Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"During his employment period, Surgalign had an accounting scandal which resulted in a multi-period financial restatement and resulted in revenue recognition fraud allegations by the SEC."

"Since Norfolk Southern's public relations firms failed to place smear pieces about Mr. Boychuk in the media, the Board is now doing Mr. Shaw's dirty work by using innuendo in its letter."

"We believe the restaurant General Managers are the most important individuals in a casual dining company – they should have a compensation structure that promotes an ownership mentality."

"Despite all our evidence that Xylem has failed investors, we believe its rubber-stamping Board approved short-term annual incentive target changes that are beneficial towards management."

"Key MDA executives and Board members were resigning well in advance of the DigitalGlobe acquisition. Most recently, Maxar’s CFO McCombe resigned abruptly ahead of the March Investor Day."

"TSR as CEO of Lucent was (55%); as CEO of Alcatel-Lucent was (58%); dramatically underperformed S&P 500 and Peers. Interlocking relationship with Dr. Kleinfeld at the HPE/Arconic Boards."

"All valuation metrics reflect 2026E consensus segment EBITDA x 6.6x (PSX blended trading multiple) unless sold (zeroed out) or otherwise specified in blue when moving from left to right."

"The Shareholder Slate believes shareholders should not stand for the Company awarding such generous compensation packages without transparency and seemingly any connection to performance"

"These users were connected to YY-controlled PUs, and the group of associated accounts paid out more in gifts than Xiaozhou received, indicating revenue inflation coming directly from YY."

"Mines Listed As "Active". We note that of the 20 active mines referenced, two mines (5 and 6) barely produced much. On the next slide, there were 3 additional mines that produced in 2021"

"Coal stocks look cheap, but there’s a reason: the industry is notoriously cyclical with high operating leverage, and not a long-term climate or environmentally friendly source of energy."

"While a select few were paid handsomely at shareholders’ expense, Edgewater failed to properly incentivize other non-NEO key producers (exposing the Company to risk of talent departures)"

"At best, the company seems to have no idea as to the size of the addressable market, or the penetration rate, and has just been repeating the same story to investors for the last decade."

"Oatly names a supplier “Olam” as its source for Cocoa powder. Oatly came under activist scrutiny when it accepted a $200m investment from Blackstone for its connections to deforestation."

"The annual election of directors reflects standard best practice in corporate governance, as evidenced by the fact that it has been adopted by nearly 90% of the companies in the S&P 500."

"Our analysis indicates an alarming result: 2021 acquisitions contributed more Adj. EBITDA than revenue despite management claiming that Fetch, the largest deal of the year, was dilutive."

"Zebra has various competitors in different lines of business. However, we will illustrate that the sum-of-parts estimated valuation is materially lower than its current enterprise value."

"The vast majority of HASI's dividends have been financed by returns of capital, not returns on capital - in other words, HASI primarily pays its dividends through equity and debt raises."

"Twist’s offering is “no different from about 45 other companies,” and that newer “enzymatic DNA methods will replace the oligo pools produced” by Twist as “it’s going to be super cheap.”"

"BK's earnings are cyclically pressured by decade-low net interest margins due to a prolonged period of low global interest rates and a growing mix of excess deposits on the balance sheet"

"Shareholders are deciding whether to elect Nelson Peltz to the existing Board so that, as a Director, he can have full transparency into what is causing P&G’s consistent underperformance"

"In Trian’s view, beginning a cost savings program with an unrealistic target based on future numbers and theoretical benchmarks diminishes the probability of achieving the desired result"

"However, in a world increasingly moving towards fragmenting consumer brands, where large businesses like P&G need to act more nimbly, embracing a smaller company mindset will be critical"

"YDT is a ghost company (because it is really NQ). We tried extremely hard to find its operations, but were unsuccessful, despite visiting ten different office addresses throughout China."

"Unification will ensure a core Australian nexus for BHP - Unified BHP would continue to be Australian-headquartered, would be Australian tax resident and would be managed from Australia."

"Curél remains unavailable for retail in most of Europe outside of the UK, despite strong consumer reviews among European consumers who have purchased Curél (usually directly from Japan)."

"When we analyze these legally binding amounts relative to new store opening guidance we find an alarming increase in cost per store from $2.7 million in 2021 to $16.8 million in Q1 2024."

"We believe Saputo's inventory accounts are signaling severe financial strain. Inventory has grown 16.4% per annum over the same five year period that sales have increased 6.1% per annum."

"We see no reason why and believe it will ultimately revert to its long-term average as investors cope with more disappointment with SCMI's inability to generate recurring free cash flow."

"Spruce Point believes that ELF's recent success is directly correlated with its creative TikTok and Gen Z viral marketing campaigns led by a relatively small agency named Movers+Shakers."

"All valuation metrics reflect 2026E consensus segment EBITDA x 6.1x (PSX blended trading multiple) unless sold (zeroed out) or otherwise specified in blue when moving from left to right."

"The expert assured us Baosteel has NEVER used RINO's CFB method in any of its FGD projects and is very unlikely to use it in the future due to the following problems in their technology:"

"Revenue has remained substantially flat since 2001, with AOL reporting revenue of $8.6 billion for the year ended December 31, 2001 and $8.7 billion for the year ended December 31, 2004."

"HSD ARPU has remained relatively stable at $43, though, rates are expected to decrease as DSL and other high-speed Internet competitors introduce more competitive packages in the future."

"The poor stock price performance by a company with one of the best collections of media assets is principally a reflection of a lack of a clearly defined strategy and a short-term focus."

"TWX on a consolidated basis trades at a discount to the free cash flow multiples of other diversified media companies despite the fact that TWC contributes limited free cash flow to TWX."

"With 59% of the $1.4 trillion in REIT equity market capitalization in non-traditional asset classes, the public markets offer a superior venue to own a diversified real estate portfolio."

"Steven Amaya is TaskUs' VP of Finance and Principal Accounting Officer. He is responsible for signing the Company's SEC filings. Records indicate that he does not hold a CPA designation."

"Axon's aggressive sales practices, that violated procurement code and project the appearance of ethical impropriety, have been documented by the City of Phoenix in a letter to CEO Smith."

"All valuation metrics reflect 2026E consensus segment EBITDA x 6.1x (PSX blended trading multiple) unless sold (zeroed out) or otherwise specified in blue when moving from left to right."

"Spruce Point questions how much attention is really being paid to MSCI's ESG rating business? The Company brochure available on the website has not been updated in more than three years."

"Spruce Point is not only concerned with MSCI's potential conflicts of interest, but it seems as though new regulations may increase competition in the European Union ESG rating universe."

"Notice carefully that iHub has always had arrows point out to the right towards the supply-side, notably to video and that Perion started including quantitative data points on the chart."

"Give the apparent materiality of this new product to recent financial results according to the CEO, we also believe it should provide enhanced disclosure to investors in its SEC filings."

"By excluding slower-growth businesses from core revenue, management gives itself the ability to report higher core growth than it otherwise would – up to 300 bps higher in some quarters."

"The A300 series uses newly designed optics and high-brightness light source “URASHIMA”. It achieves a significant improvement in defect detection performance compared to the A150 series."

"Five out of eight of our nominees have direct experience successfully operating and leading large chemical and industrial companies. Moreover, their experiences complement one another’s."

"In the proposed Red Lobster Separation, New Red Lobster is actually moving out of this headquarters thereby creating more excess space at this location and more costs at New Red Lobster."

"“...There must be money changing hands because Navarro was Mines Minister and he gave the orders to COMIBOL. And COMIBOL was telling us everything (all the mining areas) was for Alcira.”"

"We have spoken with four former employees of Nidec’s China operation who have provided evidence alleging channel stuffing at quarter and fiscal year ends in the Automotive product group."

"Spruce Point believes that the proposed Forescout deal unjustly enriches management and long-time VCs stuck in dinosaur investment, while putting public employee pension dollars at risk."

"Upon close scrutiny of Forescout's $2.5m surprise restructuring charge and plan initiated in Q1 2020, we see the potential that it violated a Forbearance Covenant of the merger document."

"BlackRock’s Directors Mr. Gerber (24 year), Mr. Slim (13 year) and Mr. Freda (12 year), lack the presumption of independence and dilute the level of ‘true’ Independent Directors to 62.5%"

"BLI is plagued by false hits and an average error rate of around 50% and sometimes 100%, ie, it’s unable to sometimes confirm a single antibody, leading Pfizer to view it as undependable"

"Stryker used to annually promote itself as making Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work”. In fact, its ranking peaked in the top 10, only to recently plummet to #88 on the list."

"The Isteq engineer stated that "we developed it," referring to Lasertec's new LPP source and revealed that they actually licensed it to Lasertec many years ago, making it far from "new"."

"The lack of deferred revenue and cash transfer reinforces our view that TAL was merely parking GZ 1-1 at Changing Edu with no intention of actually relinquishing control of the business."

"The key takeaways from this piece of information is that it is inherently difficult to find market information on Sandalwood because it is a niche industry with low quantities auctioned."

"There are two critical points to make about Olam’s negative goodwill. First, negative goodwill is not “real” income in that there is no positive cash flow associated with it when booked."

"Spruce Point believes there is significant downside risk to Rollins’ share price as its premium multiple is reconsidered by institutional investors in the face of increasing competition."