Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"We suspect that most of Twist’s holders have little clue what it actually makes or sells, much less any grasp of the so-called “silicon DNA chip” that the entire story rests on."

"But the reality is this is nothing special. It’s like any other biotech company that provides antibody engineering or library services. So, there’s not much of a differentiator."

"Trian believes management can achieve at least 16.0% operating margins by 2018 and ultimately reach 18% operating margins over time...gross margins are a substantial opportunity"

"How much deterioration is a matter of opinion. AGO’s 10-K has this strange disclosure, which says that AGO uses its own internal credit ratings, rather than third party ratings."

"Samsara’s largest government contract generated just $1.7 million over the past three years. In contrast, all of Geotab’s largest government customers generated over $3 million."

"Spruce Point believes investors should be concerned by various claims made by C3 and its management that appear to be exaggerated, or don't reconcile with our research findings."

"According to a former industry executive, FND’s focus on adjacent product opportunities may be a signal it is starting to struggle with comps as it runs out of new store growth."

"However, based on our assessment, it appears that Monster didn't embrace the SEC's request and provided no quantitative disclosure on factors that affected gross profit in 2023."

"We believe GCP has opportunities to improve gross margins by improving manufacturing practices, simplifying supply-chain management, and implementing strategic pricing projects."

"Despite ~40% of EBITDA coming from attractive midstream assets, Phillips 66 continues to trade like a refiner, missing the value uplift in the midstream space over the last year"

"IT SEEMS THE REAL REASON PHILLIPS REBUFFED MR. GOFF HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS INDEPENDENCE FROM ELLIOTT AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH HIS INDEPENDENCE FROM MANAGEMENT AND THE BOARD"

"In multiple engagements, Elliott has worked with companies to effect meaningful portfolio transformation, even after encountering initial skepticism from directors or management"

"At the 2016 Investor Day, the Company appeared confident its core business would generate $1.3 billion of Adjusted EBITDA by 2017, and again FAILED to deliver on its commitment."

"Between the 2018 Investor Day and December 31, 2020, the Company’s share price not only failed to achieve management’s ~$60 per share price target, but actually declined by 21%."

"Huntsman not only has the worst ESG rating among Primary Peers, but is also unique in being the only company among its Primary Peers to have received a recent ratings downgrade."

"Were RINO to have really generated the $116.4 million in steel sinter FGD sales it claims for 2009, it is improbable that it would have such a low profile among its competitors."

"Basic subscriber growth has remained relatively flat over the past three years, as TWC has focused its efforts on pushing new products to customers in order to drive RGU growth."

"Telephony penetration at TWC is expected to increase from 14.4% in 2006 to approximately 33% in 2009, implying a CAGR of more than 30% for telephony subscribers over the period."

"Muddy Waters Capital is short PeptiDream, Inc. because we believe it is more stock story than substance, and the market is deluded as to its potential for commercializing drugs."

"We believe unbilled receivables rising reflect a worsening of the quality of business that TASK is undertaking, and that it may be booking revenue ahead of certainty of payment."

"The CEO is “confident” that TASK can improve margins to exceed 25% while a former executive interviewed by Spruce Point expressed doubt absent a real significant differentiator."

"Herbalife records Recruiting Rewards in “Royalty overrides,” which includes Royalty Overrides, Production Bonuses, and the Mark Hughes Bonus, but excludes Vacations / Promotions"

"the organization is deemed a pyramid scheme if the participants obtain their monetary benefits primarily from recruitment rather than the sale of goods and services to consumers"

"Amazon has twice implemented royalty cuts to its merchants to support “increases in manufacturing costs”. Royalty cuts eat into merchants’ margins, which drives dissatisfaction."

"Despite ~40% of EBITDA coming from attractive midstream assets, Phillips 66 continues to trade like a refiner, missing the value uplift in the midstream space over the last year"

"IT SEEMS THE REAL REASON PHILLIPS REBUFFED MR. GOFF HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS INDEPENDENCE FROM ELLIOTT AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH HIS INDEPENDENCE FROM MANAGEMENT AND THE BOARD"

"In multiple engagements, Elliott has worked with companies to effect meaningful portfolio transformation, even after encountering initial skepticism from directors or management"

"Intuit consensus estimates call for 12% revenue growth over the next two fiscal years, suggesting even the sell-side believes the boom from services adoption has run its course."

"Spruce Point has a track record of exposing promotional material and mining companies that have failed to meet lofty aspirations promoted to their largely retail investor bases."

"If Mettler’s is exaggerating and inflating profits, it should be no surprise that it would try to use highly aggressive and non-standard ways to portray inflated free cash flow."

"PERI must decide if its search and advertising revenue is presented on a gross or a net basis. Presenting revenues on a gross basis would increase the size of reported revenues."

"With Hill-Rom expected to continue to engage in M&A through the foreseeable future, why should investors permit management to continue to ignore these costs as irrelevant items?"

"An unwanted by-product is deposition of Sn debris on the collector optic, which focuses the EUV light emitting from the plasma. Consequently, collector reflectivity is degraded."

"As it turns out, in consultation with management, they use three layers of numerical manipulation to torture out a figure that is 2.5x the size of the actual patient population."

"The leasing math is very straightforward: everything else remaining equal, every $10,000 increase in the price of the truck raises the cost per mile of the truck owner by $0.02."

"The only component of her total compensation tied to Yahoo performance is the annual target bonus of $2 million or $12 million over the 5 years or 3.3% of the $365 million total"

"The very fact that the Board, in reviewing the leadership structure, does not detect any anomaly is the best demonstration of the lack of independent oversight within the Board."

"The lack of published data validating both the Lightning and Beacon lead to a “vicious circle” with a lack of customers, which led to a further lack of published data and so on."

"FTAI has likely sold ~70 whole engines through the first nine months of 2024, which are counted as three modules per engine, and likely account for ~80% of reported module sales"

"The New Disclosure Added in Q3 2024 Implicitly Acknowledges that FTAI's Aerospace Products Segment—the MRO—Performs Limited Repair and Maintenance Work on the Engine Assets Sold"

"Here are the records of the two wire transfers initiated on December 17, 2020, for the option exercise purchase consideration – one for Singer and one for Kanovich (Ledlife SA):"

"With an increasingly competitive landscape and record of significant execution challenges, the time is NOW for BMC to consider all the alternatives to maximize shareholder value"

"Based on interviews with its related-party “customers,” we believe that at least half of Ginkgo’s reported revenue is phantom – that is, non-cash and pure accounting hocus-pocus"

"When capitalized commissions are deducted from both Adj. EBITDA and Non-GAAP Net Income in FY19, growth in both metrics is cut from mid-teens levels to close to (or below) zero."

"When capitalized commissions are deducted from both Adj. EBITDA and Non-GAAP Net Income in FY19, growth in both metrics is cut from mid-teens levels to close to (or below) zero."

"Herbalife’s deceptive characterization of the settlement has been accepted by the media and is being promoted by senior HLF distributors in an attempt to stop distributor flight"

"Given its market position and decades-long runway for sustained earnings growth, we believe UMG’s current valuation represents a very substantial discount to its intrinsic value"

"The reason we included this one snapshot in time is to point out the TSA Digital ID and Delta Sky Priority wait times. Both are 5 minutes or half the time of CLEAR with PreCheck"

"Yannis spent nearly 35 years at Procter & Gamble (P&G), where, for almost a decade, he presided over a team of more than 50,000 people in their global supply chain organization."

"Our discussions with industry experts suggest Phillips needs to dramatically improve its commercial function and reduce refining costs to achieve best-in-class operating results"

"He stated their OCS usage fell from 60-70 cases from 2020 to 2023 to four cases in 2024, and that he sees the same trend at leading heart transplant programs around the country."

"Our portfolio trades at a higher earnings multiple than the market, but we believe that it undervalues the higher quality and stronger earnings growth of our portfolio companies"

"DOL's target would imply a saturation level higher than the largest U.S. dollar stores (Dollar Tree and Dollar General), which also sell many more consumables and grocery items."

"Valuing DOL as a mature business at its upper penetration bound implies ~40% downside in a more realistic, yet still generous scenario in which DOL is valued in line with peers."

"In our experience, full spin-offs to existing shareholders are the best way to close conglomerate discounts, while selling minority stakes to “spotlight” value has poor results."

"But that said, I can tell you that we have not seen anything in the post-marketing setting that is different from the clinical trial setting. So there are no new safety signals."

"If one assumes U.S. market is only about 1.3 million users, do you agree that you would hit peak sales this year or next? If not, why do you feel our conclusion is not accurate?"

"Based on the recent news of Amazon entering the POS market with the development of a POS system to rival Shopify and PayPal, we believe this is extremely bearish for Lightspeed."

"I think there is a lot of smoke and mirrors in the PR deck and all of this. They are not very transparent about how and where the pockets of growth are, especially for payments."

"He stated that they conducted “very robust trials” after screening countless compounds, across many indications such as narcolepsy – and that all of these efforts were failures."