Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

"Opportunities such as better scheduling, prep savings, and tabletop tablets could be realized quickly, while savings associated with reduced menu complexity would be dependent on the timing of new menu roll outs. Further benefits associated with kitchen technology, which we have not quantified, could also be realized over time"

"Opportunities such as better scheduling, prep savings, and tabletop tablets could be realized quickly, while savings associated with reduced menu complexity would be dependent on the timing of new menu roll outs. Further benefits associated with kitchen technology, which we have not quantified, could also be realized over time"

"Arconic cannot blame poor performance on the disastrous Firth Rixson acquisition. From 2013-2016, the Company invested over $3 billion in capital apart from the Firth Rixson deal. But merely generated an incremental $109 million of Net Operating Profit After Tax (NOPAT) for a Return on Incremental Invested Capital of only 3.4%"

"AMR management's short-term bonus in safety is being tied to NFDL which the company claims is "widely" used by others in the industry. However, after conducting a benchmark analysis, we find that more coal companies with U.S. production use TRIR or the Total Reportable Incident Rate. AMR is the only company we find using NFDL."

"The mere existence of this Committee: threatens to represent an unwelcome influence on the Board of Director committees; threatens to diminish the role of the Board of Directors; threatens to diminish the role of the Lead Independent Director; raises serious questions about the true independency of the “Independent Directors”."

"Current Mettler investors should be aware of the fact that its long-time Audit Chair, John D. Macomber, also served in audit roles at Xerox Corp and Lehman Brothers. The SEC later charged Xerox with accounting fraud, while Lehman Brothers infamously collapsed due in part to creative accounting that concealed its true leverage."

"Management also claims that near-term efforts to expand into foreign markets will support sales growth going forward. However, with Hill-Rom already having made a number of failed attempts to grow its international business, we have little confidence that foreign markets can serve as a meaningful growth engine for the Company."

"The mere existence of this Committee: threatens to represent an unwelcome influence on the Board of Director committees; threatens to diminish the role of the Board of Directors; threatens to diminish the role of the Lead Independent Director; raises serious questions about the true independency of the "Independent Directors"."

"We find COO Michael Smith’s biography has changed since 2015 when it was promoting his contribution to vertical integration and world leading biopolymer manufacturing processes. The change leads us to question Danimer’s execution of its prior objectives, current competitive advantages, and the Company’s messaging to investors."

"DWAC's ability to close its merger with TMTG is materially threatened along two distinct but inextricably linked regulatory paths: the need to file and have deemed effective an S-4 registration statement regarding the proposed merger with TMTG, and the active SEC investigation in material misstatements contained in DWAC's S-1."

"We operate in the cyclical semiconductor industry where there is seasonal demand for certain of our products. While we are not immune from current and future industry downturns, we have targeted product and market areas that we believe have the ability to offer above average industry performance over the long term. — MPWR 10-K"

"AC installed export capacity should not be seen as an appropriate tool to constrain the impacts of a solar farm. Other measurements, such as panel size, total area and percentage of ground cover should be used to set the maximum extent of development when determining the planning impacts of an application. — Draft EN-3 §2.48.9"

"“I think they're selling below the cost of their product. They set their pricing based on assumed cost and the fact that they have cash to weather it. They put Gen9 out of business using that pricing... I don't think they're ever going to recover from that.” — Ex-employee in senior product management and sales leadership roles"

"“First of all, direct to consumer sales in our product category globally currently represents 0.3% of sales. I'm not saying that to indicate that it's not a potentially important tool for us. I believe it is...I do not want this to be taken wrong way but I don't see a mass move” — P&G Management, October 25, 2016 Earnings Call"

"I feel very optimistic that there is money hidden here and it can be unleashed by increasing cooperation between the group's magazines. My biggest headache is freeing up the capital to make (new) investment because times are tough and the advertising recession is still lingering. — Ms. Moore (Financial Times, October 16, 2002)"

"While ad spend on the Roku platform in verticals including financial services and M&E remained pressured, verticals such as travel and wellness improved....Accordingly, we expect the advertising market in Q2 to look much the same as it did in Q1, while other verticals remain pressured such as M&E and financial services. — Roku"

"The midstream portfolio is made up of high-quality assets – these assets are just not getting the level of attention or capital allocation required to compete against peers. We need a renewed focus on stewarding these assets while exploring the most accretive mechanisms to realize value from the midstream portfolio. — Mr. Heim"

"AC installed export capacity should not be seen as an appropriate tool to constrain the impacts of a solar farm. Other measurements, such as panel size, total area and percentage of ground cover should be used to set the maximum extent of development when determining the planning impacts of an application. — Draft EN-3 §2.48.9"

"“Right. We do not discuss the individual business of tenants, so I wouldn't comment to that.” — Company Representative (Q1 2009 Earnings Call); “Yes, it's not our policy to comment on our individual tenants and what they're doing. We could sit here all day. We have 118 tenants.” — Company Representative (Q2 2009 Earnings Call)"

""We are not privy to PepsiCo's specific holdings or their investment strategy," Danimer Scientific said in the statement. "PepsiCo continues to be a strong strategic partner to Danimer Scientific through a fruitful business relationship and PepsiCo's seat on Danimer Scientific's board." — Danimer Scientific (via Seeking Alpha)"

""The thresholds were revised by the Human Resources and Compensation Committee in the context of its annual executive compensation review conducted at the beginning of each fiscal year to take into account, among other elements, the fact that the base for the calculation is growing every year." — FY15 Management Proxy Circular"

"“Most of the time, I don't think it's doing anything.” — Neurologist in Texas; “she had uncontrollable bursts of anger, and she was like, slamming her desk and stomping her feet on the floor...that was a weird one...could have been...very profound...she doesn't have any psychosis or bipolar or anything.” — Neurologist in Texas"

"“Who wants to bring their family into a struggle to make it? Who wants to bring their family into an eventual deception?” — Stephan Gratziani; “[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"

""TSMC is...delaying purchasing until they fix their offload problem" and that they started delaying "a year ago now." ... "The Isteq source has been qualified in TSMC and failed." ... "it's not stable. It doesn't work all of the time, it just dies." — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group"

"It is a common tactic of aggressively promotional management teams to bring on board members with name recognition and/or government connections, and who can bestow the company with some level of prestige and legitimacy, but who lack the experience and industry knowledge necessary to serve as an effective member of the board."

"Given the recent deterioration of the Exchange's financial performance and historical precedent, we believe it is increasingly likely that ERIE's management fee will decline for the first time in decades which could reset earnings expectations by approximately 20% and slow premium growth at the Exchange over the coming years."

"Unfortunately, execution has fallen well short of expectations, with last year's annual billings growth below 10% for the first time in the Company's public history, continued negative GAAP earnings, and a share price that is still below where it closed after its first day of trading following its IPO more than six years ago."

"Despite FND getting ensnared in an industry-wide scandal that alleged products sold were falsely labeled as compliant with formaldehyde emissions standards and settling a lawsuit for $16 million, management was rewarded with merit-based salary increases and the CEO received a discretionary bonus for "exceptional" performance."

"Disney should consider issuing a long-term free cash flow growth target beyond FY 2024 to anchor investors on a clearer strategic vision, improve investor outlook, and provide shareholders with a tangible commitment that the Company will allocate capital in a disciplined way to continually maximize long-term shareholder value"

"They were historically based in desktop display media and desktop video, right? So even in-app, I think they did a okay job of trying to catch up, but they actually deprecated their homegrown solution and relied on what was OM SDK, which is an industry standard in order to develop their technology in a mobile app environment."

"Not all percentages are created equal. The illustrative example below demonstrates why the top 1% of Herbalife’s distributors generate 88% of Recruiting Rewards, and why Herbalife’s compensation plan incentivizes distributors to recruit dramatically more so than other MLMs (there is a greater reward if you can get to the top)"

"Using the Wayback Machine, we find troubles with key performance indicators reported by Burgiss. Burgiss consistently referenced serving over 1,000 clients since 2019. However, now MSCI says it has approximately 1,000 clients. This suggests that the Company's client count has been stagnant to potentially down over four years."

"Growth is a major factor that drives stock prices. In the case of PERI, both of its major businesses are slowing down, especially display which for the last few years has been promoted by management as its greatest opportunity. We now see that management claims search is its #1 growth driver. We view this is a major red flag."

"We believe Stryker's 2019 acquisitions were abysmal. It spent $802 million on acquisitions (and recorded an additional $208 million for acquisition and integration related charges), which contributed $354 million of revenue. However, according to the proxy statement, the operating income contribution was negative -$7 million."

"We believe the issues at SnapAV are just a microcosm of ADI’s overall problem. For example, one of the growing issues can be seen with Samsung, which ADI lists as a “Featured Brand”. Samsung also offers products direct and is actively promoting its “Business Account” program that offers volume discounts and financing options."

"A few Google searches for strain or microbial engineering, yeast expression services, microbial fermentation CRO, fermentation CDMO, etc. is all one needs to grasp the commodity, crowded nature of Ginkgo’s business – where large players like Lonza and Abbvie, and bottom-feeder CRO’s proliferating Google ads, compete on price."

"We believe Prestige is overvalued on both a revenue and EBITDA basis. Given Prestige's poor organic growth prospects, lack of competitive advantage, eroding market share, declining financial transparency, low quality management and governance practices, it is well justified for the Company to trade at a discount to its peers."

"We never cease to be surprised by what Wilson says. At the Stifel Conference in June 2021, Wilson claimed regarding the Element AIM, "we're not changing veterinarian behavior." We find this surprising, since we believe doing more point of care fecal testing AND buying from Heska would both be material changes in vet behavior."

"We believe that while the vast majority of distributors earn little to no income, those who do are rewarded primarily for recruiting new distributors. Based on public data and the assumptions detailed in our presentation, we believe that recruiting-related rewards constitute over 90% of the earnings of Herbalife distributors."

"Disney should consider issuing a long-term free cash flow growth target beyond FY 2024 to anchor investors on a clearer strategic vision, improve investor outlook, and provide shareholders with a tangible commitment that the Company will allocate capital in a disciplined way to continually maximize long-term shareholder value"

"When management is inevitably forced to curtail its use of operating-type sale/leasebacks to support sales today, the resulting decline in revenue growth could be even more dramatic, as there will be no remaining deferred revenue or profit associated with these operating leasebacks left to be recognized in subsequent periods."

"When management is inevitably forced to curtail its use of operating-type sale/leasebacks to support sales today, the resulting decline in revenue growth could be even more dramatic, as there will be no remaining deferred revenue or profit associated with these operating leasebacks left to be recognized in subsequent periods."

"Based upon Herbalife's own internal documents, Herbalife does not calculate China Sales Employees (a/k/a China royalties) based upon "Hourly Consulting Fees." Instead, Herbalife calculates royalty compensation in China as percentages of Retail Sales . . . just as Herbalife calculates royalty overrides in the rest of the world"

"As of January, London-headquartered Zepz — formerly known as WorldRemit — had a global headcount of 1,000 people, meaning the redundancies affect around 20% of its total workforce. The layoffs affect several IT functions at the company, including database administration, development operations and software engineering. — CNBC"

"Generac: "Raising sales guidance net sales are now expected to increase between 36% to 40% from the previous guidance of net sales growth between 32% to 36% and assumes shipments of residential products increased at a mid- to high 40% rate during 2022, up from prior expectation for a low 40% rate." — Generac Q1 2022 Conf Call"

""The Middleby Corporation played an instrumental part in the rollout of Chili's new kitchen equipment technology which paved the way for culinary innovations like pizzas and flatbreads. The equipment also helped improve kitchen pace at company-owned and franchised restaurants throughout the country" — Brinker, August 26, 2013"

""The Middleby Corporation played an instrumental part in the rollout of Chili's new kitchen equipment technology which paved the way for culinary innovations like pizzas and flatbreads. The equipment also helped improve kitchen pace at company-owned and franchised restaurants throughout the country" — Brinker, August 26, 2013"

"“Even at Agilent, we decided that doing next-generation sequencing on these oligonucleotides is very time-consuming and very costly... We ended up most of the time with a bunch of pissed-off customers... You basically have to go down the drain with it.” — Longtime oligonucleotide manufacturing expert and executive; ex-Agilent"

"“Yeah, I don't think I can disclose more than that, unfortunately. It is highly confidential. I didn't even know the letter was disclosed to the public. Even within Twist, we really downplayed that...I don't feel comfortable elaborating on that one, unfortunately.” — Ex-Twist employee involved with Twist's activities in China"

"Probably get the benchmarks on the 20th of September, the release date of the new cards. You can pre-order if you want, but we have no idea how much performance we are getting with these new cards. Jensen specifically talked only about Ray-tracing performance, we have no idea how much more FPS we will be getting — Reddit User"

"The retail segment contributed approximately 44% of total USA Sector revenues. Two of its retail brands maintained their #1 market share positions. Frigo Cheese Heads continued to lead the string cheese brand category in the USA market and Treasure Cave continued to lead the crumbled blue cheese category. — 2018 Annual Report"

""If you look at our TSR performance since July of 2022, when I moved into the CEO position, TSR has been something like 66%, 65%, again, higher than the basket of our refining peers, higher than the S&P Energy Index as well. And so all of those metrics are firm and indisputable." — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, March 18, 2025"

"“If you look at our TSR performance since July of 2022, when I moved into the CEO position, TSR has been something like 66%, 65%, again, higher than the basket of our refining peers, higher than the S&P Energy Index as well. And so all of those metrics are firm and indisputable.” — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, March 18, 2025"

""If you look at our TSR performance since July of 2022, when I moved into the CEO position, TSR has been something like 66%, 65%, again, higher than the basket of our refining peers, higher than the S&P Energy Index as well. And so all of those metrics are firm and indisputable." — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, March 18, 2025"

""Had we stopped the sweep of capital day one, by the time we got to the fourth year of the Trump administration, we easily could have done a secondary offering or two and fully capitalize the companies, or get very close it." — Craig Phillips, Counselor to the US Treasury Secretary from 2017 to 2019, in May 27, 2021 interview"

"In 2023, Parkland was a top performer on the Toronto Stock Exchange, achieving a total shareholder return of approximately 50 percent — Parkland Press Release. The outstanding share performance of Parkland in 2023 is a clear expression of our shareholders' support of Parkland's direction and strategy — Parkland Press Release."

"Finally, our dedicated business development teams continue to identify and execute on tuck-in acquisitions. During the quarter, we completed the acquisition of TMJ Concepts, a medical device company that manufactures a patient-specific temporomandibular joint reconstruction prosthesis system. — Stryker Q1 2021 Conference Call"

"We're making great progress on integration planning for our announced combination with Viterra. The teams are working well together, confirming our confidence that we will be a more complete, one combined company. Their commitment will ensure that we can effectively serve our customers from day 1. — CEO, Q3'24 Conference Call"

"Well, I'm not being a wise guy, but that's the question actually. And we've talked a lot about that when I was at TSA because little by little as TSA gets better at biometric identification... the differentiator that CLEAR provided six or seven years ago is just going to get narrower and narrower. — Former Senior TSA Employee"

""It took me two months to get a call with IR, much less an independent director" — Foreign Buyside Analyst; "They need to do more to promote diversity... The current situation is not at global levels... (and) it would be good to see the benefits of diversity and inclusion reflected in the top line" — Domestic Sellside analyst"