Callouts & quotes from 1,047+ activist slides

"An interview with a former SafeCharge (now Nuvei) employee confirmed our belief that Nuvei entered the European gaming market as its existing retail business became more competitive. This higher risk business allowed for a recent uplift in margins which we believe will be unsustainable."

"BR promotes itself as a “Global Fintech Leader”. But in reality, we believe at least 40% of its revenues are tied to mundane, low-valued added business process outsourcing (BPO) activities such as printing and distributing business statements, some of which carries literally no margin."

"The deterioration of Skechers' cash flow margins since 2018, coupled with a history of mismatch between its CFO and net income (before non-controlling interest) and thus highly suspect earnings quality, suggests that something is fundamentally wrong with the Company's financial model."

"We struggle to explain how gross margins expanded in the face of a structural decline of inventory turnover, and a material drop in revenues in 2015 (from emerging market challenges), and the Swiss National Bank unexpectedly changing policy in early 2015 to strengthen the Swiss Franc."

"Ancora is concerned that this may have potentially been an attempt to “juice” the stock ahead of the nomination deadline by providing an incomplete picture considering the financial metrics indicated a strong top-line performance, but no detail was offered regarding margins/earnings."

"2U is the highest valued “Cloud based SaaS” company. 2U is currently priced for perfection and we believe the stock will re-rate as downward estimate revisions come to fruition as well as the realization that the EBITDA margin profile will never mature similar to its SaaS peer group."

"With healthy growth continuing into the 2030s, GAAP EBIT margins in the 21% range, an 11.7% WACC, and a 17.5x EV / LTM EBITDA exit multiple (relative to a current small-cap WFE average of 24x), we get a $72 per share fair value for ACMR, representing 300%+ upside from current levels."

"The ports business is a highly profitable business, recording margins significantly higher than the European freight business - we estimate BOL's ports business generates EBITDA margins of approximately 40%, vs. an estimate of approximately 5% for its freight forwarding business."

"It appears that Smart2Pay’s approximately 50 employees were to join Nuvei. This further calls into question how could its margins increase so dramatically in the absence of significant cost reductions. LinkedIn employment trends also show no indication of employment attrition."

"A possible motivation for these inventory transfers would be to overstate gross margins by moving high cost inventory to PP&E, or eliminate the need to write-down obsolete/slow-moving inventory in the current period, and instead depreciate the expense over a 3-5 year period."

"Xylem's financial reporting has become even more opaque specifically around gross margins. Notice carefully that, not only does Xylem not quantify the impact of the Evoqua acquisition on its gross margin, but also it provides no quantitative measures of any impacts at all."

"As of the last financial statements filed by Smart2Pay in the Netherlands, we see that it was experiencing double digit declines in key profitability metrics through 2019, and before the impact of COVID-19. The ratio of EBIT to Gross Margin contracted by 680 basis points."

"Kornit trades at a meaningful premium to direct digital printing peers it competes with, as well as its second largest print customer which is struggling, on the belief that its 20%+ revenue growth rate is sustainable and its margins are better than peers and will expand."

"The market expects FIGS to continue top-line growth in the mid 20% range while accelerating EBITDA margins. As a result, the market ascribes FIGS a rich revenue multiple of approximately 4x. We have shown why we believe there is substantial room for multiple compression."

"Despite a massive revenue decline of $4.8 billion from 2007 to 2012, total G&A expense has actually increased, causing G&A expense as a percentage of revenue to increase from 4.2% to 6.3% and Adjusted EBITDA margins to decline from 5.3% to 3.1% over the same time period."

"Based on a mistaken assumption that more assets would improve customer service, Mr. Shaw has put in place a doomed and wildly expensive strategy that caters to low margin intermodal business at the expense of providing good service to higher profit merchandise customers."

"ESG & Climate segment Adj. EBITDA Margins have increased 720bps from Sept 2022 – 2023 with headcount having grown from under 1,000 to approximately 1,300 according to the Head of ESG. While Retention Rate declines and revenue growth slows, we expect margins to contract."

"If Medtronic's claims regarding its current share and share trajectory are at all credible – and we have no reason to believe that they are not – then sell-side market share estimates for Penumbra, and sales growth estimates by extension, are off by a tremendous margin."

"IQE sells to CSC at purportedly arms-length / market valuations (e.g., PP&E transferred at 4.6x estimated carrying value), but IQE buys from CSC at non arms-length / market prices - at cash cost, with no profit margin or reimbursement for depreciation and amortization"

"As GAAP gross margins have declined, the Company's poor financial performance is shown by its negative operating and net margins. However, the Company's non-GAAP adjustments create the illusion of Sunnova being a profitable business with high Adjusted EBITDA margins."

"We believe Agilent's current valuation represents a discount to intrinsic value and does not fully reflect the company's high-quality business model, increasing mix of recurring revenue, strong long-term growth potential and significant margin expansion opportunity"

"Management repeatedly claimed that G&K’s gross margins will improve to Cintas’ legacy margins as it was marketing the transaction to investors. Yet, it’s now very evident that management never had a way to measure or track it, thus calling its claims into question."

"We also acknowledge activism could create an opportunity to highlight value that is even higher at $40 (and in the range of the activist target) to account for significant margin expansion from current levels, premised on a market P/E of 17x and earnings of $2.37."

"In the next quarter’s Q&A, the CEO stated that “in Q1 there were ACTIS units with very low gross margin from the first lots” – without ever explaining what “first lots” means; and that “we have finished recording the sales of ACTIS with poor gross profit margins.”"

"We believe this is further evidence that INGN are nearing saturation. Would a company that is selling a market-leading product in a category that is only 11% penetrated really be seeing such significant margin pressure at such an early stage in its growth cycle?"

"Carvana not only trades at nosebleed levels relative to its closest peers, even on consensus revenue growth expectations we regard as too high, Carvana now trades at a premium to leading tech players, all of whom enjoy better margins and generate free cash flow."

"a vote for Trian’s nominees is a vote for four highly qualified individuals who will seek to work collaboratively with the Board to: Assess the corporate structure and determine whether management is capable of achieving best-in-class revenue growth and margins"

"When combining the opportunity to rationalize certain Technology and Development expenses with other growth and margin improvement opportunities, we believe GoDaddy should commit to delivering a growth + profitability metric of at least 40% by the end of 2024."

"TCM's and Cartoon Network's 2005E EBITDA margins are estimated to be towards the high end of the profitability of other cable networks. TNT's and CNN's estimated 2005E margins of approximately 39% and 35% respectively, fall in the mid-to low end of the range."

"No, I don't remember. $500 million—between $300 to 500 million and that basically translates to the POs that they had from Intel but the POs are at a significantly reduced price. They don't have a lot of margin on those tools, very low margins on those tools."

"Xylem has repeatedly said that conversion of digital backlog to sales is higher margin. However, according to a former high-level executive, digital sales are actually dilutive to margins and do not scale as a result of the human capital investment needed."

"Spruce Point finds clear that Saputo is struggling in Europe, and recently made modifications to its competition discussion that suggests a loss of share. We observe that the percentage of retail sales are in decline, and that EBITDA margins are declining."

"According to an expert, due to nationalistic pride of wanting to partner with Amazon, we believe there will be fiercer competition resulting in: 1) Lower margins to Kornit or, 2) A complete loss of the business to a Japanese firm with more local resources."

"Scil generated 31% gross margins in 2018 and 2019, indicative of the Company's distribution business model. Of note, the Company was barely profitable on an operating basis despite scil management receiving Wilson's praise for their operational excellence."

"Spruce Point believes DY's margins are not likely sustainable and may have benefited from various actions that may be difficult to continue. As further evidence of our concern, management has walked back talk of what its long-term EBITDA margin should be."

"P&G’s income statement has stalled since 2011, underperforming the peer average on virtually every line item including: sales growth (volume and organic growth), gross profit growth, gross margins, operating profit growth, operating margins and EPS growth"

"It is worth noting that, similar to past acquisitions, there will be some amount of MSCI shared expenses that will be allocated to the segment. These allocations will reduce the margins for Burgiss, while slightly increasing the margins in other segments."

"Based on our research, we have identified three frequent events that should result in write-offs of capitalized connected device costs, which would reduce reported gross margins. We are not confident that Samsara has been taking the requisite write-offs."

"Lower commodity prices are forcing the industry to cut costs. Here we adjust the revenue to the future strip price, and cut expenses by 20%. On that basis, gross cash flow is $30 per BOE and Pioneer earns a positive margin. But, it's not positive value."

"Porch points investors to focus heavily on Gross Profit (Margin) as a key metric and valuation benchmark. As a result, Spruce Point has carefully scrutinized this metric and finds irrefutable evidence to suggest Porch is inflating Gross Profit (Margin)."

"As we've already shown: 1) MPWR's Chinese tax filings do not account for ~$262m of revenue, and 2) MPWR's inventory turnover metrics are ballooning and a significant industry outlier despite stable and steady gross margin growth that management touts."

"It seems to us that if one were to overstate revenue in a global business, one wouldn't want the margins to seem glaringly out of line with peers. Therefore, we would expect that a smart person (or people) would find a way to inflate expenses as well."

"We find that Generac marked-up inventories by 55% from £4.8m ($6.8m) to $9.97m. Generac hasn't disclosed any fair value revisions to inventory, or amortization of an inventory step-up. Inflating inventory values is a hallmark of margin overstatement."

"We value BR's ICS and GTO business at 1x – 2x and 2.5x – 3.0x 2022E sales, respectively, to reflect its below industry margins, and other challenges we've identified. As a result, our price target is $37.35 – $52.30, implying 65% – 75% downside risk."

"Management not only believed that the global construction market would experience robust growth, but also that GCP would be able to organically grow at twice the market rate while retaining attractive margins due to its advantaged industry position."

"Despite claims of efficient utilization of assets benefiting gross margins, ROAD's gross margins have contracted since Pre-COVID-19 and that even includes the benefit of lower margin contracts rolling off and higher inflationary projects rolling on."

"We believe providing a target of at least 40% growth plus profitability for FY2025 would be in-line with peer targets and timelines and should be readily achievable through a reasonable acceleration in revenue growth and meaningful margin expansion."

"Absent any helpful answers from the Company, shareholders can only assume that the Company is significantly increasing spending in other areas and offsetting the margin improvement that should result from the workforce reduction and revenue growth."

"We believed that GoDaddy had significant opportunities to deliver on strong revenue growth, meaningful margin expansion, and a more appropriate capital allocation strategy, which, collectively, would result in meaningful shareholder value creation."

"We believed that GoDaddy had significant opportunities to deliver on strong revenue growth, meaningful margin expansion, and a more appropriate capital allocation strategy, which, collectively, would result in meaningful shareholder value creation."

"We believed that GoDaddy had significant opportunities to deliver on strong revenue growth, meaningful margin expansion, and a more appropriate capital allocation strategy, which, collectively, would result in meaningful shareholder value creation."

"Similarly, FirstGroup's UK Bus business grew substantially prior to 2007, with stagnant revenue growth since 2008 and significant margin deterioration since 2012, while Stagecoach grew its UK Regional Bus revenues and margins during the same period"

"Why should PetIQ shares trade at more than double pharmaceutical distributor multiples when near-term sales growth is more likely to be 9-11% than 15-20%, and when the Company's outsized margins appear to depend entirely on at-risk vendor rebates?"

"In an effort to avoid admitting a large miss, management has recently started stating that "to get to its mid-cycle EBITDA PSX needs adjusted gross margin of $14.50/bbl,"(1) a level that even VLO (best-in-class operator) is not expected to achieve"

"There are many data points to cast doubt on the accuracy of Axon's margins beyond it having recently reported a material weakness tied to revenue recognition and cost of sales, fail to promptly address SEC comment letters, and have its CFO resign."

"Given that Juniper failed to meet its prior cost reduction target by a wide margin, a significant amount of detail and conviction from management will be necessary to ensure that investors and Street analysts understand that this time is different"

"We are surprised that the sell side seems to think that gross margin in the product segment could expand through the coming years despite the strong relative growth of sales of distributed product vs. manufactured product, as cited by management."

"If one simply adds back to COGS the direct manufacturing costs we believe it is misclassifying via a Worldcom-esque accounting scheme, its gross margin is negative – consistent with color from ex-employees, competitors, and manufacturing experts."

"Lasertec never explained what was different about the ACTIS tools sold in Q1 such that they had no margin – each tool is the same, and the obvious implication is that if those are worthless, then so is the $1.2B of inventory on its balance sheet."

"Our research shows that YoY growth in fully-loaded marketing expense per order generated has exceeded the comparable period's growth in AOV eight of the past nine quarters, often by a dramatic margin, suggesting deteriorating customer economics."