Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"While management constantly endeavors to invent new benchmarks against which to measure historical TSR performance, the conclusion remains the same: Returns under Dr. Kleinfeld are epically poor"

"Arconic needs more than an "owner's mindset" – it needs to understand how its business generates returns on capital and then ensure that its investments earn more than the firm's cost of capital"

"We believe these factors can be addressed easily and immediately via our 3-Step Plan, a carefully calibrated initiative that should be implemented without delay by Keisei’s board and management."

"We propose an immediate improvement to the Company by replacing four of the six legacy Board members as a direct result of their failed attempt to create shareholder value over the past 11-years"

"The latest in Elliott Investment Management's efforts to help restore Southwest Airlines to its industry-leading position, including conversations with Elliott's exceptional director candidates."

"Given the inventory revision, Spruce Point is concerned that Zebra no longer provides a table showing contractual purchase obligations over the next five years which is a typical SEC disclosure."

"The following table shows performance during Trian’s ENTIRE involvement with each company. TSR at each of these companies has outperformed P&G – by 10% annually on average – since Trian invested"

"To create and then dismantle a sales network, replacing it with a loosely controlled distribution network upon which the Company becomes completely dependent defies conventional business wisdom."

"Although McDonald's stock has rebounded from its 2003 lows, it has been range bound in the low $30s for the past five years and is significantly off of its high of $48 per share reached in 1999."

"Recent proposals necessitate that the private sector provide as much as $500bn of first-loss capital to achieve the potential capital requirements for the existing ~$5 trillion GSE MBS portfolio"

"FND made some noteworthy changes to its inventory valuation description coincident with a Material Weakness in late 2018 and the Company's adoption of a Clawback Policy for fraud on May 2, 2019."

"We note that, while Toes Corporation was listed by name as a beneficial owner in the Automatic Common Exchange Security Trust's 497 filing, its name was withheld from Amdocs' filings themselves."

"Saputo's last strategic pillar is to create enablers to fuel investments with an emphasis on the ERP. Yet, we are concerned by a pattern of failure to meet time and cost objectives with the ERP."

"HHC’s three integrated business segments allow it to self-fund the equity required for development from (i) MPC land sales, (ii) cash flow from its operating assets, and (iii) equity in the land"

"However, State Street's shareholders paid a high price subsidizing growth in revenue and assets at the expense of profitability, return on invested capital ("ROIC") and total shareholder returns"

"Based on the above, in accordance with Article 98 of the PRC Contract Law, the court of the first instance has rendered the judgment as follows: Zongheng should refund the deposit to Xiangxieli."

"TASK has been promoting its Latin America potential, notably Mexico since 2019. It talked of scaling to over 1,000 employees. Fast forward to 2021, its Mexico headcount is 40% below plan at 620."

"Herbalife has paid its Nobel Laureate spokesman, Dr. Louis Ignarro and his affiliated consulting firm more than $15 million to help Herbalife promote its business opportunity to its distributors"

"Contrary to CSTE's suggestions of independence, Freedonia's data should not be considered independent. Freedonia source information from CSTE themselves and are compensated for the data by CSTE!"

"Google Trends for Merch by Amazon is a good proxy for customer interest in the program. The recent data points suggest the program has recently plateaued and even experienced a moderate decline."

"We have identified a number of issues in SPRD's filings, and we believe that there is a high risk of material misstatement in the reported financials since the time of Dr. Ping Wu's resignation."

"In short, these transactions bear hallmarks of money laundering, where CPI PG appears in the final, critical stage—possibly cashing out launderers and their clients with clean, bondholder funds."

"Spruce Point has identified a broad range of troubling aspects related to Perion’s technology claims and associated financial reporting. We believe investors should proceed with extreme caution."

"To prevent further value destruction, Ancora urges shareholders to vote “AGAINST” Board Chair George S. Mayes, Jr., Director Javier Polit and Director Laurie A. Tucker at the 2025 Annual Meeting"

"IQ's barter sublicensing revenues are so inflated that they wouldn't come close to being believable even if IQ bartered every single TV episode produced in China in each of the last three years."

"BR's fits the mold of many classic Spruce Point large cap short targets. We typically find a growing rift between GAAP and Non-GAAP results as the business comes under increasing stress to grow."

"Large BLI customers are unhappy and not referenceable; level of dissatisfaction is an outlier relative to other vendors they use; customers generally rate BLI’s system at 2 on a scale of 1 to 5."

"We took note of the company’s turbulent past, and that it was founded – and is still run by – semiconductor engineers with no discernible background or experience in biology or drug development."

"Because TAL was an investor in Changing Edu, if it acted as a rent payment agent on behalf of Changing Edu, it would have been a related party transaction that we understand mandated disclosure."

"Lone Star's Adj. EBITDA margins are set to decline in FY25 by 150bps and the fine print disclaimer around the projected margin gives us considerable hesitation in believing they can be achieved."

"Subsequent to the closing of the transaction, during the second quarter of 2023 Mr. Watsa, to avoid potential future conflicts of interest, sold all of his 678,021 shares of Poseidon to Fairfax."

"Our suspicion is that like Zhonghuan, BEKE grossly overpaid for a questionable business in order to hide fake cash, a balance sheet problem created by BEKE’s gross overstatement of its revenues."

"By voting on the enclosed Gold Card for Elliott's four independent nominees – Brian Coffman, Sigmund Cornelius, Michael Heim and Stacy Nieuwoudt – you can be part of helping deliver this change."

"In order to receive FDA approval, Chinook would need to demonstrate that atrasentan is clinically superior to sparsentan; if it does not, sparsentan retains exclusivity for the next seven years."

"The top paid ad for portable oxygen claims “Beware of Cheap Machines”. This is a tactic used to scare the sick elderly from utilizing their Medicare benefits, which cover these “cheap machines”."

"Based on XL's response with its numerous non-denials, we continue to believe that the company greatly exaggerates its pipeline, performance, and potential sales. In short, XL is more SPAC trash."

"Widespread bullishness for LHCG's stock rests on the perception that management will continue to capitalize on a roll-up strategy with which Spruce Point detects overwhelming execution problems."

"Spruce Point believes that poor post-merger execution by LHCG management has cost the Company a degree of its prior credibility, turning off large institutional managers from holding LHCG stock."

"Policy makers and mainstream economists are stuck in GroupThink that easy money always helps the economy, despite basic economic principles that suggest diminishing or negative marginal returns."

"Commvault's underperformance has been so profound that an investor would have been better off buying the NASDAQ index instead of Commvault's stock on 99% of trading days in the last eight years."

"By calculating predicted subscription months assuming 0% and 100% cohort renewals versus actuals, we estimate that Heska retention rates were materially lower than the “>95%” the Company quotes."

"Given the fundamental backdrop, Spruce Point is not surprised to see aggressive accounting and financial presentation methods being used by Aerojet that project an image of stability and growth."

"A second Nevro ex-employee, who was involved in the market growth calculations the company represented to investors and the sell-side, basically admitted to us that it was a fraudulent exercise."

"There were already questions about the cost competitiveness of PHAs even before canola oil prices started to surge. We believe investors should discount added margin pressure from rising prices."

"While ODR has been positioned as a higher-margin, lower-risk growth driver, the heavy reliance on fixed-price contract work undermines that narrative and increases the risk of margin volatility."

"Congressman Paul Gosar wrote CEO Waleed Hassanein a detailed letter alleging “anti-competitive business practices deployed by TransMedics” tantamount to its medical devices “being held hostage.”"

"Part 3. Revenue is dependent on a handful of transplant surgeons/centers - "prostitutes" who are "completely owned and operated by TransMedics" - who allegedly receive kickbacks and inducements."

"OPO’s and transplant centers are standardizing around an inexpensive, alternative technique which has long been the standard of care in Europe, with TransMedics 2025 revenue at risk of collapse."

"Given AOL’s past inaction with regard to monetizing the patent portfolio, we do not believe the Company would have actually executed this transaction had it not been for Starboard’s involvement."

"Management's use of short-term debt has burdened the business with refinancing risk in an environment in which the CDOR rate has risen sharply and is expected to rise for the foreseeable future."

"In fact, following the pre-announcement of recent results and initial 2018 outlook, we estimate that management’s EBITDA guidance for 2018 has fallen 17% below its original post-merger guidance."

"it's pretty quiet overall... what I'm not hearing people say, when can I get my hands on Vykat? Because we all know diazoxide, and we all know the problems with it. It's not like we're clueless."

"Increase in proportion of patients over the 5.7 HbA1c prediabetes threshold. Clearly the proportion of patients in all treatment groups have a larger number of patients in the prediabetes range."

"If spun-off as a separate company with a dedicated management team and an intelligent capital allocation strategy, we believe PepsiCo Beverages would achieve a very attractive valuation multiple"

"The scale is impossible to validate because each trial appears to have its own version with different prompts and grids/layouts, and it is unclear which version(s) were used in Harmony’s trials."

"Why does Mr. Nayar conceal he is being paid by BC Partners on his GFL biography? GFL Directors receive no compensation from the Company, but is Mr. Nayar receiving compensation from BC Partners?"

"Spruce Point believes these efforts are a smokescreen to cover declining fundamentals in its core business and the potential significant earnings volatility by switching from MBP to purely Flex."

"Valeant’s share price has increased 28% (including dividends) from inception of our position in February 2015, and 5% from our average cost basis prior to the position being made public, to date"

"The peculiarity of how EGH was able to sell a property to IIPR before even owning it is already disturbing, but this might be explained by concurrent acquisitions and different dates in filings."

"Reinterpreted: Archer internally realizes they cannot properly reconfigure Midnight as a hybrid eVTOL and/or cannot afford to lose one of their few R&D prototypes to hybridization modifications."