Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"“it's not like we have a slew of organs in California, Oregon, Hawaii that are getting transplanted here, for sure” — Transplant hepatologist and director of a Midwest academic center. “for practical purposes, it's pretty unusual I would get an organ from that far away.” — Transplant surgeon and transplant program director at a leading Northeast academic center."

""We also won by a wide margin at the US Army's most prestigious live-fire exercise in April of this year. Subsequently, we received a contract from the US Army, which will likely make us their preferred C-UAS standard solution. The US combat vehicle fleet will be equipped with an EOS R400 Slinger in a semi-autonomous special configuration." — CEO (December 2025)"

"“...were you aware you would lose a number of tenants in the fourth quarter or want to kick them out?” — Analyst; “Yes. So I think I might have mentioned that in the last earnings call that when we put under contract Carolina Pavilion and by the time we closed, we had 3 tenants basically go bankrupt and close their stores, which is highly unusual” — CEO Albright"

"“Yes, a lab tool. Yes, not a production tool. Because you have a lot of limitations for productivity...even today, TSMC still has a weekly meeting with Lasertec. My colleagues in procurement and from the fab told me they have a weekly meeting to push Lasertec to improve.” — Longtime ex-TSMC procurement executive who introduced Lasertec inspection tools into TSMC"

"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."

"Spruce Point has found a confidential report prepared for Oatly that was designed to help Oatly assess the environmental impact of its aseptic and fresh oat milk product relative to dairy milk. In the document there is detailed information and assumptions about quantities of ingredients needed. This could allow competitors to more easily replicate its products."

"Spruce Point questions the accounting choices made in the Burgiss acquisition. Notably, the decision to apply a lag in reporting may reflect Burgiss' inability to produce timely financials. Furthermore, the decision to capitalize deal costs appear to put it in violation with GAAP which dictates that acquisition-related costs be expensed in the periods occurred."

"You should assume that as of the publication date of our reports and research, Muddy Waters, LLC (possibly along with or through our members, partners, affiliates, employees, and/or consultants) along with our clients and/or investors has a short position in all stocks (and/or options, swaps, and other derivatives related to the stock) and bonds covered herein."

"The cumulative impact of these announcements helped send shares from ~$1.50 to over $7 in the span of a couple weeks, driven by what we view as misplaced AI excitement, poor retail investor understanding of the true cash impact of PCF deals, and aggressive short covering from investors positioned for Lumen's death rather than the extension of a sudden lifeline."

"By defining its market presence as the area within which it offers free delivery – even when in-market deliveries will require a fee in many cases, when it still offers delivery outside of its “markets,” and when it reimburses out-of-market customers to fly in – we question the significance of “entering a new market” with respect to Carvana’s growth trajectory."

""Digital Garage has a great payment service provider business, and yet, they have not done enough to capture the shift toward cashless payments in Japan. As shareholders, we can no longer sit idly by and allow this great company to miss this opportunity. This is a call to action for DG's management." — Seth Fischer, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Oasis"

""We will operate a low-cost operating model in all that we do. In essence, we will continue to apply a low-margin operating mindset to a high-margin business. We will take pride in our frugality, our ability to make quick decisions based on internal resources, our willingness to all wear different hats at different times." — Mike Pearson, 2010 Chairman’s Letter"

""This s**t is magic (...) It's so healing, nourishing, and moisturizing." — MakeupAlley (Curél, USA); "This product is so innovative." — Try&Review (Freeplus, Singapore); "Would eat it if I could. Gorgeous! A lovely treat to use." — Cult Beauty (Molton Brown, UK); "I love this sunscreen! This is the first sunscreen that I wear everyday." — Kokoro (Bioré, Japan)"

"The 70% Rule: In any given month, a Distributor must sell to retail customers and/or sell at wholesale to downline Distributors, at least 70% of the total value of Herbalife products they hold for resale, in order to qualify for TAB Team and to earn and receive Royalty Overrides and Production Bonus for that month's business. — Herbalife Sales & Marketing Plan."

""Lightspeed's customer base showed a quick rebound from April lows induced by the pandemic." — Press Release, 8/6/20; "Lightspeed Payments continued its rapid growth trajectory in the quarter..." — Conf Call, 8/6/20; "So I'd say the way I look at it is last 2 weeks of March, April, extremely low set of installs. Everything is shut down." — PAR Conf Call, 8/7/20"

"Taubman Centers Inc. is effectively waving a white flag in its four-year retail battle with Simon Properties...Both shopping centers opened within weeks of each other, leaving many analysts and experts puzzled over why Taubman, which had yet to tinker with outlet malls, would try to compete with the more prominent Simon — St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 27, 2018"

"The Company contributed $5.0 million in cash and certain intellectual property to Cooksonia in exchange for a 70% equity interest in Cooksonia (“Class A Units”). Cooksonia received $20.0 million in cash from another investor, who is a related party of the Company, for a 20% equity interest in Cooksonia (“Class B Units”). — Excerpt from Prospectus, Sept 17, 2021"

"“Upon information and belief, 60% of all spam telephone calls in the United States are delivered to consumers’ phones using Onvoy’s network. Upon information and belief and investigation by counsel, approximately 60% of all robocalls placed in the United States are delivered by the Onvoy network to US consumers’ telephones.” — 2022 Class Action Lawsuit Excerpt."

"“Herbalife’s entire business model appears to incentivize primarily the payment of compensation that is ‘facially unrelated to the sale of product to the ultimate users’ because it is paid based on the suggested retail price of the amount ordered [from Herbalife], rather than based on actual sales to consumers.” — Federal Court in California (Herbalife v. Ford)"

"Our results for the quarter were mixed. Our 55 net new placements were up over 90% year-over-year, but came in below our expectations .... The miss was largely EMEA. And we had turnover in Germany where we had planned on several capital deals and then a large distributor deal that, while we could have closed that sooner, we held out for better pricing. — Mehren"

"The USDA produces a regular report on the diary market conditions in Argentina. The country is facing major challenges that are affecting domestic consumer consumption and the export market. Inflation continues to be rampant, the UK/Russia war is impacting exports, and energy subsidies to producers are expected to be eliminated and increase cost of production."

"TaskUs is a human capital intensive business process outsourcing company being backed and promoted by Blackstone, and is focused on content moderation and digital customer experience for clients in the social media and digital economy. Spruce Point has past successes betting against a similar business named Bazaarvoice, and a recent Blackstone stock promotion."

"Stryker only discloses the Operating Income (EBIT) contribution from transactions completed in the year in its Proxy Statement. We can now clearly see that it has spent $8.6 billion in total acquisition and integration costs from 2018 - 2021. EBIT contribution, which is influenced by the timing of when acquisitions are completed, has been virtually negligible."

"Spruce Point has identified many red flags as it relates to Aerojet’s meteoric share price appreciation since 2017. Its significant EBITDAP growth without corresponding cash flow growth should be evaluated relative to recent executive and director departures, along with heavy insider selling, a civil DOJ inquiry, and disclosure of federal and state tax audits."

"What astounds me and really made me a little hesitant on the way here is that I know of no other company on the stock exchange where everyone, including all the analysts, are saying "buy" and the discrepancy between the price and lowest analyst target price - it was 62.50 euros, I think, from Kepler Cheuvreux - is so huge as in this case. — Jens Starke-Wuschko"

"“As soon as you get to 2023, then you get to go to scale in a different way, which is, I just tell somebody in Taiwan to start and give me 10,000 of those things. And you get to scale through manufacturing, as well.” [...] “We don’t have a manufacturing problem. You want a million qubits? No problem. That’s easy.” — Peter Chapman, IonQ CEO (Dec 2020 interview)"

"During the fourth quarter of 2020, changes in mine plans and the determination that certain mineral reserves previously forecasted to be mined were no longer considered economic due to poor geologic conditions reduced forecasted cash flows for one Met and one CAPP - Thermal asset group to amounts below those required for full recoverability. — AMR 10-K, p. 106"

"Stepping into the asymptomatic market and asking for, what, $250, what you said, or $500 or $750, I think this would be impossible. If you just say, it's like this, okay, we want to put, let's say, 12 million Zios, everybody will say, okay, forget it...As much as it sounds great for the company, but it's not realistic. — Director at Philips Healthcare, 6/27/24"

"In the second quarter of 2023, our advanced location technology solutions business, which is primarily comprised of radio frequency identification devices ("RFID") and real-time location solution offerings ("RTLS"), moved from our Enterprise Visibility & Mobility ("EVM") segment into our Asset Intelligence & Tracking ("AIT") segment — Zebra 10-K Annual Report."

"Yeah, I think they saw the writing on the wall that companies like Walmart and Amazon, etc., they're always looking for new innovative technologies. They are always looking for removing the barcode from that, so it makes sense for Zebra to invest in companies or technology that's going to help them round it out and keep those customers. — Former Zebra Employee"

"Gross margin decreased to 45.6% in the current year compared to 46.4% for the prior year primarily due to product volume deleveraging, the negative impact of foreign currency changes and inventory-related charges, partially offset by pricing, higher service and software margins, and lower premium freight and component part costs. — Zebra Technologies 2023 10-K"

"“Now you have to examine every one of those oligonucleotides and determine how many errors were created in the oligonucleotide base pair sequence and then cull out those that meet the customer requirements... It’s expensive, it’s slow, and it requires a lot of high-level PhDs to run it.” — Longtime oligonucleotide manufacturing expert and executive; ex-Agilent"

"“IDT was the biggest threat when I was at Twist, and one of the reasons why I saw a lot of value in [redacted] was I didn’t want to work for a company that didn’t perform as well. Since joining, Agilent has released new chemistry, and so has Roche. So, they’ve all caught up to that, and it’s no longer a big advantage.” — Former employee now at a key competitor"

""There are now technically two companies that still manufacture large solid rockets for military ICBMs — Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, which absorbed Orbital ATK in a deal that closed June 6. The industry is poised to become a monopoly, however, as Aerojet's large solid rocket motor business is on not-so-solid ground" — Space News"

"“Herbalife’s entire business model appears to incentivize primarily the payment of compensation that is ‘facially unrelated to the sale of product to the ultimate users’ because it is paid based on the suggested retail price of the amount ordered [from Herbalife], rather than based on actual sales to consumers.” — Federal Court in California, Herbalife v. Ford"

"“Some organs, I don’t think they’re safe for transplant. I think they might not work, or they might not work long enough...this is my professional judgment...maybe I’ve done 800 of these transplants or more than a thousand...I trained for years, so when a liver doesn’t work, it’s a disaster.” — Transplant procurement surgeon previously working with TransMedics"

"BP Moves Chief Executive to Lesser Role in Spill Response — The New York Times; Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun to step down in wake of safety issues — Axios; Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf Resigns Amid Scandal — NPR; 3M Names New CEO Amid PFAS Battles, Health Spinoff — The Wall Street Journal; CEO of Canada's Suncor Energy steps down after latest site fatality — Reuters"

"Recent setback related to the DOJ backing the EPA's stance despite the administration's pro-mining orientation shows there is considerable risk in developing an Alaskan mine where local communities can express strong opposition to protect wildlife. Nova will also have to navigate a variety of laws and regulations related to wildlife to advance Project Estelle."

"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 short, unless this sale of 2.2 million cubic meters of broad leaf timber from Yunnan was fulfilled illegally (in excess of quota and without all of the requisite permits) and accomplished with an army of Chinese farmers and shipped out via a secret under-ground train tunnel running below the mountains, it either never happened or was grossly over-inflated."

"By supporting not only large, recognizable players like Straumann and Zimmer Biomet, but also third-party 3D printing labs like Voodoo Manufacturing, third-party aligner design services are lowering the barrier to entry in the aligner manufacturing space, and making low-cost aligner manufacturers more accessible to a wider range of dentists and orthodontists."

"TASK made a lengthy enhancement to its definition of “Win Rate” that we believe added significantly more complexity. It then showed its Win Rate increase over a three year period. Management did not explain the impact of the revision on its subsequent improved Win Rate reporting though it claimed it “Simplified” its Win Rate to align with its NRR calculation."

"Earnings misses & downgrades, improptu management changes, auditor concerns, quality concerns, increasingly competitive markets, and Kibbutz board backstabbing activism are apparently obscure concepts to Stifel, who simply provide a hindsight note after a major share price fall, then upgrade a few weeks later, all on the back of an obscure EV/EBITDA multiple."

"He indicated that some centers were happy to jam Medicare for a $90,000 consumable, even when the device was unnecessary, just to use the NOP organ recovery service – a practice our research is prevalent among smaller centers lacking staff and who we believe to be paying for the device as a kickback in exchange for organs steered their way by the NOP program."

"“Who wants to bring their family into a struggle to make it? Who wants to bring their family into an eventual deception?” — Stephan Gratziani, Current Chairman’s Club member. “[S]uccessful people in retailing in our business, it’s a very small percentage. . . . The majority of our people have a difficulty in selling products, in general.” — Stephan Gratziani."

"An important part of financing projects is finding a financing partner that believes in your long-term view... All the project developers are concerned with is finding someone who will buy the asset at the forecast price. And that forecasted price doesn’t necessarily have to be true fifteen years from now, same with any other asset. — Former Engie Executive B"

""Why not give the menu changes an opportunity to take hold, instead of providing doubters further reason to gripe if the store remodeling doesn't work quickly?...And just as they aren't going to Chipotle to admire the art on the wall, they're not avoiding Olive Garden because they find the window treatments lacking in character." — Yahoo Finance, July 9, 2014"

""Why not give the menu changes an opportunity to take hold, instead of providing doubters further reason to gripe if the store remodeling doesn't work quickly?...And just as they aren't going to Chipotle to admire the art on the wall, they're not avoiding Olive Garden because they find the window treatments lacking in character." — Yahoo Finance, July 9, 2014"

""To date, we've invested a total of $73 million in the factory of the future. Total investments can be, from a CapEx point of view, it's going to be roughly about $110 million. So in terms of where we're at, we've actually hired 40 people from our San Francisco site to move up to the Factory of the Future." — Twist CFO Jim Thorburn at conference – Aug 9, 2022"

"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)"

"“Who wants to bring their family into a struggle to make it? Who wants to bring their family into an eventual deception?” — Stephan Gratziani, Current Chairman’s Club member. “[S]uccessful people in retailing in our business, it’s a very small percentage. . . . The majority of our people have a difficulty in selling products, in general.” — Stephan Gratziani."

""Who wants to bring their family into a struggle to make it? Who wants to bring their family into an eventual deception?" — Stephan Gratziani, Current Chairman’s Club member. "[S]uccessful people in retailing in our business, it’s a very small percentage. . . . The majority of our people have a difficulty in selling products, in general." — Stephan Gratziani."

"“they’re holding off near-term shipments until they resolve these quality issues.” — Unnamed Executive. “they were visiting in part because of...quality concerns with the equipment, and to get a first-hand view of what is done in the factory to improve outgoing quality” — Global Foundries Executive. “there was no data that they had” — Marvell Senior Employee."

"The Company records certain costs to effect acquisitions as they are incurred, which are reflected in general and administrative expenses on the Company's Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income in the amounts of $1.5 million, $0.3 million, and $0.8 million for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively. — ROAD 10-K filings"

"“The Trinity thing is well known. The NORA thing, I don’t think it’s as well-known, but I was at a meeting in Boston, and I made the comment, I’m like, ‘Yeah, they offered me a private flight,’ and the woman sitting across from me was like, ‘Yeah, they did it to me, too.’ We both kind of laughed about it.” — CEO of a major OPO (Organ Procurement Organization)"

"“Well, I think partially it's being collected at different hospital systems. And how that data is saved and analyzed differs. And so, I think there's some question on whether it's consistent across all of these places and whether or not we can really compare DEXA data taken at two different systems.” — Ex-Soleno employee #2, key role in clinical trial program"

""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."

"During the financial year ended 30 June 2011, the Group transferred certain financial instruments from Level 2 to Level 3 of the fair value hierarchy, due to changes in inputs to the valuation models to better represent the fair value of the physical forward contracts. The carrying amount of the total financial assets transferred from FY2010 was S$72,621,000."

"We believe that BP also needs to have a "more honest debate" - particularly as "the facts change" - with the objective being to "put the long-term interests" of stakeholders ahead of "the short-term" interest of BP's leadership to please the "others who argue with an ideological zeal": BP's decision to cut its oil and gas production by around 15% by 2030 vs."

"Sell-side promoters are divided on Zebra, and there is even one analyst with an underweight opinion and market perform rating and a $290 per share price target. We believe that even that is overly optimistic because analysts fail to conduct a rigorous forensic review of Zebra's recent acquisitions and financial reporting which suggests more issues lie ahead."