Callouts & quotes from 2,092+ activist slides

"Spruce Point does not believe that BR is justified in calling itself a SaaS company with margins that scale. In fact, its financials look nothing like a high quality SaaS company. When we benchmark BR's gross margins and deferred revenue relative to its recurring revenue, we find it to be wildly below peers."

"As confirmation of this market opportunity, our illustrative analysis shows that across all the relevant markets, there is a total potential licensing revenue opportunity ranging between $750 million - $1.0 billion, with a potential current annual run-rate of more than $75 million based on device shipments."

"Management claimed that Utiba’s revenue contribution was “immaterial” in Q2 FY 2014, when the business was first acquired. However, during its Q4 FY 2015 call – three quarters after it first launched the MFS segment – management confirmed that MFS was generating revenue “in the tens of millions of dollars”."

"Although NICE is larger than Verint on most metrics (revenue, EBITDA, EBIT) and more efficient (revenue per employee, EBIT per employee), average compensation per insider at Verint is over 3x that at NICE, and Verint insiders take home a far greater percentage of EBIT in compensation than do NICE insiders."

""Subscription ARPU which excludes our transaction-based revenue stream increased by over 10% as more and more customers adopt functionality beyond the basic POS. And ARPU increase as a result of Payments grew significantly given the success we have had with driving Payments revenue." — CFO Nussey, May 2021"

"Because we believe that IPX may be challenged to meet the revenue expectations set by analysts (and they may never produce any revenue in one possible scenario), we believe the best way to evaluate the valuation is price to book value. On this metric, IPX’s share price appears to be materially overvalued."

"Spruce Point believes that investors should take the CEO’s claims that SORT® will be a major contributor to revenue and EBITDA with a grain of salt. It is currently being given away for free. We believe that converting users accustomed to paying nothing into customers paying something is an uphill battle."

""Stack it high and watch it fly" — Canadian Tire Dealer. "We had strong revenue performance in the quarter and while we were left with some excess inventory versus last year, the vast majority of that has been shipped to dealers in Q3." — Allan Angus MacDonald, EVP of Retail, Q2 2019 Call, August 8, 2019."

""While the revenue came in the quarter was strong, the overall performance of the sales organization and specifically new sales activity in the second quarter was unacceptable. The management team and I have spent the past month restructuring the global sales function" — CEO Siebel (2Q'22 Conference Call)"

"Turner's affiliate efficiency(a) (affiliate revenues per primetime households delivered) is at the high end of the range amongst the peer group primarily due to TNT, which benefits from sports programming, and CNN which had a head start as the first all-news channel, but is facing increasing competition."

""~11% revenue growth in FY’21, while almost the entirety of the software space is parading the past year as the year of digital transformation acceleration, has left BOX shares at a standstill and is head-scratching as the pandemic should logically be a major tailwind for BOX." — Craig-Hallum, March 2021"

"Volker is a private company with annual revenues of approximately $100 million in 2010. As previously disclosed, Hill-Rom anticipates the transaction will not have any impact on adjusted earnings per share in fiscal year 2012, but is expected to be accretive thereafter. — Volker Acquisition Press Release"

"At an average sensor and transmitter revenue per patient per day of $2.00 – close to the Libre’s current level of $2.04 – Abbott would realize a gross margin of 59% on the Libre 2 (vs. our estimate of 60% today), while Dexcom would realize a gross margin of -7% on the G6 (vs. our estimate of 70% today)."

"SMCI is currently trading at the highest revenue multiple in its sector, likely a reflection of investors perception that it is growing revenues the fastest. However, unlike its peers which have historically solid free cash flow generation, SMCI has not demonstrated any long-term free cash flow ability."

"“So I was really doing well on the top line, which is great because that’s where you get your bonus. You also get some bonus on the revenue end of it. But I was killing sales plan, but I was burning through cash because, we had way too much inventory when we grand opened.” — Tegus-sourced Store Manager"

"“Sorry, my other question was on CTV. I was really interested that the CTV revenue grew 12%, but overall video grew 26%, which is quite a slowdown in CTV. So could you actually speak to, in more detail, why is video revenue growing so much faster than CTV revenue in the first quarter?” — Analyst Martin"

"Spruce Point believes that, with Penumbra U.S. Stroke revenue growth set to slow in the face of heavy competition, and with consensus peripheral thrombectomy sales expectations far too aggressive, company-wide sales growth is set to be cut almost in half from Street estimates, from FY19 through FY21."

"Spruce Point believes that, with Penumbra U.S. Stroke revenue growth set to slow in the face of heavy competition, and with consensus peripheral thrombectomy sales expectations far too aggressive, company-wide sales growth is set to be cut almost in half from Street estimates, from FY19 through FY21."

"As a distributor, or at best white label supplier, Heska does not control its own product destiny. While white labeling is an accepted business model, it seems wildly inappropriate to ascribe it a 9x revenue multiple since it is questionable that the Company has any sustainable competitive advantage."

"And customer growth slowed years ago. That's why they stopped reporting customer unit numbers in QuickBooks. It's all about revenue. It's all about revenue because you can't acquire small businesses fast enough to grow at the rate they used to on a business basis. — Former VP at Intuit, Tegus, 9/8/23"

"It's easy to see how Kratos has destroyed significant value. Since 2008, Kratos spent nearly $1bn on acquisitions that have contributed an estimated $801m and $129m of revenues and EBITDA, respectively. Yet, recent results suggest over $237m and $69m of sales and EBITDA losses, net of divestitures."

"Limbach’s management has heavily implied that a material portion of its ODR work is recurring in nature. However, we question the validity of this characterization given that less than half of the Company’s initial 2025 revenue guidance is supported by its next-12-month backlog as of year-end 2024."

""the strong market demand for IonQ's innovative quantum computing and networking products," — IonQ; "IonQ's trailblazing technology has grown quantum into a substantial global business." — IonQ; "We've got double the GAAP revenue in 2024 of everybody else combined." — de Masi (Fox Business Network)"

"BR management has consistently touted Closed Sales as a key performance indicator (KPI), and it influences management's short-term cash compensation. But as we'll illustrate, it is fraught with holes and should not be relied upon as a firm measure of revenue that will materialize in the near-term."

"We said this Zillow Offers business, the Homes segment, we'd anticipate could be $20 billion in revenue a year, okay. And that $20 billion in revenue would represent 5,000 homes sold a month, which would represent only about 1% of the overall transactions in the market. — RBC Conference 11/20/2019"

"Despite having created little to no value, in our opinion, as a public company (including missing financial targets and spending $110m on a revenue-less venture SecurityMatters with no clear evidence that it succeeded), Forescout insiders are in line for a hefty payday – cashing out nearly $100m."

"“Products and Solutions revenue decreased $111 million, or 4%, mainly due to lower sales volume of $307 million and unfavorable foreign exchange fluctuations of $5 million, partially offset by price increases of $102 million and $99 million of revenue from First Alert, Inc.” — Resideo SEC filings"

"Management has collected ~$35 million dollars in performance compensation, growing at an 11% CAGR vs. organic growth CAGR of ~1%, tied to revenue and EBITDA targets while PBH has missed organic growth estimates for 4 out of 5 years and missed FCF guidance in 3 out of 5 years between 2015 – 2019."

"The notion that AST has a financial opportunity remotely related to "$1.1 trillion" in global wireless service revenue as included in AST investor decks, or that 5.3 billion unique cellular subscribers on the planet is an appropriate figure to applying penetration rates to, is complete nonsense."

"Lasertec's reported margin is significantly higher than every one of the five largest semiconductor equipment companies in the world by revenue – even eclipsing ASML's, a $350 billion market cap giant which invented EUV lithography systems and has a real monopoly unlike Lasertec's fictional one."

"We didn't think it was commercially viable. We didn't think there's sufficient value just because of the nature of the NFL game that the incremental revenue upside didn't justify the additional investment it would have required us to get that official data stages. — Strategy Director, Sportradar"

"Despite adding $4.7 billion of revenue over the past ten years, Skechers' General & Administrative expense as a percent of revenue has barely budged. Furthermore, often blamed supply chain expenses don't seem to be a major driver. We view this as a colossal example of poor financial management."

"We also double checked the numbers from the Consumer International and Direct segment reporting, which includes the FLAWLESS acquisition. Again, FLAWLESS revenues are estimated at $7.5m - $8.2m, slightly different than $7.2m - $8.1m we previously estimated from the consolidated net sales level."

"How did revenue contributed from a change in natural gas volumes go down in 2021 vs. 2020 given: 1) A full year of Peoples natural gas volume contribution in 2021 vs. 2020 (volumes increased substantially from 91,695 to 139,672 MMcf) and, 2) An increase in natural gas prices from 2020 to 2021?"

"If, in order to maintain market share, Dexcom is forced to slash sensor and transmitter prices to achieve parity with the Libre's daily cost of use to the payor, the Company's gross profit would be wiped out in its entirety, even if revenue from up-front receiver purchases were to hold steady."

"Assuming a conservative spherical titanium metal powder price of ~US$130/kg (vs. current estimated market pricing of ~US$200/kg), and using key operating assumptions, the TCF-1 has the potential to generate revenue of ~US$145 million and EBITDA of ~US$100 million in 2026. — IperionX (Mid-2023)"

"Based on the $250-$275 million revenue range and $1 billion estimated backlog, the business looks incredibly cheap at 0.55x revenues and 0.15x backlog which leads us to question the quality of the deal especially in light of an industry source referencing “past due invoices” from contractors."

"Arconic originally projected that Firth Rixson would do $2 billion of revenue in 2019. At the same margins as originally projected for 2016 (i.e., conservatively assuming no incremental volume leverage), Firth Rixson will produce approximately 50% less EBITDA than originally targeted for 2019"

"“We have found that the consumables revenues increase when a customer upgrades from a VetTest analyzer to a Catalyst analyzer due to the superior test menu capability, flexibility, and ease of use of the Catalyst analyzers, which leads to additional testing by the customer.” — IDEXX 2020 10-K"

"Monster's AFF Ireland filings indicate that it intends to supply recipes and formulae for all the non-US companies within the group. Furthermore, management does not disclose where the revenue is derived by geography because it would be "seriously prejudicial to the interest of the Company.""

"Does Intuit deserve a premium SaaS multiple? As much as two-thirds of revenue is either episodic, usage-based, remnants of license, or from end-of-life product. And while a portion of Intuit's payroll revenue is volume based, we believe take rates in that market will be a race to the bottom."

"We find that Bunge makes it difficult to calculate organic growth by segment by not quantifying Viterra's contribution to its business segments. Moreover, the Company does not discuss FX or asset divestiture impacts on revenue. In 2025 alone, Bunge disposed of $953m of assets and businesses."

"Had Ginkgo included Synlogic’s foundry spend of $13.6MM, related party revenues as a percent of total would have jumped from 72% to 95% - that is, Ginkgo would have had to admit that its foundry is a flop and that it can’t get customers unless it gives them cash and round-trips the proceeds."

"Heska paid approximately 1.4x LTM revenues, in aggregate, for these six companies. We find it shocking to note that the market is currently valuing these revenues, which comprise well over one-third of Heska’s LTM revenues, at 9x only 1 to 1.5 years later despite questionable recent results."

"“too little, too late” — Southwest Airlines (assigned seating change announcement); “complexities in adapting its revenue management to current booking patterns,” — Southwest Airlines (June guidance reduction); “heart of the company,” — Mr. Jordan; “in charge” — Elliott Investment Management"

"Shifting to international expansion. International revenue grew by almost 70% last year with APAC revenue growing by 84% and EMEA by 61%, all outpacing the industry and our competitors. International now contributes 26% of our overall direct revenue. — DoubleVerify Earnings Conf Call Q4 2021"

"It's instructive to evaluate SafeCharge's valuation at the time of acquisition by Nuvei. For reference, Nuvei acquired the business for 7.3x and 21.7x 2019E Adjusted Revenues and EBITDA. Based on our primary research, SafeCharge could represent up to 30% of Nuvei's current business profile."

"With Hill-Rom already having posted new product revenue of "more than $300M" through Q3, management guidance of "more than $400M" of new product revenue for FY19 implies a Q4 new product revenue guide of just ~$90-125M, which would render YoY new product growth flat at best for the quarter."

"KLA’s actinic inspection tool was in development circa 2015/2017 but put on hold as they believed the market for such a tool was too small – a prescient view given the insignificant amount of Lasertec revenue that actually comes from EUV actinic tools versus its old DUV and other systems."

"We shipped products to approximately 2,900, 2,200, and 1,300 customers in fiscal years ended 2021, 2020, and 2019, respectively. Our percentage of revenue from repeat customers were 98%, 97% and 97% for the fiscal years ended 2021, 2020, and 2019, respectively. — Twist 10K filing for 2021"

"Paul Phillips has been on C3's earnings calls as VP of Investor Relations. His LinkedIn biography says he's an "Advisor" and doesn't disclose he was formerly C3's CFO from 2017 – 2019 during a period we find revenue growth claims being inconsistent and Deloitte was appointed new auditor."

"We have specific concerns around ~$1 billion of revenue booked since 2020 with Frontier Communications (Nasdaq: FYBR), a material customer, which we argue should be evaluated as a related party because Dycom’s long-time CEO & Chairman has a brother that is a named executive at Frontier."

"Stryker's Orthopaedics segment had two acquisitions close in Q4 2020: Wright Medical (Nov) and OrthoSensor (Dec). Based on Stryker's reporting, the segment had $126 million of contributions from acquisitions. Yet, elsewhere it reported $129.2 million of revenue just from Wright Medical."

"Investors ascribe CHD the highest valuation in the consumer products sector, mostly on the misplaced belief that its growth is fastest among peers, but fail to account for the low quality contribution from acquisitions, and recent price increases that have temporarily boosted revenues."

"BR promotes itself as a “Global Fintech Leader”. But in reality, we believe at least 40% of its revenues are tied to mundane, low-valued added business process outsourcing (BPO) activities such as printing and distributing business statements, some of which carries literally no margin."

"We do not believe this adjustment is appropriate as it represents a material element of your customer arrangement (i.e., a sales incentive) and could lead investors to improperly infer that you would have generated the same revenue levels without granting this incentive. — SEC Response"

"RELY only reports period changes in transaction expense drivers such as direct costs and loss reserves. When we analyze the annual increases in these costs relative to annual increase in revenue and send volume, we see that trends mostly worsened in 2024 after a period of improvement."

"RINO claims to be the leader in selling desulfurization (“FGD”) and other environmental equipment to Chinese steel mills. It reported 2009 revenue of $193 million. In reality its revenue is under $15 million, and its management has diverted tens of millions of dollars for its own use."

"We struggle to explain how gross margins expanded in the face of a structural decline of inventory turnover, and a material drop in revenues in 2015 (from emerging market challenges), and the Swiss National Bank unexpectedly changing policy in early 2015 to strengthen the Swiss Franc."

"Current investors are paying a premium to the Company’s historical valuation. In addition, we believe the fundamental valuation of Aerojet is substantially higher than it appears given numerous off-balance sheet liabilities being ignored by the market and diminishing revenue programs."