Callouts & quotes from 930+ activist slides

"Spruce Point finds Genius' working capital (current assets – current liabilities) to be significantly worse than its peers. We attribute this to Genius' inferior distributor business model in which Genius is at the mercy of its data suppliers and end market sportsbooks."

"Lone Star reports just 625 employees (and is currently advertising only seven open positions between Lone Star Paving and Materials). Yet, its backlog is projected to grow 15% and equates to $1.1m of backlog per current employee which is materially above reported peers."

"Spruce Point believes Sunrun's inclusion of financing companies in its peer set is appropriate to represent the financing and leasing aspect of Sunrun's diversified solar business. We believe these peers are more relevant for Sunnova's pure financing/leasing business."

"With student acquisition costs Increasing (i.e. marketing cost) and a realization amongst investors that “the install base” needs to be replenished every 2 years (i.e. students graduate out of the programs), a mid-range peer multiple of 5.0x to 7.0X revenues is likely"

"Samsung Electronics has outclassed its peers in terms of profitability for the semiconductor, display and consumer electronics segments and has made significant headway in improving the profitability of its mobile division in the two most recently reported quarters"

"European peers either don't capitalize R&D costs (Eppendorf), or capitalize and amortize over 3 – 6 years (Sartorius and Oxford). On the other hand, Mettler is opaque in terms of how much it is capitalizing annually, and states it amortizes costs up to 10 years."

"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."

"Monster's market share appears to be the most pressured among its closest peers, and this is before Celsius acquired Alani Nu in February 2025 and Anheuser-Busch (BUD) announced in January 2025 that it would partner with 1st Phorm to launch a new energy drink."

"How is it possible that Lightspeed experienced no organic revenue decline as COVID-19 swept worldwide? Its closest revenue peers in the POS technology space, Par Technologies, Agilysys and Toast, experienced sales declines of -19%, -25% and -27%, respectively."

"Mr. Terreson, with approximately two decades of investment-analyst experience, must understand that investors do not "usually"—and certainly not "appropriately"—construct a peer group that effectively excludes the Company’s two core peers, Marathon and Valero"

"Mr. Terreson, with approximately two decades of investment-analyst experience, must understand that investors do not "usually"—and certainly not "appropriately"—construct a peer group that effectively excludes the Company’s two core peers, Marathon and Valero"

"Phillips 66 has been pursuing a strategy for many years that emphasizes and grows midstream assets alongside its refining business, despite evidence that this structure isn’t delivering value for shareholders relative to the company’s more streamlined peers."

"Phillips 66 has been pursuing a strategy for many years that emphasizes and grows midstream assets alongside its refining business, despite evidence that this structure isn’t delivering value for shareholders relative to the company’s more streamlined peers."

"The Company is arbitrarily selecting the ONLY time period in recent history where relative TSR against performance peers has performed better. We believe this is a blatant attempt to mislead shareholders on the Company's track record of dismal relative TSR."

"Disney has a much better “hand to play” than its peers to weather any disruption... but Disney's response to a changing landscape was ill-conceived and reactive... in large part because the Board disincentivized management to act – paid execs $1bn since ‘13"

"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"

"TASK is the only company among its peers that we could identify trying to sell investors on COVID-19 related expense adjustments to improve EBITDA and EPS. Analysts aren't asking any questions or pushing back on what we believe are aggressive adjustments."

"Spruce Point believes sell-side analysts and investors are not factoring in multiple issues that will likely cause Generac to severely miss its lofty financial expectations and/or should factor into Generac receiving a lower valuation relative to peers."

"At Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX), the numbers don't lie. The company has dramatically underperformed its peers since 2019, and shareholders have missed out on substantial returns. Vote the GOLD proxy card today to support a better tomorrow with #Streamline66."

"As noted, Intuit top-ticked marketing automation multiples when it acquired Mailchimp. Today, Mailchimp’s higher growth (the metric with the highest correlation to SaaS multiples) peer Klaviyo trades at 8.0x after a blowout Q2, a 25% discount to Intuit."

"Prior to Starboard's first public letter to the Company on December 21, 2011, AOL's stock price had materially underperformed both the broader equity markets and its Peer Groups over almost any measurement period since its spin-off from Time Warner Inc."

"Marathon today reports lower RINs expense than merchant peers because Speedway reports no RINs revenue. If Speedway were a separate company, it would recognize higher revenue from RINs commensurate with the higher cost of RINs at Marathon’s refineries."

"P&G’s $6bn of COGS reduction target from FY 2011 to 2016 translates into less than 3% annual COGS efficiency. Many CPG peers undertaking productivity initiatives have demonstrated significantly higher annual COGS productivity in the range of 3.5% to 4%"

"We believe Axon should be valued relative to traditional weapons and firearms manufacturers and connected device and location electronics companies, not high growth SaaS peers with bigger TAMs, lower business risks, and proven recurring revenue models."

"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 believe Essential is signaling that it will miss its targets for the first time since 2015, is richly valued with a poor risk / reward, and should trade at a discount – not a premium – to peers given the numerous issues we’ve identified including:"

"We also note that PetIQ is amortizing its “customer relationships” over an egregiously-long twenty-year period. This stands in contrast to peers which amortize acquisition-derived customer relationships over far shorter periods – typically ten years."

"After fully funding all major CapEx projects, pension liabilities and deal fees, Timken’s separated businesses have additional debt capacity of over $1B to reach average peer capital structures, providing an ample liquidity cushion for each business"

"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."

"Not only has Crown Castle's AFFO per share grown more slowly than that of peers, but its AFFO also includes less of its total capex. In other words, Crown Castle is growing cash flow per share slower than its peers despite spending far more capital"

"We find Sunnova reports metrics that are not aligned with those its peers report. Spruce Point has concerns about the quality and relevance of these metrics including Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Operating Expenses and Adjusted Operating Cash Flow."

"Manufacturers of clean energy solutions don't necessarily carry higher valuation multiples. Excluding Enphase, which has margins that Generac will likely never achieve, peers are trading around 2.7x and 2.0x 2022E and 2023E sales, respectively."

"A November 2022 report by the Markup found that Intuit peers TaxAct, TaxSlayer, and H&R Block used website pixels to collect and send sensitive personal financial information to Meta and Google, which resulted in a Congressional investigation."

"Ambry Genetics was acquired at a notable discount relative to other advanced genetic and molecular diagnostic testing companies, despite the entire peer group, including Ambry, showing double-digit sales growth and EBITDA margins above 10%."

"Spruce Point believes that WSP's backlog is one of the least descriptive among its global peers. Furthermore, unlike Canadian counterparts Stantec and AtkinsRealis (SNC-Lavalin), WSP's backlog differs from remaining performance obligation."

"Management compensation is a significant percentage of EBITDA and has been immune to Kratos’ struggles and poor performance. Among small cap aerospace and defense contracting peers, Kratos’ management is excessively paid relative to EBITDA"

"TWC should, on a fully distributed basis, trade at a premium to Comcast (TWC's most comparable peer given its scale and competitive positioning) due primarily to the higher projected revenue and OIBDA growth at TWC over the next few years."

"If Norfolk Southern's claims of having a PSR operating model right now were true, the Company's operating and financial metrics would not materially lag those of CSX and Class I peers (before and after the East Palestine, Ohio disaster)."

"We believe there are numerous reasons why HIMS revenue multiple is likely to contract closer to its e-commerce peer group and see potential for 25% - 40% downside risk, and more if regulators were to take issue with HIMS operating model."

"PBF has 60% capacity coming from disadvantaged markets. This leads to the Company being a high-cost peer with almost no EBITDA during 2024 (mid-cycle approximation). As such, PBF trades at a substantial discount to other public refiners."

"In light of our interview of a former TASK Business Development employee who claimed that TASK's technology offerings were a step behind peers, we find it notable that TASK recently retracted benefit claims related to its core offerings."

"PBF has 60% capacity coming from disadvantaged markets. This leads to the Company being a high-cost peer with almost no EBITDA during 2024 (mid-cycle approximation). As such, PBF trades at a substantial discount to other public refiners."

"As a result of the Company’s subpar performance, Autodesk shareholders have suffered. As shown below, Autodesk’s share price has meaningfully underperformed its peers, the software market, and the broader market over the last five years."

"Limbach's stock-based compensation payments, which are at the high-end when compared to peers, coupled with warrant issuances and a public offering in 2021, have left Limbach's shares outstanding nearly 50% higher than they were in 2019."

"This consistent underperformance is troubling and puzzling, given both the strong performance of Mellanox’s peers and the tailwinds provided by the Company’s favorable exposure to many of the most attractive end markets in the industry."

"We believe the new BDC (ACAP) will have inferior returns relative to peers because it has lower asset yields and a higher cost structure. As a result we believe this investment will continue to trade at a deep discount to its book value"

"As we’ve demonstrated, Amdocs is at best a no-growth company, and at worst declining organically. If it received a multiple in-line with peers to reflect this reality at 1.0x-1.5x its share price would be approximately 21% to 45% lower."

"The field is 'very skeptical and rightfully so'; can't get BLI data through peer view; software bugs; contamination issues; doesn't recommend the tool and not suited for commercial pharma/biotech customers; unusable by most scientists."

"An efficient “low-cost” miner should be among the best in generating operating cash flow from its fleet. Riot screens as the worst among its closest peers while also among the worst when it comes to share dilution though ATM issuance."

"The journal also reports that the major disadvantages of HAMR are "High temperature (700°C–800°C)" and "High energy consumption". IPX recently claimed that the HAMR process is <700°C which is in stark contrast to the peer evaluation."

"PepsiCo should evaluate the potential refranchising of PBNA's operationally intensive bottling network - as its closest peer has and as PepsiCo itself has done in years past - to allow each business to focus on its core competencies."

"O Realty looks priced for perfection. O trades at the highest multiple within their retail triple net lease peers. As highlighted below, when the growth profile of a REIT begins to decline, the AFFO multiple compresses significantly."

"O Realty looks priced for perfection. O trades at the highest multiple within their retail triple net lease peers. As highlighted below, when the growth profile of a REIT begins to decline, the AFFO multiple compresses significantly."

"Disney's supposed "progress" appears elusive - the Company has significantly underperformed its Media Industry (Proxy) Peers since Mr. Iger returned as CEO in late 2022 and since the Company's "transformation" began in February 2023."

"Disney’s supposed “progress” appears elusive – the Company has significantly underperformed its Media Industry (Proxy) Peers since Mr. Iger returned as CEO in late 2022 and since the Company’s “transformation” began in February 2023."

"Sunnova's business model aligns itself closer to specialty finance / leasing peers than solar businesses. Despite its undifferentiated offerings and lagging financial metrics, Sunnova trades at a premium to peers across all metrics."

"Spruce Point believes that Stryker's inability to raise prices to offset inflation speaks volumes about the quality of its business vs. peers. Most are sticking to margin improvements despite inflationary and supply chain headwinds."

"Monster is dependent on keeping the perceived value of its equity high because it is the most aggressive issuer of stock-based compensation at 1.2% of revenue and almost ~$15,000 per employee among selected food and beverage peers."

"Edgewater's stock price has significantly underperformed a peer group comprised of twenty-eight publicly-traded North American-based IT Consulting companies both in terms of total shareholder return and other key operating metrics"

"DND is a high-quality business with competitive products and cash flows of a similar quality to peers. However, it has significantly underperformed its benchmark indices and self-selected peer group over all relevant time horizons"