenue, and its current audit partner has never had a publicly-listed client with any revenue at all."

"Days Sales Outstanding (DSO). DSO is a metric we use to evaluate the efficiency of our working capital. It represents the average number of days to convert our trade and other receivables, unbilled receivables, contract assets, and deferred revenue to cash. We calculate DSO by annualizing gross revenue for the quarter as reported under IFRS. — Stantec"

"For select Premier Agent revenue transactions included within Residential revenue, we tested the amount of revenue recorded by developing an expectation for the amount by applying the percentage change from an independent variable to historical amounts recorded and comparing our expectation to the amount recorded by management. — Deloitte & Touche LLP"

"“...And for the overall business planning, we have our own team, in-house team for the e-commerce. In terms of the management of all the other aspects, we also continuously to consolidate. We believe in the e-commerce, in the future, it's going to be at least about 20%, 30% of the total revenue.” — Jie Zheng, ANTA Executive Director & Brand President"

"Gross margin for the quarter was 44.8%... Our gross margin for the quarter was approximately $25.2 million or 44.8% of revenue as compared to 40% in Q3 FY '21 and up from 38.3% in Q2. The increased gross margin reflects the impact of higher revenues in particular higher NGS revenues and thus leveraging our fixed costs. — James M. Thorburn, Twist CFO"

"Our total cost of services are tied to increases in headcount as we hire people who deliver specialized services to our clients. The cost of service as a percentage of revenue is not heavily influenced by the service offering mix. Instead, it is primarily influenced by the geographic location from which services are provided. — CFO, Q2'21 Conf Call"

"We believe the Street is structurally misunderstanding the magnitude of the cybersecurity-related costs that Mercury will face going forward, as well as the delays in revenue contract award opportunities it will face in its high-growth “command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence” (C4I) segment – expected to be a $100m business."

""So you've just seen the acquisition of PCC that's underway by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. And he paid for a business that is having $10 billion of revenue, whereas $6 billion of those $10 billion are having a full overlap with us, $37 billion. So you get a feel for the value that's possible there." — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, October 8, 2015"

"We grew the total number of customers generating more than $200,000 of revenue by 38% year-over-year on a trailing 12-month basis. — CEO, Aug 3, 2022; Our gross retention rate remains over 95%, and we have achieved 41% growth in the total number of customers generating more than $200,000 of revenue on a trailing 12-month basis. — CEO, Nov 8, 2022"

"Management touted Antuit as a "high-margin SaaS business" with revenue growth that doubled over a 3-year period. However, after obtaining Antuit's financial statements, we observe that revenue growth flat-lined in the year leading up to the acquisition, and its gross margin at 46.7% is wildly below the 70%-80% margins of typical SaaS companies."

"Beginning with this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, we have ceased using platform revenue retention rate to evaluate the success of our growth strategy... we have determined that platform revenue retention rate currently provides little to no value in evaluating our business and is not expected to provide value in the future. — 2U, Inc. 3Q17 10Q"

"We compare Bunge with a global set of agriculture trading and merchandising peers. Analysts often fail to include Bunge's global peers in emerging markets to formulate their valuation. However, it is not fair to ignore these companies since most of Bunge's assets and revenues are based in risky parts of the world such as Brazil and Argentina."

"All data should be entered using accounting standards. For example, March sales data should be based on energy consumed between 01 March and 31 March with the revenue amount based on that energy, regardless of when a customer's billing cycle ends or whether you collected the money... — U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) instructions"

"Stryker claims that Vocera’s revenues weren’t a pull-forward of business from COVID-19, but reflected underlying growth of existing trends. Tegus interviewed a former Vocera technology professional who shared insights that the Company was a COVID-19 beneficiary from existing clients purchasing more devices and not net new customer purchases."

"I guess the question to really ask is what's the continuing value proposition in the world that has significantly changed? ... I think revenue is going to be pretty easy for them to drive, but I think margin is the one that I really question, if they don't have a significant differentiator. — Former TASK Executive Interviewed By Spruce Point"

"Should the providers of platforms, particularly browsers, further block, constrain or limit our ability to offer or change search properties, or materially change their guidelines, technology or the way they operate, our ability to generate revenue from our users' search activity could be significantly reduced. — Perion 2021 20-F / 2022 20-F"

"“As we work to continually reinvent our category and lead a new era of intelligent finance for SMBs, we are also focused on becoming a more efficient, agile organization so that we can move faster on high-impact opportunities, drive durable revenue growth and deliver superior, sustainable value creation.” — René Lacerte, BILL CEO (10/16/25)"

"“Celgene has guided a 2020 approval date, and $3B in potential peak revenues. While we view the likelihood of a 2020 approval as high, we believe the potential peak sales will be closer to $1.2B. As a third to market product in a developing market wherein sales have been modest thus far, this guidance is aggressive…” — Cowen, February 2019"

"Beginning with the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, the Company revised the foreign exchange rates used to present segment revenues, segment earnings (loss) before income taxes, and Closed sales, to further allocate the foreign exchange impact to the individual segment revenue and profit metrics — Broadridge Financial Presentation Change"

"Focus is solely on revenue. Customer satisfaction isn't acknowledged. Shove integrations down clients throats as fast as possible even if it is sloppy. Company is realigned nearly monthly. I had 6 managers in 12 months, 3 of which never met with me. Company is cut throat and is laying off and firing their best employees. — Glassdoor Review"

"We’re going to have higher margins with the delivery of these cost synergies, and we haven’t quantified the benefits of any revenue synergies but we would clearly expect to be able to grow at higher rates over the longer term than we would independently.... And we see some very specific opportunities — CEO on Revenue Synergies, Aug 7, 2018"

"Notably, not one of the releases below discloses a deal size – and all are silent on the critical question of whether they are undisclosed related parties – that is, whether Ginkgo or its investors like Viking are investors in the entities or are providing proceeds that will be round-tripped back to Ginkgo as “revenue” in coming quarters."

"“Killer Strengths, Just Needs a Killer Growth Strategy” — SMBC Nikko Securities. “Profits bottomed out, but still not much confidence in full-fledged growth turnaround” — J.P. Morgan. “Kao has great technology and many interesting products, but management has yet to translate this expertise into strong revenue-generating products” — CLSA."

"Xylem claims that all YTD 2023 inorganic contributions to revenue are from the all-stock acquisition of Evoqua. However, Xylem also divested a $91 million Evoqua business. Furthermore, Evoqua made a minority stake in Idrica, and distributed its technology globally. Did Xylem book any inorganic sales from Idrica because it incurred costs?"

"Henry Fernandez, our lead independent director, is a director and Chairman of the Board of MSCI. In April 2021, we entered into a cooperation agreement with MSCI, pursuant to which we will assist MSCI in MSCI's construction of life sciences index products in exchange for a share of MSCI's revenues from those products. — Royalty Pharma"

"Porch essentially barters its software for leads, which it then sells, yet doesn't record the transaction in cost of revenues. Given the subjectivity and managerial discretion on placing values for exchanged services in barter transactions, they have often been heavily scrutinized by the SEC and are susceptible to accounting fraud."