Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"Crown Castle’s tower business has been an “enabler” for excessive fiber capex. Peers chose to exercise much greater prudence in allocating capital and ensure that fiber projects earned returns"

"CP's share price increased 429% (including dividends) since inception of our investment in September 2011, and 335% from our average cost basis prior to the position being made public, to date"

"Restaurant Brands International’s share price increased 176% (including dividends) since it merged with Justice Holdings and from our average cost basis prior to the position being made public"

"Absent intentional manipulation, the rising allowance trend could indicate XPO's declining ability to collect from existing customers, or sales being recorded from lower quality new customers."

"Exiting product business in this fashion allows Tessera to: Realize substantial upside if mems|cam achieves commercial success. Begin more active licensing activities for DOC patent portfolio."

"The combination of Riot's inability to increase bitcoin production and perpetual stock sales has resulted in sustained declines in both bitcoin production per share and bitcoin held per share."

"In this context I would like to comment briefly on the attack by the Muddy Waters hedge fund a few weeks ago. Until April 21, 2016, I was in fact not aware of the term "activist short seller"."

"Monolithic was intent on developing a 50,000 sqft property from scratch, and even purchased raw land, that it fortunately flipped at a profit. This will be a one-time gain reported in Q3 2019."

"ADP frequently touts its “service” capabilities as a differentiator. The substantial majority of what ADP externally calls “service” is actually “support” for product and back-end deficiencies"

"While the Company acknowledges it must focus on gaining younger customers, we believe CTC is lagging its peers at attracting millennials. Overpaying for acquisitions will not solve the problem"

"Not only would a partial or full monetization of real estate unlock substantial value, it would also accelerate SIX’s debt paydown, provide cash for buybacks and quicken dividend reinstatement"

"We wonder: now that he no longer needs to disclose sales of PETQ shares, how much has he been selling? Why does he appear to still be active in a number of his (many) other business interests?"

"While PetIQ's growth target was initially set at 20%, this figure was gradually tracked back to 15% without much explanation, and without any announcement that its growth estimate had changed."

"So from my personal opinion, IperionX, where right now, and I think this is what they're good at, they're good at marketing. Personally, I believe, to me it's more a marketing story right now."

"So from my personal opinion, IperionX, where right now, and I think this is what they're good at, they're good at marketing. Personally, I believe, to me it's more a marketing story right now."

"Muddy Waters, LLC has amassed irrefutable evidence that CCME is a substantial fraud, and that management is engaging in a cover-up replete with further dissemination of fraudulent information."

"Khosla’s track record is legendary – just not in cleantech or EV batteries, where an unusual number of his investments made bold QS-like claims of a breakthrough, only to be exposed as frauds."

"The former employee characterized the claim as believable as someone declaring 200 miles per gallon for a gasoline-fueled car, and explained in detail why the CEO’s statements are not credible"

"The €53 million gain recognized in 2021 was achieved by reclassifying all of Polygon as an "investment property under development"— before construction or sales had begun on a single building."

"Ex-employees confirmed our impression, painting Chapman as a habitual dissembler: "he says anything"; "it's just complete crap"; "Peter just lies"; "very little that he says that's the truth.""

"Hess's cumulative CEO compensation over the past 5 years ranks in the 73rd percentile relative to peers, while total shareholder returns over the same 5 year period rank in the 20th percentile"

"How can Tempus claim to be leveraging the power of AI for better healthcare decision-making and personalized results when it cannot even detect critical and incompatible inputs into its model?"

"Elliott is pleased to have the support and assistance of Phillips 66 shareholder and accomplished energy industry veteran Gregory Goff for our effort to boost shareholder value at Phillips 66."

"Starboard engaged with Corteva to help identify individuals with highly relevant industry expertise that could help the Board diversify its perspectives and better hold management accountable."

"There is an underappreciated risk that smaller sized utilities will constitute a majority of the deals in the future, and that competitors offering simpler AMI product suites could take share."

"Xylem also presents two sets of balance sheets, with one that cannot possibly balance without debt properly accounted for with short-term liabilities. Assets or equity could also be misstated."

"Spruce Point believes that it is only a matter of time before Align is forced to slash its own lab fees to maintain its existing orthodontist base, or else risk losing significant case volume."

"Spruce Point believes that it is only a matter of time before Align is forced to slash its own lab fees to maintain its existing orthodontist base, or else risk losing significant case volume."

"To the extent that Align is able to penetrate the non-comprehensive market and/or expand its addressable patient base, Spruce Point believes that it will experience dramatic price compression."

"Supply peaked across all sectors in the 1999-2000 period, with average supply as % of stock at 2.5%... and supply levels are modestly lower heading into this commercial real estate down cycle."

"Beside price increases, Dye & Durham doesn’t have a growth strategy. It has no sales culture and does not try to integrate the different products or cross-sell through its large customer base."

"Beside price increases, Dye & Durham doesn’t have a growth strategy. It has no sales culture and does not try to integrate the different products or cross-sell through its large customer base."

"NMC's Head of Procurement is named Pradeep Rai. A former NMC hospital manager told us that Mr. Rai runs Modular Concepts for his boss, BR Shetty, who is the de facto owner of Modular Concepts."

"This is also confirmed by the following article published in March 2006, which indicates that Mr. Zheng Jiayuan was the head of ANTA’s Factory Number 2, and had then been working for 10 years."

"Inner Mongolia Handong is a subsidiary. The bigger ones, Anhui is one, Changshu is one, others are Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, they are small. Changshu is the biggest one. Anhui is the second one."

"We believe investors were disappointed to see the CEO transition, as Andreotti helped transform the pharmaceutical company into an immunotherapy pioneer, but were hopeful for continued success"

"The CEO has recently claimed spending upwards of $1.0 billion to develop C3.ai. However, in 2018 a senior employee said that approximately $250 million had been spent since approximately 2010."

"We believe that HIMS' penetration of women's health offerings and mental health broadly, essentially any area outside men's sexual health and hair, have proven more difficult than anticipated."

"FND may potentially be making liberal interpretation of lease commencement dates. The practical implication is that it could delay recognition of the leases and understate FND's true leverage."

"FND has pitched “Adjacent Categories” such as vanities, faucets and mirrors as growth drivers. However, after 5 years and just $83 million in sales, we don’t see this as a serious opportunity."

"However, what Saputo doesn't disclose, but what it is now admitting through a recently revised website marketing disclosure, is that Vitalite is no longer the #1 dairy free spread in the U.K.."

"Monster does not say what the revenue contribution from these purchased customer relationships is which suggests that its organic revenue growth could potentially be challenged and overstated."

"We believe that GCP can improve its EBIT margin by ~600bps on a run rate basis, more than recouping all of the deterioration that has occurred through poor performance over the last few years."

"This view is captured in an October 23rd note from Morgan Stanley which estimated only 1%-3% of all incremental US data center power capacity (~2-5 GWe) through 2035 would be provided by SMRs."

"FMCN's near total write-offs of its smaller internet advertising acquisitions, followed by giveaways, generally appear unwarranted based on the companies' 2009 and 2010 financial performances."

"Since Ancora’s involvement, Berry has made a series of positive changes – yet we believe the public market has failed to fully and fairly value the company, creating an investment opportunity."

"I don't have a philosophical problem with the merger. I actually think there is an enormous amount of synergies for both companies. We just want it to be done at the right price, a fair price."

"The pursuit of a dutch auction, in conjunction with other actions, should help reduce the valuation gap between the current stock price of TWX and the estimated intrinsic value of the Company."

"Beijing Momo invested RMB 230,000 in one of its top 5 agencies, Beijing Mushang Culture Media, on November 30th, 2017 and failed to disclose the subsidiary in its 2017 20-F (filed April 2018)."

"Based on the new strategic direction being chartered in Live Video, and the findings from our interviews, we estimate that the earnings power of Momo Live Video is likely to be impaired by 30%"

"Public real estate has many advantages over private real estate including better alignment of interests, superior liquidity, higher quality assets and access to greater investment alternatives"

"As CHD’s core brands suffer, and as it pivots to more aggressive deals where it fails to hit its own targets and spins excuses, we fail to explain why CHD’s multiples extend to all time highs."

"Note the % in the past has specifically been cited as "net" of the warrants which is the GAAP amount. There is also a discrepancy in 2016 where they reported $17.9m vs.$17.4m implied from 16%."

"Sartorius AG, a major competitor to Mettler in its Laboratory division, announced a new ERP in 2016, and expects the project to be completed in 2019. We estimate the total cost is EUR 20 - 30m"

"We see significant downside risk as investors evaluate the evidence that SGHC’s EBITDA does not likely capture the non-controlling (minority) interest of its lucrative Raging River subsidiary."

"Do either the consumables acquisitions or subsequent exits really represent “progress” if the acquisitions are destroyed, and if the exits simply bring Hill-Rom back to square one (at a loss)?"

"Spruce Point believes that investors should carefully research the investment playbook at The Active Network (NYSE: ACTV), where Porch’s CEO Matt Ehrlichman spent many years in strategy roles."

"Based on recent disclosures, we see that installed Mako systems growth has been slowing down year-over-year and month-over-month and Stryker is now revealing financial reporting discrepancies."

"The executive expressed a concern that investors should be worried if there were a multiperiod discussion of rising auto accident claims. Such activity is difficult to solve or remedy quickly."

"Assuming 2% comps and the Company’s unit growth plan, if EBITDA margins were to improve 100bps by 2008 (returning to 5-year average levels), EBITDA could increase by 41% from “reported” levels"