Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"This brings me to the idea of an interpretive premise for an NMA decision. The making of a lawful NMA involves questions of planning judgment about whether the change is "material"."

"As of Q2'09, CXW's interest coverage ratio was 5.4x. Its next debt maturity is not until 2012. Its cash interest expense is less than 6%, and more than 80% of its debt is fixed rate"

"Recurring, cash-flow generating catering services now opened up for market competition, while SCT is expanding on Food Distribution which require capital for investment in logistics"

"“These are rough numbers, but you roughly need twice as much electricity if all transport goes electric, and then you need 3 times as much electricity if all heating goes electric.”"

"Approximately $8 million of the $10 million in revenue recognized from the Merck milestone achievement should not be included in the gross revenue because it is passthrough revenue."

"Assuming the average store real estate costs $26mm, of which $13mm is allocated to the land and $13mm to the building, store-level return on investment increases from 23.0% to 39.8%"

"We recommend Autodesk target a minimum of 500bps reduction in sales and marketing spend as a percentage of revenue, which represents approximately $275 million of potential savings."

"Spruce Point has a history of successfully exposing poorly positioned consumer focused companies before the market realizes fundamentals have changed, and the share price collapses."

"Women's Health is PBH's largest segment representing 26% of sales. Monistat and Summer's Eve are the segments two largest brands. CVS product labels state “compare to Summer's Eve.”"

"At Costco we found PBH's products behind the pharmacy counter, requiring the assistance of a pharmacist to purchase an OTC product. This results in limited visibility for customers."

"We believe that Southwest should begin the process of change immediately, enabling the Company to be in a position to update shareholders on its go-forward strategy by year-end 2024"

"Spruce Point estimates that, by excluding the contribution of Almost Family from organic growth, LHCG has inflated its reported organic growth by close to 500 bps in both Q2 and Q3."

"Spruce Point estimates that, by excluding the contribution of Almost Family from organic growth, LHCG has inflated its reported organic growth by close to 500 bps in both Q2 and Q3."

"The only thing that separates Greece from France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain is that the Greeks openly admit that they can’t repay their debts, while the rest remain silent."

"Altogether, these components sum to $385.8 million of lost MPLN revenue in 2022, which translates to an organic Adjusted EBITDA and Levered Free Cash Flow decline of $294.2 million."

"CFO At Jefferies Conference (Aug 2018): "I guess maybe one last comment on shorts. You can't fudge cash and cash flow was very, very strong. And that will my counter point to that.""

"It is unusual to see a company that has spent more than its entire enterprise value on acquisitions - even more so when those acquisitions are such small contributors to value today"

"Strangely, this part of the website has been recently updated. The below screen shot was taken from the same web page 11 days earlier. Note that two of the supervisors were updated."

"Upon announcement of the Fox deal, a new compensation package for Mr. Iger provided him a total compensation opportunity more than 2.5x the median of Disney’s General Industry Peers"

"We have found key changes to the investment highlights published in the original deal presentation (slide 6) to a similar slide in Danimer's Q4 2020 investor presentation (slide 4)."

"The PIPE's structure belies an effort to capitalize on retail interest in TMTG, while downplaying the financial, regulatory, and reputational risk associated with such a commitment."

"Fannie and Freddie’s failure during the GFC was exacerbated by two initiatives not core to their original charter – the FIA business, and their guarantee of subprime and Alt-A loans"

"Spruce Point believes this could be a way for Zillow to mask the true deceleration in Premier Agent especially if they are not going to disclose Premier Agent revenue going forward."

"Specifically, Elliott noted Phillips’ conglomerate structure, poor operating performance and damaged credibility with shareholders as factors driving the Company’s underperformance."

"Limbach's stock-based compensation payments, coupled with warrant issuances and a public offering in 2021, have left its shares outstanding nearly 50% higher than they were in 2019."

"In aggregate, we believe the exclusion of these uses of cash from the Company's FCF calculation has allowed Limbach to overstate FCF by over $37 million in the last 12 months alone."

"TransMedics bears a striking similarity with Nevro (NVRO), a device company and Scorpion’s first report – both are fueled by a clique of high-volume users of Middle East background."

"Mr. Asher is not just a large shareholder, he and his firm Equitec Proprietary Markets, LLC appear to have a checkered history, according to reports from FINRA’s BrokerCheck system."

"In H1 FY 2019, Dollarama’s cash flow contracted on a year-over-year basis for the first time since it went public – this despite management’s efforts to bolster earnings and EBITDA."

"Mr. Cage has received three speeding tickets between 2015-2018 in the state of Virginia where Leidos is based – two infractions and one misdemeanor – speeding in a residential zone."

"The Transaction requires several months of planning before an IPO is achievable. To complete an IPO even a year from now, work on this Revised Transaction will need to begin shortly"

"The overwhelming sense in the company is they are fudging the numbers...no sales consultant has any transparency or visibility into how many patients are on drug in their territory."

"These positions each contributed positively to 2017 returns, but would have made much larger contributions if we had been able to establish full-sized positions at attractive prices"

"These positions each contributed positively to 2017 returns, but would have made much larger contributions if we had been able to establish full-sized positions at attractive prices"

"In short: Our analysis leads us to believe that WUBA is a fraud vehicle that primarily exists to enrich insiders and to raise money from US investors on the back of fake financials."

"We find this 10x growth in property value hard to believe especially considering over $17.7M in improvements are still to go into the property shortly after the closing of the deal."

"We believe that Southwest should begin the process of change immediately, enabling the Company to be in a position to update shareholders on its go-forward strategy by year-end 2024"

"We are confident that once again Archer is deceiving investors with their operations, only focusing on issuing fluff PRs and creating the illusion of progress to reassure investors."

"In our view, it is clear that the company has ceased operations. Nevertheless, Archer has not disclosed this development to investors despite the significance of the order involved."

"This implies that the Accelerate Pheno system, as tested in this study, will not be able to replace the standard of care. It will rather serve as an adjunct to the standard of care."

"Remitly also states that take rate is heavily influenced by average transaction size. Yet, Remitly has consistently said that its take rate has remained stable. How is it possible?"

"Major shareholders have been selling and / or diluting their interest through multiple equity offerings in Sept 2020 (IPO), June and October 2021 and stock issued for acquisitions."

"Buffalo Wild Wings needs to be disciplined in how it allocates its capital and focus on risk-adjusted returns relative to both its cost of capital as well as all other alternatives"

"The Permanent Injunction represents Herbalife’s agreement to engage in a “top to bottom” restructuring of its business model in the United States to “start complying with the law.”"

"Additional benefits to EBITDA came from cuts to research & development expense (R&D) which should raise questions as Genius needs to continue innovating to stay ahead of the curve."

"Robert Milligan, CFO, is neither an accountant, nor is he the Chief Accounting Officer, but he has been signing SEC documents stating that he is the "Principal Accounting Officer"."

"Spruce Point has a track record of prescient calls in the power and energy sector. Notably, we warned recently about Sunnova in the solar sector, and its shares declined up to 50%."

"Our revenues are lower than the Street and incorporate a lower multiple reflecting a struggling legacy business, and a low quality clean energy business assembled via acquisitions."

"While fiber businesses can be excellent investments, towers are simply superior businesses. Crown Castle’s strategic choice has been to diversify away from the “best business ever”"

"Based on our analysis, we see that growth in purchase commitments has sharply decelerated to low/mid single digits and that delivery times beyond 12 months appear to be increasing."

"Erie Indemnity Company (ERIE), as the management entity, has thrived by extracting wealth from Erie Insurance Exchange, reaping substantial profits while bearing no insurance risk."

"Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX) stock has underperformed its peers for a decade. Now, the CEO is talking down the value of his own company's shares, saying they are already fully valued..."

"Monolithic's CFO claims to be a CPA. However, state records show his license is “Cancelled” as of Aug 31, 1985. We believe it is disingenuous for him to represent himself as a CPA."

"Christensen's apparent relationship with Fleming management is particularly concerning to us given PetIQ's and VIP Petcare's demonstrated dependence on vendor rebates for earnings."

"Transaction would preserve Target’s flexibility in controlling its buildings/brand and allow the market to appropriately value the company’s ~200 million square feet of real estate"

"We believe that Target’s compensation plan does not foster an ownership culture at Target, as senior management and the board have sold $429 million of stock in the last five years"

"Our approach to transparency is to provide you with the information we would want if our positions were reversed, (i.e., if you were the portfolio manager and we were the investor)"

"We believe that with the passage of time Valeant’s share price will reflect the value of its franchises, its low-cost operating model, and its efficient capital allocation strategy"

"Ex-physicists and other former IonQ employees described each IonQ machine as a hand-made, arts-and-crafts project that’s impossible to scale with “tens of thousands of components.”"

"OSIS's failure at that time to disclose even the scantest fact that's freely available on the Albanian corporate registry bolsters our opinion that these facts evidence corruption."