Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"There is a $1.1 billion discrepancy between what Ms. Callan said on the conference call – an $875 million loss – and the table in the 10-Q, which shows a $228 million gain."

"Ballard claims a backlog order book of $264m (1); we estimate that announced China projects (assuming most are still live) account for $204m or 78% of the company’s backlog"

"Anytime NVDA has been hit with potential concerns (e.g., crypto, autonomous driving), the immediate analyst fall back is to raise price targets up because of AI datacenter."

"C3's prospectus claims "Recognized AI-Industry Leadership" and that its business is all about gobbling up market share. If in fact true, why is its market share just 0.12%?"

"C3 is highly promoting a strategic alliance with Google Cloud. Yet, we cannot find any prominent feature or refence to C3 on Google Cloud's AI and machine learning website."

"Are we comfortable with a management team which has been criticized in the past for the practice of hiding organic top-line contraction and capitalizing the cost of growth?"

"Management is perhaps crediting itself for revenue from unbilled projects while simultaneously pulling from its Deferred Revenue cookie jar to create even more paper sales."

"The market value of Southwest’s aircraft ($17B) exceeds the TEV of Southwest, implying no value from operating the largest domestic airline beyond the value of the aircraft"

"While peer EBITDAR is expected to be in-line with or meaningfully exceed pre-COVID levels, Southwest EBITDAR is expected to be nearly 50% lower despite record travel demand"

"As such, absent further value- and governance-enhancing measures from Sumitomo Realty, Elliott plans to vote against the reappointment of senior management at the 2025 AGM."

"Saputo claims that EBITDA is a measure of cash flow in performing its DCF. However, our analysis shows that EBITDA is a poor proxy for cash flow and converts at around 70%."

"Fast forward to today, Neilson's website shows no yogurts, non dairy creamers, juices or drinks. There is also recent evidence of SKU decline in flavoured milks and creams."

"There is also the potential the organic growth was even worse since we found that Monster apparently purchased customer relationships in 2024 without providing much detail."

"While we do not take a definitive view on Verifi at this time, we have nominated director candidates we believe would ask the right questions to make data-driven decisions."

"Huntsman has the most skewed payout structure, meaning management gets rewarded significantly more for outperformance than they are penalized for the same underperformance."

"We believe the Board, including newly-appointed directors, attempted to disenfranchise the Company’s shareholders by significantly abridging the director nomination window."

"Spruce Point believes there is significant downside to DV’s share price as the Company is signaling financial strain and difficulty in hitting lofty revenue growth targets."

"Momo's financial performance is inextricably tied to live streaming, a business with low barriers to entry and coming under intense competition from well funded adversaries"

"Participants in the Herbalife scheme, the distributors, “obtain their monetary benefits primarily from recruitment rather than the sale of goods and services to consumers.”"

"Being an S&P 500 company is a validation of absolutely nothing. It affords investors zero protections against companies and their ability to scheme investors. Buyer beware!"

"Spruce Point believes CHD effectively controls Armand Products and is using the entity to inflate key financial metrics (gross margin, free cash flow, and working capital)."

"This obviously fraudulent overstatement of its movie theater network size shows that it has a habitual problem making truthful statements about the scale of its businesses."

"After a strong period of client growth, we observe that MSCI reported a decline in clients in Q3 2023 and they have not expanded their reach across more countries globally."

"ESG risks may present opportunities to engage with boards and management to improve practices that pose sustainability risks in order to facilitate long-term value creation"

"We may experience higher compensation costs to retain and recruit senior management and highly-skilled employees that may not be offset by improved productivity or revenue."

"Based on disclosures made by Mettler related to net sales contribution from Troemner and contribution to the Lab segment growth, we cannot reconcile its total contribution."

"PERI's Content IQ acquisition has not evolved at all since it was first displayed months ahead of the acquisition. What exact value has this brought to Perion shareholders?"

"If the $25bn of excess payments were returned to Fannie and Freddie, Fannie would not need to raise any private capital, while Freddie’s capital raise would be much smaller"

"Does a subtle change (and inconsistency) in the transaction details discussed in Forescout's deal-related press releases suggest that financing for the deal may be at risk?"

"Scientists are highly resistant to adopting BLI and more trusting of cheaper flow cytometers; has little incremental benefit and "doesn't make sense" versus existing tools."

"As of Nov 7, 2023, approximately 6 weeks before the stated sale date, both sites were still in "grey construction," an early phase where the concrete forms are being built."

"Spruce Point believes Stryker is becoming more opaque with acquisition announcements. It used to provide some historical revenue context of deals, and now it often doesn't."

"The world's largest chipmaker's experience with Lasertec has been a disaster, not only with its ACTIS EUV systems but also with its outdated, previous-generation DUV tools."

"Given TFS is unlikely to be able to obtain finance due to its poor corporate governance, we believe it will not have sufficient capital to maintain plantations to maturity."

"Spruce Point views it as bearish that Rollins recently disclosed that it is “evaluating” a number of measures to improve SG&A. We believe this signals forthcoming problems."

"If we assume Fox's gross margins are comparable, by our estimate, Rollins 40bps year-over-year gross margin improvement is solely attributable to the contribution from Fox."

"No. 2 and No. 15 is 159% higher than other Lianjia stores in Sanhe Langfang, which supports our belief that BEKE uses these ghost stores to inflate its transaction volumes."

"Awarding $5 in share gains to what we estimate is only $1.18/share in total value, from Lumen's role as general contractor on a massive construction project, is just silly."

"The insinuation that Elliott attempted to have multiple conversations with Mr. Pease to coerce him into carrying out an Elliott agenda is false and deliberately misleading."

"Borders management guidance implies ~55mm common shares outstanding by January 2007. This is an approximate 30% reduction from its common share count in March 2004 of 78mm."

"At a $36 price, Borders would trade at 7.5x '08E EBITDAR, only a slight premium to 6.8x, the average of total leverage levels used in several recent retail LBO transactions"

"If the Company schedules its 2024 AGM in December per its usual practices, Engine will withdraw its request for a Special Meeting and instead seek Board changes at the AGM."

"Bunge has a long-term presence in Latin America but as we highlighted earlier has offered progressively more excuses for its disappointing results in places like Argentina."

"Target Corp would have approximately $200mm of incremental FCF after growth capex versus Target Standalone as a result of not funding new land development and reduced taxes"

"Without any proven technological differentiation, the only way to win business is price, a market position which puts a dent in the strategy of “moving up the value chain.”"

"Ginkgo’s 700+ page prospectus barely mentions the word “yeast,” concealing that the core of its platform is commodity yeast optimization, a widespread method for 50+ years."

"Spruce Point is concerned with the closeness of Cintas with its auditor E&Y. The relationship dates back over 50 years, and both the current CFO and Treasurer worked there."

"While peer EBITDAR is expected to be in-line with or meaningfully exceed pre-COVID levels, Southwest EBITDAR is expected to be nearly 50% lower despite record travel demand"

"The market value of Southwest’s aircraft ($17B) exceeds the TEV of Southwest, implying no value from operating the largest domestic airline beyond the value of the aircraft"

"But if you've always dreamed of owning an airplane, there is a way to own hundreds of them and generate a respectable return: You can go into the aircraft leasing business."

"We believe YTD share price declines greatly underestimate how quickly President Trump can act to drive a re-rating of shares and unveil a taxpayer asset worth ~$300 billion"

"At best, we view Heska as a low-growth, low-margin distributor with a conflicted, sloppy management team and a track record of hyper promotion and poor financial reporting."

"Our North American operating expense estimate including SBC represents 45.4% of revenue, and thus an increase of over 180 basis points over pre-scil expense levels in 2019."

"We find it troubling that investors have not gotten a straight answer from Heska management regarding something that represents a material shift in strategy and operations."

"Consequently, the Federal Trade Commission has effectively removed any incentive for the other primes to seek bids from Aerojet Rocketdyne, the only other provider of SRMs."

"Aerojet is significantly more levered and valued than appears on its surface. We believe the market is ignoring significant environmental and post-retirement benefit costs."

"They move some people in, move some people out, but at the end of the day, they really control cost. They don't really add true value and that's kind of how I see Grossman."

"With 25% of the physicians driving 70% of the revenue, you see massive price erosion, so although Omnia might be their flagship, what percentage of sales is coming from it?"

"This is what a fully integrated hospital software package looks like. It involves every part of the hospital, from billing to patient monitoring to supply chain management."

"From there, mid-single digit revenue growth with synergies ramping should drive high-single digit EBITDA growth and double-digit earnings growth for the next several years."