Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"However, in reality, Defendants conduct their business by way of a massive pyramid scheme: once prospective Associates pay the required $100 application fee to join Defendants and are approved, one of the Associates' primary duties is to recruit more Associates for the benefit of the Defendants – a duty for which they receive no compensation. — Recent Lawsuit Allegations"

"“There are also issues because it's microfluidic, and that also means the cells could be sticky and have other issues. That happens. There are a few factors. It's definitely not the most robust, and that's not because of the instrument itself; that's because of the kind of things customers can put on it, and then that may push it to break it.” —Former BLI product manager"

"Our independent registered public accounting firm has identified material weaknesses in our internal controls that, if not remediated, could affect our ability to prepare timely and accurate financial reports, which could cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial information and have a negative effect on the trading price of our stock. — KANA 2006 10-K"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"if I say I want to use the NOP to get that liver in Seattle, but I don't want to use their transportation company, the only option they give me is traveling from San Diego...that's a round-trip ticket that's...$50,000...rather than just using their team in Seattle to recover the liver and fly it down to me. — Transplant surgeon at a high volume West Coast academic center"

"“if I were Waleed’s people, I’d be selling stock like mad” – “I think they know damn well” that they’re in trouble. Another surgeon: “they’re sort of riding a wave right now...the stock is way over-priced and that thing is going to fall because once these devices come in and NRP catches on, people will see....” — Prominent surgeon, director of a leading transplant center"

"A better option might be the trash bin, but few Americans have access to landfills equipped to ensure that bioplastics degrade. The remaining option is disposing the bottles into the environment - say, in the ocean. That’s not much of an option at all, even if the bottles will eventually disintegrate. “I don’t think we want to start ‘designing for litter;” Croke told me."

"In April 2018, a putative class action lawsuit, Sean Wilson, et al. v. Playtika LTD, Playtika Holding Corp. and Caesars Interactive Entertainment, Inc. was filed against us in federal district court that is directed against certain of our social casino games, including Caesars Slots, Slotomania, House of Fun and Vegas Downtown Slots. — Sean Vilson, et al. v. Playtika LTD"

"A former insider with intimate knowledge of the internal processes claimed that during her/his time at the company the founder touted that the content integrity team is “50 people strong”, while, due to Chinese Wall reasons, staff employees never saw a detailed list of these individuals. However, the insider believed that the team had “6 people at most.” — Former Insider"

"The Zio AT has long been promoted by iRhythm management as a strategic product because (1) it addressed the risk (marginally) of being a single product company, (2) it increased (marginally) the Company’s addressable market, (3) it represented a growth opportunity given iRhythm’s low MCT market share, and (4) it received about 4x the reimbursement of the Zio XT/Monitor."

"MSCI's Director Catherine Kinney has been involved with SolarWinds (NYSE: SWI) since its IPO. She served as the Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee which was responsible for firm-wide risk management and was also a member of the Audit Committee. Spruce Point finds it alarming that the SEC recently charged SolarWinds with fraud for internal control failures."

"A hallmark of inflated profits is inflated assets. Through a Chinese attorney our investigators obtained the recent tax fillings for Mettler's 10 China subsidiaries. We find Mettler's assets in China as depicted from tax filings are materially lower than assets depicted at the consolidated level in Mettler's SEC reporting. We also could not account for some of its cash."

"Everyone again feels that Nevro just cherry-picked their PDN study because diabetics are notoriously not compliant. That's why they have diabetes to begin with. And Nevro cherry-picks picture-perfect diabetic patients that always take the medication, their A1C was always below 7 and that's not realistic. That's not the average American that eats hoagies in Philadelphia."

"The “Never Events” which MGH stated occur with weekly regularity refer to the practice of allegedly flying in multiple jets for a single organ recovery, a recurring theme in our transplant center interviews – “a free check to drive up the cost...any time that two planes fly in...I mean, this just happened the other day...indiscriminate use just to drive up utilization.”"

"There's already evidence that Porch is failing to meet its financial objectives. The Company claimed it would complete the transaction with $205m of cash and no debt. Yet, it ended up with more cash than projected, but its debt balance is still claimed to be $40m in Porch's investor presentations. This figure is actually contradicted by Porch's 2020 10-K to be $50.8m(1)"

""Elliott has made false claims and mischaracterized an ordinary course agreement [with Oak Hill] in a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from what is really at stake in this proxy contest: who are the best qualified director nominees to oversee the execution of the Company's strategy to enhance shareholder value." — Arconic Letter to Shareholders, April 5, 2017"

"“whether it was manipulative or not...all people, to a degree, are trying to sell something...”; “I did feel like they were overemphasizing the horror stories...in my experience, my current patients don't have that...”; “they told a lot of horror stories...the amount of mailings and things I've got... I don't remember the last time I got this much...” — Endocrinologists"

"In the United States, we provide maintenance and support directly to our customers. In the EMEA region, we provide maintenance and support to approximately half of our customers, depending on their location. In the Asia Pacific region, our independent distributors provide initial maintenance and support, and we provide second-line support when needed. — Kornit 2018 20-F"

"This is not a scalable investment. The initial plan was to use it in this particular setting, and then widen use to other discovery programs, and then eventually make its way to manufacturing, which is where the biggest bang for the buck. If we start using this machine in a manufacturing setting, that's where the real big money is. It never panned out. — Novartis Expert"

"During the year the Group acquired mature sandalwood trees from existing growers and re-acquired mature sandalwood trees from growers who had defaulted on their loan repayments and part of the proceeds ($40.08m) was offset against amounts the growers owed to the Group (included in Current Trade and Other Receivables). — Note 25(iv) TFC Annual Report to Shareholders 2014"

"You churn through every seven or eight years is how long customer lasts on average. We decided to move away from both Alarm.com and Resideo, not primarily for price reasons, although the equipment and the software is cheaper than those, but because we wanted control of what our product offering was so we could differentiate ourselves. — VP, Large Public Security Company"

""During 2014, we did not get there. We did great, we did huge but we didn't get all the way to that 30% growth rate that we wanted . . . enterprise fell a little short." — 4Q 2014 earnings call; "Although we fell short of our 30% bookings growth goal in 2014, we were able to finish the year strong and have entered 2015 with positive momentum." — 4Q 2014 prepared remarks"

"“I often leave, and I’m like, ‘There’s no way they’re going to be able to use that organ’…I feel like they just keep going and going and going, keep trying and trying and trying…it’s going to be in an operating room with a recipient hours and hours later when the heart function is off.” — Organ procurement technician at a high-volume Northwest academic transplant center"

"“Examples where it hasn't gone so great are situations where the liver is on pump. The numbers may be favorable but there's something we don't like about the liver. There was a liver a month ago where the right lobe felt very firm, like it was infarction, that part of it had died.” — Chief of transplant surgery at a major transplant center; high-volume TransMedics users"

"“Examples where it hasn’t gone so great are situations where the liver is on pump. The numbers may be favorable but there’s something we don’t like about the liver. There was a liver a month ago where the right lobe felt very firm, like it was infarction, that part of it had died.” — Chief of transplant surgery at a major transplant center; high-volume TransMedics users"

"“Well, that's interesting, isn't it? I've been around a long time, five decades of work in this area, that I want to take a wait and see attitude. Now, these are the things we have to look out for, don't we? We have 100 patients [in the trial]...six months from now, we'll know more, won't we?” — Trial investigator and physician; one of the leading KOL's in the PWS field"

"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 message in error please send it back to the sender and delete it. Unauthorized publication, use, dissemination or disclosure of this message, either in whole or in part is strictly prohibited."

"“Capital discipline is key and it’s an area in which Solvay excels. We have a demonstrated track record in the art of making prudent and strategic use of cash and implementing comprehensive cash allocation strategies. These considerations will remain at the forefront of our thinking, helping us safeguard dividends and create greater value for stakeholders.” — Solvay.com"

"In light of the prevailing restrictions on non-emergency dental activity and expert predictions which indicate that the coronavirus may linger for months into the future, Spruce Point believes that it is not outlandish to believe that, not only could US volumes collapse to near-zero in Q2, but that volumes may remain heavily depressed through the remainder of the year."

"Among the distortions employed by the Company to hide management's history of value destruction, Arconic's purported TSR calculations assume an arbitrary start date that essentially matches a multi-decade low in the trading price of Alcoa Inc., a fundamentally flawed approach that ignores the fact that Alcoa's peers hit their lows on different dates than did Alcoa Inc."

"As referenced in a pending shareholder lawsuit (Glazing v iRhythm), following iRhythm’s receipt of the additional Form 483s in July 2024, Capitol Forum revealed that former employees of iRhythm accused the Company of directing them to delete patient data from its final reports that was not transmitted (and thus subject to physician notification) during the wear period."

"Amcor's CEO touted "flow forward" instead of "flow back" from a cross border deal. Flow back occurs when investors sell an acquiror's shares in a cross border deal, usually from technical considerations. Our analysis calls into question his statement, and shows that actual fundamental owners of Bemis have been selling, while index/ETF owners have only moderately added."

"The problem with these trials and all trials of patients with rare conditions, and I suppose the Prader-Willi patient is the same when I've tried to recruit patients for other trials for Prader-Willi Syndrome, the ones who I think may benefit because they have got issues with weight gain and so on, are often the ones who are reluctant to participate in clinical trials."

""Our pricing in November [2015] really tried to price in some of the labor costs that we anticipate and that are happening...but if you're not going to add some price with, whether it's minimum wage, whether it's overtime...you are going to have to get it somewhere." — Sally Smith, Buffalo Wild Wings CEO and President, Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference June 2016"

"Why do you only expect 2% to 3% organic sales growth in fiscal '18? And does that really signal that the ultimate payoff from all these areas is unlikely to move P&G above that 2% to 3% range longer term? I guess, to put it simply, [is P&G] now a structurally lower top line growth company, more in that 2% to 3% range? — Dara Mohsenian, Morgan Stanley Analyst, 7/27/2017"

"“We’re supportive of the new draft MBO guidelines which increase minority shareholder protection. We believe these guidelines and other such measures focused on improving corporate governance will improve Japan’s capital markets as an investment destination,” Seth Fischer, Chief Investment Officer of Oasis Management in Hong Kong, told this news service. — Seth Fischer"

"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"

"The sale of these surgical products will strengthen our ability to focus our resources across our portfolio... This transaction underscores our strategic focus on high-growth, high-margin categories where Hillrom can demonstrate leadership and supports our commitment to deliver on our promise of Advancing Connected Care. — John P. Groetelaars, Hillrom President and CEO"

"Well, let's step back. If you're familiar with the Mako robot that Stryker had. When Stryker brought that robot out, and I happened to be at Stryker at the time. The plan was garnish these implants by requiring these doctors to do a minimum of 400 implants in order to get a free machine. And they were taking that model out everywhere. — Former Zimmer / Stryker Employee"

""It is massively important that EnVe's can be easily connected to eGates, something we have been passionate about for a long time. eGates drive automation, security and member experience. We are piloting eGates in select airports today and absolutely believe this technology should be a cornerstone of modernized airport infrastructure." — CLEAR CEO (Q4'24 earnings call)"

"Mango is among the dozens of firms attempting to create an industry around polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a class of biodegradable, biobased polymers. Executives with these firms are well aware of the PHA firm Metabolix, now called Yield10 Bioscience, which burned through hundreds of millions of dollars before it failed in PHAs 3 years ago. — Chemical & Engineering News"

"“The LifePort study is a really good example. These are centers; some were in the TransMedics trial, but they clearly jumped ship to be involved with LifePort...that’s the device that a lot of really big names in the field in liver really think is going to be very, very competitive with TransMedics” — Transplant surgeon, Director of a leading academic transplant center"

"“The consensus on hyper-local in the company is that, generally speaking, we have products that are sold nationwide; therefore, our communications efforts must effectively and efficiently reach that audience. Hyper-local typically sacrifices the latter for the former. Hyper-local just isn’t as efficient and would be too expensive.” — Digital marketing manager, May 2012"

"I agree with you 100%, and I agree with 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-Soleno employee #1, key role in clinical trial program"

"“It’s like a horse pill. But what happens? I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Prader Willi patients, but you put something in their mouth what they do, they’re going to chew it and swallow it... I was concerned because the fourth most common cause of death, in Prader-Willi Syndrome is choking.” — Trial investigator and physician; one of the leading KOL’s in the PWS field"

"“oh, that's all done in China” — Warehouse manager (as reported by source). “...requires that transit buses acquired with federal public transportation funding undergo final assembly in the United States and that at least 65% of the cost be manufactured domestically. This threshold rises to 70% for buses delivered in FY2020 or later.” — Government report (August 2018)."

"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."

"There are various legal cases that don't paint Momentum in a favorable light. Notably, plaintiffs are alleging aggressive telemarketing campaigns violating the Do Not Call list. Also a messy civil case between Vision Solar and Momentum has resulted in a NJ Court finding that Momentum's SVP Finance & Accounting under direction of counsel committed “Fraud on the Court”."

"Discussions with numerous urologists supported our thesis that (1) Procept cannot address the entire BPH patient population with equal competitiveness, (2) any trend toward earlier treatment (of smaller prostates, by definition) disadvantages Procept, and (3) Aquablation is most competitive with larger prostates, which represents the smaller segment of the BPH market."

"Spruce Point believes that IoT is an old technology that has suffered from adoption headwinds and poor profitability. Recall that even C3.ai was C3.IoT before its business model pivot. We find a common theme among technology stock promoters: they typically rely heavily on targeting retail investors to sell their story of large profits and riches from buying the stock."

"So to go roll out a bunch of markets, which is why we took a massive step back, it's like Zillow would've been not profitable for a very long time to be able to not only flip these markets, get these agents, identify the top agents that actually can convert, get these agents to convert with the lack of inventory on the market, wait for these leads to actually convert."

"The investigator thoroughly trashed Vykat and the clinical trials, stating he saw no benefit in any of his enrollees; that he "encouraged them not to continue" into the open-label extension; that only one patient remains on drug, for a discontinuation rate of ~80%; and that he is skeptical of the mother’s perception of benefit in the one remaining patient on the drug."

"We are very pleased to link the name Pramac Racing to Alma, I thank Luigi Scavone [Alma Group CEO] for the enthusiasm with which he joined our team. We are proud to have as title sponsor a group like Alma that perfectly understands the dynamics of the labour market, always looking for a constant growth in terms of professionalism and results. — Campinoti (Generac EVP)"

"TL;DR Pay your local dealership to do a PPI (pre-purchase inspection) during your return policy. It's worth it. /u/DougDeMuro would not be impressed with the bumper to bumper CarvanaCare warranty. They will tell you that it is the same as the manufacturer's warranty, but it is significantly worse. At least the return policy is good. I needed to use mine. — Reddit User"

""an average person applying for insurance" — Sabean court decision; "you may make additional premium payments at any time when this policy is in force" — Mosten-Manulife Contract; "We reserve the right to discontinue at any time any Investment Account except the Guaranteed Interest Account which We guarantee will always be available to You." — Mosten-Manulife Contract"

""As the SEC's order finds, by making misleading statements about order management practices, VMware deprived investors of important information about its financial performance," said Mark Cave, Associate Director in the Division of Enforcement. "Such conduct is incompatible with an issuer's disclosure obligations under the federal securities laws." — SEC Press Release"

""After the acquisition process, Tantan will maintain its separate sets of strategies and product development, operations, branding as well as business development under the leadership of their existing management, and we will be providing full support and expertise in areas including human resources, technology as well as monetization." — Tang Yan Q4 2017 Earning Call"

""He hasn't been convicted," she said of Amaya, a starter for Hartwick's Division I program since his MAC All-Star season as a freshman in 2007. "If he is found responsible, then he will be held accountable as far as our student code of conduct and appropriate action will be taken. If he's found responsible, we have sanctions and they will be imposed." — The Daily Star"

"I would say, it's hard to say, Liam. I mean, it will come down to what opportunities there are. We want to maximize value on for those -- for that stake. The lockup is until July 2. I don't think anyone should expect us out in the market selling these shares on July 3. We will work very closely with Bunge and Greg Heckman. He's running a great business. — Glencore CEO"

"How do you intend to hold your people? At some point, they'll all suffer from burn-out; you're buying up their companies – you put up some wallpaper and somehow they fall through the cracks – Philip has already addressed this issue. What is your culture; what is your belief; what is important to you, apart from being the biggest advertiser? — Gent. 1 from the audience"