Callouts & quotes from 1,069+ activist slides

"Commentary from G&K and its financial projections illustrated how it expected to achieve approximately 3.5% - 5.3% annual revenue growth from 2016 - 2018. Yet, when Cintas issued guidance for FY 2018 including G&K, it implied a -4.2% annual revenue decline at the guidance midpoint!"

"How can the CEO, two Board members and the outside legal counsel of DSP be expected to make decisions that benefit DSP, like re-entering the licensing business and competing against CEVA, when they have a substantial economic interest in CEVA that could be harmed by such decisions?"

"PGNY has failed to meet fertility benefit revenue expectations set when it went public. However, the rapid adoption of the pharmacy benefit by existing customers has offset those misses. Importantly, we believe there is little juice to squeeze from pharmacy adoption going forward."

""Early data has exceeded our expectations, with the advertisers in the pilot seeing substantial returns, often surpassing those from other media channels and, in many cases, experiencing nearly 100% incrementality from our traffic." — APP CEO Adam Foroughi, Q3 2024 earnings call"

"Spruce Point believes that Evoqua made potentially misleading statements by dismissing sales concerns about Mar Cor, while continuing to increase the earnout asset value, an implicit reflection that it expected to receive the earnout back from its failure to meet sales targets."

"Given Vidazoo’s spectacular outperformance in 2022, why did the earn-out liability not materially increase towards the maximum amount? Instead, it moderately declined from $48.9m to $32.6m. This may suggest that PERI sandbagged expectations when providing guidance to investors."

"The recently-enacted Business Assistance Act of 2009, which extended the carry-back period for net operating losses from two to five years, is expected to provide a significant cash refund and tax benefit to us in fiscal 2010. — Matt Appel, CFO of Zales Corp., November 24, 2009"

"There is evidence that CHD is stretching the truth about the performance of FLAWLESS. When asked directly about any surprises, the CFO said "only good surprises". However, the evidence contradicts this with the integration taking longer than expected by a revision in the 10-Q."

"CEO: "What makes WSP so unique in its ability to convert consistently higher net income into free cash flow." CFO: "Cash management will continue to be a focus, and we expect that our free cash flow will annually exceed our net earnings." — CEO and CFO, Analyst Day, March '22"

"Maxar’s balance sheet is inflated with goodwill and overcapitalized intangible assets. We expect it will write down the value of these inflated assets by at least $2.4 billion to fair value after its evaluation of strategic alternatives results in no means to maximize value."

"We continue to expect constant currency sales growth to be in the range of 3% to 5% in fiscal 2017 — Wesco Aircraft. ASG revenues are expected to increase by a mid-single digit percentage — KLX Inc. Within aerospace, we anticipate sales growth ranging from 4% to 6% — TriMas."

"“...So the relative softness we have in AT&T is not because of pricing, it's not because of our competitive landscape, none of the above. It's just business, fluctuation of discretionary expenses, the most normal thing you can expect.” — Eli Gelman, President and CEO, Amdocs"

"Our EPS/EBITDA estimates for 2017/2018 are ~3%/-10% below Street consensus. We expect strong top-line growth from North American onshore activity levels (~30%-35% of current revenues), but this will be partially offset by headwinds from offshore activity (~40% of revenues)."

"Although the resulting leverage exceeds the level appropriate for a ‘BBB-’ rating on an ongoing basis, the ratings incorporate S&P's expectations that Cox has the capacity and commitment to reduce consolidated debt to EBITDA within two years to the low-to-mid 4x area. — S&P"

"In our opinion, MAXR’s 2018 Adj. EPS expectation of $4.75/sh is pure fiction. The Company has made numerous aggressive accounting choices that inflate its Non-IFRS results. Based on our forensic review, we estimate EBITDA and EPS are overstated by 17% and 79%, respectively"

"“That was really surprising to me. I did not expect — and I don't know how insurance companies are going to react...how is that going to pan out if we get denial after denial after denial...It's a little bit unclear to us what's happening here.” — Pediatric endocrinologist"

"Amcor's CEO assured investors it received "good advice" and it didn't expect any issues from a regulatory perspective from the transaction. Unfortunately, both the European Commission and The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) disagreed, and required Amcor to divest assets."

"“They were just surprised to see that it was so extreme, especially given the fact that it seemed to happen so quickly after they came off the drug. They didn't expect that. They expected it to be a slower withdrawal.” — Formerly in a senior medical affairs role at Soleno"

"The market expects FIGS to continue top-line growth in the mid 20% range while accelerating EBITDA margins. As a result, the market ascribes FIGS a rich revenue multiple of approximately 4x. We have shown why we believe there is substantial room for multiple compression."

"ESG & Climate segment Adj. EBITDA Margins have increased 720bps from Sept 2022 – 2023 with headcount having grown from under 1,000 to approximately 1,300 according to the Head of ESG. While Retention Rate declines and revenue growth slows, we expect margins to contract."

"Considering that nearly three-quarters of Aegon's new life sales are driven by IULs, we would expect Aegon to be overrepresented among IUL distributors and indeed through Q2'24 YTD, Transamerica is a top 3 IUL writer in terms of premiums and number of policies written."

"Ex-employees indicated the instrument was instable and even super-users internally couldn’t keep up, and that both the software and hardware behave unpredictably with “no transparency into why things go wrong; instrument behaves in way that are “completely unexpected.”"

""I'd like to finish our call this morning with our expectations for the remainder of 2019. We're tightening our guidance range for the full year with revenue between $69 million and $71 million and adjusted EBITDA between $2 million and $4 million." — Q3 2019 Conf Call"

"we ... are still going to apply for NTAP program. CMS has not announced when those next round of applications are due. We expect that they'll probably do sometime in October or November. And then the approval would occur a couple of quarters after that. — Larry Mehren"

"From vehicle R&D to commercial production takes around 5 years. From demonstration to commercial production will take around 2 years. There will only be two commercial producers of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China in 2018 and we expect at most another 2 in 2019."

""Just So Happens" Mettler increased its EUR/CHF hedge for the first time ever ahead of the unexpected Swiss Franc revaluation. Thereafter, an audit committee member resigned, borrowing increased, and Mettler's EPS and guidance beat the Street on subsequent quarters."

"We expect Datasection and Tencent (if that is indeed their China-based backer as we have heard) to be forcibly decoupled which will result in near total annihilation for Datasection because we think that without Tencent, this is not a business worth investing in."

"Carvana not only trades at nosebleed levels relative to its closest peers, even on consensus revenue growth expectations we regard as too high, Carvana now trades at a premium to leading tech players, all of whom enjoy better margins and generate free cash flow."

"“sitting on over $200 million of take or pay offtake agreements, and we had customers like PepsiCo, Nestlé, Bacardi, you know, expecting us to be able to grow our capacity, so we had to find a way to find a lot of cash fast.” — Stephen Croskrey, CEO (via CNBC)"

"We expect that many of the existing HSIC analysts and Animal Health sector analysts will be adding Vets First Corp to their coverage universe. Therefore, we expect between six to ten analysts to cover Vets First Choice soon after the transaction is completed."

"Between spaces completed since 2020 and what's still in the pipeline, the [Austin] office market will grow nearly 25% – the fastest rate on the continent...Roughly 87% of new office space is expected to open vacant, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield."

"ADT expects to have the ability to accelerate certain tax deductions that would allow us to minimize our cash tax rate for a period of time beyond the full utilization of the initial deferred tax assets — The ADT Corporation Investor Day Presentation, 9/18/12"

"Several districts have already projected sizable budget deficits for their 2024-25 school year. We see this as a leading indicator that K-12 vendors like PowerSchool should expect pressure during this period as district leaders pull strings to close the gap."

""The Company is currently in the process of evaluating the impact of this standard and expects that the adoption of the ASU will increase assets and liabilities related to the Company's operating leases on the consolidated balance sheets." — Porch Group Inc."

"The TICO Board and SC ultimately capitulated by recommending a Revised TOB price of ¥18,800 per share - only ¥200 / +1% more than the price that, just days before, they considered wholly insufficient and had "significantly deviate[d]" from their expectation"

""This is a decade-long drama that the board has let unfold," said George F. Colony, chief executive of Forrester Research. "They have shown some dysfunction in the past, and had difficulty coming to consensus." — Ouster of Hewlett-Packard C.E.O. Is Expected"

"Rather than debate about the product, we focus on three core assumptions underpinning QuickBooks growth expectations: (1) mid-market expansion, (2) international growth, and (3) the presumed absence of competitive threats beyond those listed to the right."

""We expect that [vet clinics on the Vets First Choice Platform will] identify more than $0.5 million to $1 million of incremental new revenues to their practice." — Benjamin J. Shaw, CEO of Vets First Choice on April 23, 2018 (announcement of transaction)"

"Not surprisingly, the majority of analysts are “Buy” on the stock, but have quietly been cutting their price targets very recently. We expect a substantial re-rating lower in the share price once investors critically analyze the findings of our research."

"But when you get to that place at 65, and it's not what you expected. You know what that's called? Devastation. Anxiety. Depression. How many baby boomers wish they were dead because they're so afraid they're going to outlive their money? — WFG Recruiter"

"Spruce Point believes sell-side analysts and investors are not factoring in multiple issues that will likely cause Generac to severely miss its lofty financial expectations and/or should factor into Generac receiving a lower valuation relative to peers."

"We can see this quite clearly in company guidance. For its $1.85 billion of budgeted Capex, production from the end of last year to the end of this year is expected to be flat, while the “overspend” (their euphemism for cash burn) will be $200 million."

"Given these conflicting financial interests, how can we, as shareholders of NHI, be expected to trust that these individuals will be able to represent our best interests in the boardroom, particularly as it relates to negotiating the NHC lease renewal?"

"Our rigorous forensic analysis suggests it may be outright impossible for Amcor to meet lofty analyst expectations, with revenues already vanishing, deal costs higher than planned, and critical maintenance and growth capital expenditures being delayed."

"Considering that EPs are supremely confident in their ability to isolate both cardiac structures, we expect Convergent to be a massive commercial failure, ending up exactly like AtriCure’s previous attempts to popularize stand-alone surgical ablation."

"In less than twelve months, durvalumab, demcizumab, ACY-241, and RPC-4046 had all been removed from the list. While fedratinib was added to the list, current Wall Street analysts' estimates expect fedratinib to generate peak revenues of <$500 million."

"It seems to us that if one were to overstate revenue in a global business, one wouldn't want the margins to seem glaringly out of line with peers. Therefore, we would expect that a smart person (or people) would find a way to inflate expenses as well."

"“At this time, modest growth year-over-year [in Imaging] is expected after 2021.” — Grassman at Investor Day November 2020; “And we've de-emphasized our contract manufacturing and vaccines and pharmaceuticals.” — Wilson at Stifel Conference June 2021"

"If Solventum returns to these pre-spin performance levels, we believe shares could be worth ~$140 by year-end 2027... We view this as an undemanding case and expect management to be able to drive better performance than how it performed inside of 3M"

"We expect a very weak pricing environment over the next year. Fortunately, CONSOL is protected in the near term, having locked in pricing for the balance of this year at approximately $57 per ton and enough for next year to realize over $50 per ton."

"We expect that once investors come to grips with the fact that O Realty's true growth rate is negative, its multiple will re-rate in line with historical precedents, and its share price will decline by approximately 30% - 45% or $28 - $35 per share."

"Given that ANTA espouses a strategy of developing self-operated retail businesses, like FILA, Descente, and Kolon, we expected to ANTA’s general managers actually heading up ANTA-owned companies, not those of its purported independent subsidiaries."

"We are short IONQ because our investigation reveals IONQ lost its funding for vital Pentagon contracts that provided up to 86% percent of IONQ’s revenues from 2022-2024, leaving a $54.6 million black hole in its expected quantum computing revenues."

"In an effort to avoid admitting a large miss, management has recently started stating that "to get to its mid-cycle EBITDA PSX needs adjusted gross margin of $14.50/bbl,"(1) a level that even VLO (best-in-class operator) is not expected to achieve"

"The relationship between IQ’s deferred revenues and realized revenues is the opposite of what we would expect based on their claims – the realized revenue curve consistently leads the deferred revenue curve and the gap between the two is widening."

"“We recently began production at our facility in Ogden, Utah, and we expect to begin production at a new facility in Singapore in the first half of 2021 and at a facility in Maanshan, China in the second half of 2021.” — Oatly China Per Prospectus"

"Basically, on the crush margin, so if you really talk about crush margin, I would really expect it to be a little bit of flat or let's say a little bit on the lower side. The reason is there is overcapacity of the crushing. — Former Bunge Director"

"ROAD infrequently provides guidance as to how much of its revenue growth it expects to be organic. However, in the recent instances that it has commented on organic growth goals, we find that the Company has been falling short of its projections."

"In an effort to avoid admitting a large miss, management has recently started stating that "to get to its mid-cycle EBITDA PSX needs adjusted gross margin of $14.50/bbl," a level that even VLO (best-in-class operator) is not expected to achieve"

"APP and most APP games do not require a login; therefore, users, platforms, and stakeholders (games, advertisers, etc.) have the expectation that the TOS and user privacy rules are being followed and the users' identities are NOT being tracked."