Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"“So a way to measure it, for us, it is we have put out there a list of 15 potential blockbusters that could come by the year -- in 5 years, so it is by 2022 when we put it out in '18. And I think my focus would be to make sure that we deliver more than our fair risk adjustment of this number, and that will be success.” — Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chair and CEO"

"The reporting physician noted the reaction was uncharacteristic of allergy skin testing and implicated WAKIX due to its histaminergic activity. As hypersensitivity, including anaphylactic reaction, is a known risk associated with WAKIX, a causal or contributory role of WAKIX cannot be ruled out. — FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) FOIA Case Report"

"“While most of these letters of intent are for Type C school buses, we are also seeing interest for the Type A school buses as well. Our factory representative agreement signed with ADOMANI late last year has continued to be an exceptional partnership, enabling us to rapidly pursue market opportunities in California,” — Phillip Oldridge, CEO of GreenPower."

"For production, for productivity, and for economic considerations, KLA performs better than Lasertec...two-thirds of the business migrated from originally Lasertec to KLA...Lasertec has continued to decrease...their share in TSMC...KLA’s share continues to increase. — Longtime ex-TSMC procurement executive who introduced Lasertec inspection tools into TSMC"

"Spruce Point believes that DY does not have a good handle on the trajectory of its Days Sales Outstanding (“DSO”), a measure of days to collect from customers. The CEO's recent comments indicate a false sense of optimism that DSO will improve when they have worsened. Following his last comment on DSO, both CEO Nielsen resigned and CAO Villaverde resigned."

"We question the scalability and commercialization aspects of the technology. To support our concerns, we observe that IPX no longer references that the technologies were tested over a 10-year period, funded in part with approximately $10 million from the U.S. DOE ($12 million total investment through 2021(1)) and with industry partners Boeing and Arconic."

"As shown in our presentation, the upside from a more focused, streamlined PepsiCo is substantial – greater strategic focus, faster organic growth and meaningful profit-margin expansion would warrant a valuation in line with peers, the market and PepsiCo’s own history, representing a path to more than 50% stock-price increase from today’s depressed levels."

"Warning: From the earliest time of inception in 1986, the entity described as a "Joint Venture / Partnership Manufacturing" has listed as its Officers and Directors all of CHD’s key executives at the time including its CEO, CFO, Treasurer, and General Counsel. If this is truly a 50/50 joint venture as CHD describes, why is Occidental not represented here."

"Considering the fact that IQ paid RMB 2.4 billion for this supposed “game development company,” we find this to be ridiculous at face value and believe it is indicative of utter incompetence by IQ’s management at best, or a completely fraudulent transaction designed to siphon cash out of the publicly-traded company and into management’s pockets, at worst."

"The time since randomization—that is, most of the important content of the graph—uses six-month time increments. This allows AbbVie to plot a reasonable looking slope: BNP, and consequently risk of heart failure, increases over time in both groups while always remaining higher in the drug group, but the change seemingly doesn’t happen at too great a rate."

"The pricing was multi-million dollars per project per year. A project lasts two or three years, so it's a significant amount...Their pricing method was very opaque, ..There was very little breakdown about what was happening behind the door for each project...But at the beginning, it was really one pot, and you didn't know exactly what you were paying for."

""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"

"The Internal Audit team as directed by and under the supervision of the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors (the "Audit Committee") uncovered no evidence that supports the allegations mentioned. The Audit Committee has reviewed the result of the investigation and concurred with the conclusion that the allegations were baseless. — TAL Education Group"

"For a broad discussion of electrical cardioversion in atrial fibrillation, see Sucu M et al, Electrical Cardioversion. For an analysis of the success rate of cardioversion in patients with AF, see e.g., Hellman, T et al, Prediction of ineffective elective cardioversion of atrial fibrillation: a retrospective multi-center patient cohort study. — Footnote 3"

"“As part of our fiduciary duty to our clients, we consider it one of our responsibilities to promote sound corporate governance as an informed, engaged shareholder on their behalf. At BlackRock, this is the responsibility of the BlackRock Investment Stewardship (BIS) team” — BlackRock Investment Stewardship - Global Principles Effective as of January 2024"

"Based on Shares Sale and Purchase Agreement, the previous owner ensures that the aggregate value of coal in stockpile and cash is US$ 5,600 and no liability in ALH financial statements as of April 30, 2013. Because of variance between ALH financial position and such agreement, the previous owner has to give US$ 12,007 to OPE. — PT Atlas 2013 Annual Report"

"“Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m frustrated currently. I’m at a different company now. Sometimes, we have to contract out gene synthesis with Twist. And they’re delayed a few months, a couple of months. Definitely, we were frustrated, so we just walked away and worked with other companies. Also competition is building up.” — Former Twist employee, director-level"

""In our view, Saputo has not carved out an economic moat due to consolidation among dairy producers, which have amassed greater control over the price of raw milk. Further, we believe the lack of differentiation between its products and those of branded competitors and private label doesn't suggest the existence of a brand intangible asset." — Morningstar"

"We involved data specialists to assess management's estimate on reserve rates by recalculating historical reserve rates across multiple fiscal periods. We compared our independently developed historical reserve rates with the reserve rates used by management to evaluate management's ability to accurately estimate excess and obsolete inventory. — 2022 10-K"

"Purchases directly from the company – of that 82%, a lot of people never purchase from the company. So they sign up to be a distributor from their sponsor, but they still buy product from the sponsor… Again, a million of our distributors don’t order directly from the company. — John DeSimone, CFO, Herbalife at the Citi Global Consumer Conference (5-23-12)"

"“As part of our fiduciary duty to our clients, we consider it one of our responsibilities to promote sound corporate governance as an informed, engaged shareholder on their behalf. At BlackRock, this is the responsibility of the BlackRock Investment Stewardship (BIS) team” — BlackRock Investment Stewardship - Global Principles Effective as of January 2024"

"One important area in which fiscal '19 will differ from fiscal '18 is in capital allocation. With $600 million of acquisition debt repaid and our leverage target achieved, we returned to our historical priorities for deployment of cash, which our CapEx, acquisitions, dividend payments and share repurchases. — Cintas CFO Q4 2018 Earnings Call July 19, 2018"

"In 2002, The New York Times published an article about Matthew DiFrisco, an analyst who downgraded Darden's stock to ‘neutral’ from ‘outperform.’ Following the downgrade, Darden's investor relations officer Matthew Stroud canceled a marketing trip with DiFrisco’s clients, telling him that he needed to have an ‘outperform’ rating to enjoy such a privilege."

""Yes, at 30 weeks pregnant we scraped together the money, packed up our very busy two year old and flew across the country to see a doctor...this decision has had many of our family and friends scratching their heads...we have such wonderful care here in state...so why did we feel the need to go see someone over 2,000 miles away?" — One family's blog post"

"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."

"When we remove AMR's three least common cost of coal adjustments, and include the cost of operating Dominion Terminal Associates ("DTA") - its coal export facility necessary and critical for delivering the coal to its export customers which we evaluate in the coming slides - we find that its cost of coal margin per ton is materially lower than portrayed."

"We believe that if Quectel were added to the Covered List that it would not only be a headwind to government (and perhaps all sector) sales, but it would also necessitate a widespread replacement of existing hardware, which would be accompanied by a requisite write-off of capitalized connected device costs, thus further compressing Samsara gross margins."

"Based on our research: rising competitive pressures from the Terminix / Rentokil merger, a deluge of private equity money entering the market, signs that Rollins is acquiring lower-quality companies, rising auto accident claims, a change in auditor, and frothy valuation of the stock all bolster our view that now is an appropriate time to liquidate stock."

"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."

"“On the day of our photo shoot, Dovigi arrives in a sleek black Lamborghini SUV, which he’d bought three months earlier and planned to swap for another set of wheels three months later. ‘I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs. I don’t have any vices except for one—cars,’ he says. ‘Every six months, I get a new one.’” — Globe and Mail, August 2019"

""Müller, Schmalzl and Ströer are all criminals and I'm going to protect the world from them." — Muddy Waters (as quoted by Udo Müller). "Evil be to him who evil thinks." — Udo Müller. "We can't stop the problem. We first have to deal with them. These are disreputable practices. They all ought to be in jail." — Udo Müller (quoting American fund managers)."

"[We] believe PSX is currently trading below its SOTP and could see meaningful upside in a breakup scenario... — Scotiabank, February 2025; [There is] significant upside to a SOTP-based valuation... — J.P. Morgan, February 2025; [Our view is] that PSX is undervalued – and there is merit to shining a light on embedded value. — Wolfe Research, February 2025"

""I've only come up with five meaningful ways we can use our cash. First, we can invest in our current businesses. Second, we can use our cash to pay down debt and we have. However, we intend to maintain our investment grade credit rating, which we're already good shape on, and our debt is in great shape as well." — Stephen Wetmore, CEO, 2014 Investor Day"

"While the company remained tight lipped on the specifics of the next gen platform, it does see it as a parallel platform, not a replacement for the “classic” version. We expect the product to be focused on the high end of the market with limited distribution for the next year or two. — SunTrust Robinson Humphrey research note published September 13, 2011"

""Change can be scary, especially for employees in the field. It is very important to provide immediate rewards for the adoption of performance improvements and get employees to buy-in. Having the plants participate more closely will ensure that Arconic’s ‘ownership mindset’ flows through the entire organization." — Patrice Merrin, Nominee for New Arconic"

""On or about March 19, 1990, Franklin reported to Schwartzberg that preliminary financial statements showed that LA Gear's first quarter GPM was 34.98%... Schwartzberg instructed Franklin to proceed to alter the inventory as they had discussed." — Securities and Exchange Commission v. Gilbert N. Schwartzberg and Arden Franklin (Case 2:95-cv-02046-MRP-Mc)"

"“Bringing together the established leaders in RFID, mobile enterprise computing, scanning, specialty printing and motion management will not only give a skill and procurement, manufacturing and logistics, it will vastly expand our distribution reach and deepen our network or value added channel partners.” — Zebra / Motorola Solutions Call, April 15, 2014"

"For TWX, we believe this was a tough asset from which to part, given their already strong foothold in cable networks and Comedy Central's attractive demographic reach. — Merrill Lynch, April 22, 2003. The Comedy Central deal symbolize[d] the different strategies – and prospects – of Viacom and AOL Time Warner. — Raymond Snoddy, The Times, April 23, 2003."

"「レーザーテックでどういう問題が起きたかは知りませんが、Isteqという会社、元々ロシアの会社で今はオランダに避難している会社ですが、そこから技術を購入することになりました。理由はともあれ結果として、度量衡・アクティニック検査に使うための波長13.5nmの極端紫外線を放射する、レーザー生成プラズマの光源技術について独占ライセンス契約を結ぶことになりました。そこまでは素晴らしいのですが、この光源技術は過去にあまりうまくいかなかった事実があるので、気になるといえば気になります。というのも、今度もうまくいかなければどうなるでしょうか。なぜ、ある日『やっぱり、これはよく動きます』というふうになったでしょうか。私は疑問に思っています」 — 極端紫外線リソグラフィーの名だたる専門家で、レーザーテックの顧客に近いA氏"

"“European implanters scratched their heads and said that we’ve been using Nevro for 3 to 4 years and our experience is not like your Nevro pivotal study. I was at [redacted] and I mentioned to [redacted] that we were getting calls like this. Nevro knew about this and launched a disinformation campaign.” — KOL and key player in the SENZA-RCT pivotal trial"

"“...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"

"Killer Strengths, Just Needs a Killer Growth Strategy — SMBC日興証券, October 03, 2023; Kao has not been able to present a concrete action plan for its global expansion — Analyst, Foreign Asset Manager, Via Investor Survey Commissioned by Oasis, 2024; The plan is underwhelming — Analyst, Domestic Asset Manager, Via Investor Survey Commissioned by Oasis, 2024"

"19. Throughout the Relevant Period, the Individual Defendants breached their fiduciary duties by causing the Company to make materially false and misleading public statements and/or fail to disclose material information to investors concerning the true nature of the Company's business, operations and prospects. — Brandon Boll v. Darren R. Jamison, et al."

"It's just been very frustrating watching them not just take... like look at Wise and look at Remitly. They both started at the same place. 50% of Wise customers use more than one product and the velocity with which they put out new features, and they're just evolving very rapidly. Whereas Remitly keeps incrementally changing the things that are working."

"Once again, we urge Glencore’s Board of Directors to take all the necessary steps to (1) separate the thermal coal business, in order to accelerate Glencore’s repositioning as a leading pure player in metals, which are at the very core of the green economy transition, and (2) undertake a review of the strategic options for Glencore’s holding in Viterra."

"ROAD’s single biggest customer is the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT), which is ~14% of sales for highway improvement projects. We obtained ROAD’s contracts through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and are concerned by an apparent -22% decline in contract awards in 2024, none of which appears to be captured in the market consensus."

"Spruce Point believes CLEAR can potentially solve its capacity issues by continuing to raise prices, which would weed out some members not wanting to pay. In the extreme, CLEAR becomes like a high-end concierge service for a small member base willing to pay a significant fee. The Company would likely be much smaller than it is today under this scenario."

"I think that this drug is a little 'meh'; no buzz or enthusiasm among sleep doctors; "I haven't had a single patient who said, oh my god, this is so much better"; always part of a cocktail – "never been a first line and even the sales rep told me actually they didn't promote it that way"; reimbursement pressure has "gotten tighter" in the last 6 months."

"In terms of risk identification and prevention measures, if local hotels were indeed willing to provide accommodation that materially facilitated activities such as child exploitation, sexual offences or human trafficking, this would suggest that the vigilance measures described in the vigilance plan may not have been adequate or sufficient in practice."

""Helly Hansen's Canadian business grew at a remarkable 60% versus last year. Now this was our plan all along. Capitalizing on opportunities at SportChek and Mark's, as they built their inventory positions for key following winter seasons and introduce fantastic new displays and merchandise." — Allan MacDonald, EVP, Retail, Q3 2019 Call, November 7, 2019"

"“Effective 2023, Parkland’s Board has adopted a 10-year term limit for its Board, excluding executive Board members. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Board Chair may stand for re-election outside of the 10-year limit in order to ensure that appropriate succession is in place and to ensure an orderly transition.” — Parkland’s 2023 Information Circular."

"“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"

""But the one that's really become very important to us is asset utilization... it's finding the ability to create more headroom, more opportunity, more casting time, more cut time, chip time, whatever it is, that creates the opportunity to put more volume over the same asset." — Mark Donegan, Credit Suisse Global Industrials Conference, December 3, 2014"

""We are excited to partner with such a well-known and storied brand," said Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise. Now, everyone around the world can compete for cash and glory with the Big Buck Hunter mobile app powered by Skillz. — Andrew Paradise; "a cultural icon for 20 years" — Andrew Paradise; "the most unprofessional CEO that I’ve ever met" — Former employee"

"Has anyone sued the company for deceptive business practices? Checking with your local Better Business Bureau, Chamber of Commerce and state Attorney General for complaints about any company you’re considering investing in is a prudent thing to do. But remember that a lack of complaints doesn’t guarantee a company’s legitimacy. — FTC Facts for Consumers"

""And that's why we have an advantage in the sense that we have our own proprietary data. We are building our own large language models... ...the unique competitive differentiation we have in terms of the 60,000 attributes we have on the consumer, the large data set and our own large language model." — Intuit CFO Aujla at Goldman Sachs Conference, 9/6/23"

""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"

"“These are all high-margin specialty applications...You can see the margins for construction are best in class here running from 23%, to just under 26%. We maintain these margins because of the specialty nature of the product, the distribution network, and the fact that their specified for high-end applications.” — Greg Poling, President & CEO, May 2016"

"“They’ll sit there with the MA and find patients that they can, let’s go through your patients and find out what patients...are a candidate for Wakix...they’re still complaining of being sleepy...let’s get a list, call the patients in...I’ll help you fill out a form...” — Ex-Harmony territory manager for a large region in the southeast across two states"