Callouts & quotes from 37,061+ activist slides

""You think about termite, and the property damage that comes through termite is enormous. So the last thing you want to do is move away from that service. The risk reward equation in that is upside down. So why would you move away from termites, which is costing you? " — CFO Krause, Wells Fargo Conf June 2023"

"We are further concerned because DLO's CFO, Diego Cabrera Canay, worked at PwC Argentina through 2008; that gives rise to the possibility that the auditor is less skeptical of DLO than it should be. (We have previously noted similar dynamics in the cases of Sino-Forest and NMC Health.) — Muddy Waters Research"

"ADT attrition represents RMR attrition, whereas satellite and wireless attrition represents subscriber attrition. Cable companies have not publicly disclosed attrition and gross adds for a number of years, but are commonly thought to have ~1.7-2.0% levels of monthly subscriber attrition (or ~20-24% annually)."

"“Recurring revenue, on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis, is the portion of our revenue that we believe is likely to be renewed in the future, and primarily consists of initial and renewal PCS, SaaS, term-based licenses, and managed services, which are recognized over time.” — VRNT Q4 FY19 Earnings Press Release"

"“You know it was a difficult moment because we were trying to get the marketing authorization. The upper management of Bioprojet was worried about that. To protect the welfare of the patients, it was decided to stop the study. But because the marketing authorization was in danger.” — Former Bioprojet employee"

"The critical question for the FTC is whether the revenues that primarily support the commissions paid to all participants are generated from purchases of goods and services that are not simply incidental to the purchase of the right to participate in a money-making venture. — FTC Staff Advisory Opinion (2004)"

"Erie Indemnity Company, which is the public traded entity serves at the attorney-in-fact for the policyholders of Erie Insurance Exchange, “Exchange”. Erie Indemnity Company receives a management fee, not to exceed 25% of annual premiums written by Erie Insurance Exchange, for handling day-to-day operations."

"Dye & Durham closed at $14.80 per share on its first trading day. This is the price that needs to be used when comparing performance with other publicly traded companies. Introducing the IPO discount in the measurement creates an apples-to-oranges comparison since the peers did not benefit from the IPO bump."

"To discuss these challenges, we would like to meet with you. In light of the critical importance of independence in your role, and the undue influence that senior distributors and senior management have exerted over compliance efforts in the past, we propose a meeting without other executives of the Company."

"With KRNT’s share price up 55% YTD and near all-time highs, Spruce Point finds certain events concerning in the overall context of management touting record results and ‘game changing’ new product innovations, and promoting an Amazon deal where we find concerning revenue recognition and accounting anomalies."

"Kornit’s share price is effectively at the average analyst price target which is near all-time highs, yet none of the analysts have closely investigated the impact of Amazon payments and revenues tapering off, but instead anchor their estimates to management hitting ambitious long-term $500m revenue targets."

"Perion promotes its iHub, but how does the model work? In the most recent version, it not only made the pictograph significantly less elaborate, removed the millions and billions of data points, but also changed the flow of video monetization and social, a key part of the growth story, and also removed Bing."

"Sell-side analysts are not exceedingly bullish on the stock: several analysts do, in fact, voice concerns regarding the sustainability of Hill-Rom’s sales growth, in addition to frustration with management’s frequent re-basing of core sales growth ("core fatigue," as it’s amusingly called on earnings calls)."

"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."

"Elliott believes that there is an opportunity for stockholders to realize value SIGNIFICANTLY greater than BMC's current stock price through the addition of thoughtful and experienced technology executives who will encourage a full strategic and operational review with the aim of maximizing stockholder value"

"In short, we believe a standalone digital cytology provider such as Lacuna has no sustainable competitive advantage, as the technology is relatively simple (transmitting a test image or result) and the available pool of veterinary pathology expertise is large and fluid (Lacuna has lost two to IDEXX to date)."

"But when a third of the value of the company is cash, managing it requires the sort of attention one would normally reserve for operating the business. And in contrast to the rest of Apple’s business, where innovation is the norm, Apple’s attitude toward managing its cash has been exceedingly non-innovative."

"This survey data supports the thesis that if compensation cooperation requirements were eliminated and home-buyers had to compensate their agents directly, a significant population of home-buyers would try to negotiate commissions, seek agents with lower fees, or even try to purchase a home without an agent."

"This happened to the storied former bulge bracket investment bank Credit Suisse. On Sunday March 19, 2023, UBS announced that it will acquire Credit Suisse for ~CHF 0.76 per share. Credit Suisse shares closed at CHF 1.86 per share on the Friday before. This represents ~59% offer discount to the market price."

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

"The senior employee noted that inventory mis-valuation in the semiconductor equipment industry “is a common thing, unfortunately, that I’ve seen across multiple companies in the space...to manipulate earnings: “they defer out...that impairment...because they don’t want to record a hit on their gross margin.”"

""It's about the size of your arm from your elbow to your fingers. Half of it is just a metal stick with the scope part. The other part is molded plastic with a tiny chip on it, so it's probably double-digit dollars to make. So, the margin is infinite. It's a huge margin." — Major Hospital Urologist, Nov 2024"

"We heard one second hand account of a conversation between an investor and an analyst with a major bank. We were told that during the conversation, the analyst claimed to have previously noted that the theater count was implausible, yet the analyst never became concerned about FMCN as a result. — Footnote 21"

"Trapped ion quantum computer. Dynamically reconfigurable in software to use up to 11 qubits. — Microsoft Azure page for IonQ. To date, we’ve run single-qubit gates on a 79-ion chain, and complex algorithms consisting of multiple two-qubit gates on chains of up to 11 ions. — Amazon Web Services page for IonQ."

"But essentially from 2014, 2015 and 2016 there was very little CapEx that was spent at DigitalGlobe to build satellites. And they took advantage of that and all the cash flow that was generated during this period and bought back about$300 million of stock. — Interim Maxar CFO (former MDA CFO) Anil Wirasekara"

""I don't even want you to finish the phone call, I want you to hang up right now and just say I want to sell every share of Lucent because the combination of Lucent and Alcatel is going to be run by Patricia, Run Into the Ground, House of Pain, Train Wreck, Sell-Sell-Sell, Russo." — Jim Cramer, July 31, 2007"

"Investigator: How about Lin Sankuang? Mr. C. Yes I do [know him]. We worked in the same office [at the Xiamen Headquarters]. Investigator: What's the function of Mr. Lin Sankuang? Mr. C. He is the cousin (表弟) of Ding Shizhong. He is in charge of the Yunnan subsidiary. — Mr. C (Source: Muddy Waters interview)"

"In September 2008, we entered into an unsecured loan agreement for the aforementioned $10 million credit facility, which expires in October 2011. The proceeds of the new credit facility are available for general working capital purposes. The credit facility is currently undrawn. — WD-40 Company (2008 filing)"

"The CEO said very offensive and culturally derogatory statements to multiple of my female coworkers of color. — Glassdoor Review. No one speaks about the cult that the CEOs and Head of HR were apart of, which is interesting because several tactics from the cult are used to run the agency. — Glassdoor Review."

"Iger told board members he didn't think Chapek needed to audition for the role... Iger told [Chapek] that instead of the one-on-one board interviews, Disney's lead independent director, Susan Arnold, would be in touch... She and Iger had both recommended Chapek for the job, and the board had approved. — CNBC"

"“At Targa Resources, it was clear to us that the last 15 years presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to scale with the rapid growth of U.S. shale production. It is well known by insiders within our industry that Phillips 66 did not capitalize on the significant head start they had with DCP.” — Mike Heim"

"“At Targa Resources, it was clear to us that the last 15 years presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to scale with the rapid growth of U.S. shale production. It is well known by insiders within our industry that Phillips 66 did not capitalize on the significant head start they had with DCP.” — Mike Heim"

"“I am willing to take anything out of print that offends you” — Laura Martin. “You have 24 hours to make any change you want” — Laura Martin. “AOL will not hit the guidance...at least not without accounting gimmicky. I am willing to hold on with them in public but let's not lie to ourselves.” — Laura Martin."

"“I am willing to take anything out of print that offends you” — Laura Martin. “You have 24 hours to make any change you want” — Laura Martin. “AOL will not hit the guidance...at least not without accounting gimmicky. I am willing to hold on with them in public but let's not lie to ourselves.” — Laura Martin."

"“Brainworkers and students demanding fatigue releasing and relaxation after hard work” and “Laborers and players needing relieving oxygen-lacking symptoms after exercise” — WinterGreen research “Stationary Medical Oxygen Concentrators: Market shares, Market strategies, and Market Forecasts, 2017 to 2023” p68"

""And our CEO and company founder Udo Müller is someone who started to consolidate the outdoor advertising market – I think it was 25 years ago. He is an exceptionally gifted deal-maker and for him, every week that goes by without him buying a company or closing a deal, is a week wasted." — Christian Schmalzl"

"“I left one day when I had been requested to only work with the TransMedics device and not use anything else...a very big red flag...working only with their pump or preventing surgeons from putting livers on ice - to use it on every organ.” — Transplant procurement surgeon previously working with TransMedics"

""the hair thing is really difficult and same with the edema...you'll never be able to blind that properly"; "the smell was mentioned by one of them...patients in our group are on social media and the family forums and stuff." "there certainly was potential for unblinding...no question." — Trial investigators"

"“to be frank, my feeling was I don't think anyone improved”; “so, I have been very skeptical about it”; “we knew he was on DCCR – and he put on a lot of weight...so clearly, this was not effective”; “then another person on the trial, she was putting on weight” — Trial investigator, key opinion leader for PWS"

"Harmony 1 trial paper, published 2013 in The Lancet – pitolisant was inferior to modafinil on the primary endpoint of excessive daytime sleepiness as measured by Epworth Sleepiness Scale; final ESS score in pitolisant arm still indicates excessive sleepiness; also inferior on cataplexy reduction — The Lancet"

"“Yeah, it was definitely slowing down. The way you could gauge that would be the pressure that was applied from above, the flattening out of the trend...definitely, there was a flattening, which would be expected, but the company and the powers that be did not want to hear it.” — Ex-Harmony territory manager"

"The authors showed that embedding problems into the sparse topology of D-Wave’s quantum annealers incurs a “quadratic space overhead,” (meaning the size of hardware needs grows much faster than the size of the problem) leading to a significant increase in the time to solution. — A study by Könz et al. (2021)"

"Recent legal filings show that Nuvei’s Vantage Payments worked with Allied Wallet. Individuals associated with Allied Wallet have been charged with scheming to defraud financial institutions and securing payment processing for high-risk businesses through fraudulent misrepresentation about merchant clients."

"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."

"[Dauman] took a short-term financial gain beginning in 2011 by selling kids TV hits including SpongeBob to Netflix. That now appears to have backfired by encouraging young viewers to abandon Nickelodeon and other ad-supported channels and go online where they can watch shows whenever they want, without ads."

"Wall Street is fixated on Kratos's earnings "potential" of >100% growth in the next few years and give KTOS a commanding 20x and 70x EBITDA and P/E ratio. Be warned: this growth is off a low EPS base, on highly adjusted figures, and will surely disappoint given Kratos demonstrated ability to poorly execute."

"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”."

"Based on our research and conversations, we believe recent acquisitions executed under Farrell and Dierker have been poorly planned and executed, and more aggressively structured (notably with earnouts) – insult to injury given the large multiples paid for these deals and rising debt load to fund the deals."

"The former Mailchimp employee also confirmed our belief that Mailchimp provides little benefit in facilitating QuickBooks' international expansion, another oft-stated rationale for the deal. In the end, the former employee questions, as do we, whether the Mailchimp deal will be value-destructive for Intuit."

"Spruce Point finds that, taken together, management’s consistent under-reserving has created $55M in paper earnings since FY15, accounting for 6% of cumulative EPS over the same timespan. Reversing each of these items to their FY15 levels would result in management wiping out over 16% of consensus FY19 EPS."

"Spruce Point has evaluated some of the language used by management about its relative market share. Whereas in the past management talked about growing relative market share, the tone shifted in 2023 to things it was worried about and then to referencing “enhanced” relative market share vs. outright growth."

"Spruce Point believes Heska Corp (Nasdaq: HSKA or “the Company”), a $2.8 billion market cap animal health equipment distributor, has been struggling to grow organically and has been using low-quality acquisitions as a means to deflect market share loss and margin erosion and to generate investor enthusiasm."

"Since we were not able to find any production equipment or raw material inventory on site, we think it is highly likely that EH has the near-finished parts manufactured and shipped in from contractors, performs simple light assembly on site, and then stores units at EH’s corporate headquarters in Guangzhou."

"Caliber of support, vision of the team at the top, consistent superlative care, year over year . . . VFC is superlative and always has been. Much better compounding platform. We were compounding in-house and loved the fact we would be able to outsource it to a company that does it well. — Survey Participant"

"Our strategy is a transformational change into a midstream logistics company... — Greg Garland, Phillips 66 CEO; I think Midstream will certainly continue to be a growth vehicle for us... I think Refining is a good business. It's just -- long term, I just don't see it growing — Greg Garland, Phillips 66 CEO"

"In our opinion, the currently existing policies evidently reflect the fact that public schools and private schools enjoy the same unified standard of tax policy treatment. This fact shows the spirit of the “Non-State Run Education Promotion Law of People’s Republic of China”. — Ministry of Finance (implied)"

"“Yes, absolutely. They make every decision [...] You’re just a pawn. If you’re a scientist, you just do what you’re instructed to do, and there’s no pushback or flexibility or innovation [...] The fact of the matter is nobody is empowered to make a decision except for Peter and Jungsang.” — Former executive"

""In order for [refranchising to 90%] to create value requires...selling nearly 500 stores at multiples higher than we believe are achievable...[and] trading multiple expansion to levels significantly higher than demonstrated on a sustained basis by casual diners" — Alex Ware, Chief Financial Officer, 2/7/17"

"“They can take all those fees and save them and put this man on the Board who’s done more homework than anyone else – and he’ll give you this homework for free! Memo to Procter & Gamble: Peltz is cheaper than all of those advisors and knows the space.” — Jim Cramer, CNBC ‘Squawk on the Street’, 27 July 2017"

""This year, the Committee for Examination of Nominees for Directors and Audit & Supervisory Board Members spent more than six months discussing the matter before reaching a final decision, and the decision was made before Oasis Management proposed any director candidates." — Kao statement, December 12, 2024"