Callouts & quotes from 476+ activist slides

"Foundations are required to file an IRS form, yet we could locate no evidence of the foundation’s existence on the IRS database, nor of any grants beyond a small, local biotech incubator that appears to be a business activity."

"TO US, IT APPEARS THAT THE REAL REASON PHILLIPS 66 REBUFFED MR. GOFF HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS INDEPENDENCE FROM ELLIOTT, AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH HIS INDEPENDENCE FROM CEO MARK LASHIER AND THE COMPANY’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS."

"XPO is more expensive than it appears given its highly “adjusted” Non-GAAP results, and analysts’ inability to correctly account for the 10.2m shares that are freely convertible from the Series A Convertible Preferred stock."

"To date the UNDP programs have had very limited impact on the development of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry in China. It also appears that local governments are unwilling or unable to provide the required subsidies."

"Warning: Armand Products Company is not even its legal name! The real legal name is C&D Chemical Products, Inc. C&D = Church & Dwight. This appears to be more evidence that CHD controls Armand Products as a named subsidiary."

"Enrollments for training classes were so low that the business seized to offer courses in 2019. The building now appears to be vacant, the Goldrone sign is gone, and the field is now used by the community to play “Gateball”."

"The CEO appears keenly aware that single layer is a low bar, and has recently begun pushing a disingenuous narrative: we’ve proven single-layer works and NOW - “for the first time” - we’ll finally focus on multilayer cells"

"Spruce Point observes a troubling trend of what appears to be less Board engagement through fewer meetings. Despite 2023 being a challenging year, the Board met just five times, which was a large decrease from prior years."

"As we will illustrate, Stryker has materially missed its Capex estimates in what appears to be an attempt to defer spending. If we normalized Capex for this underspending, 2020 and 2021 FCF would be -$163m and -$125m lower"

"Soleno appears to be worried about permanent edema, as their rep suggested patients remaining on diuretics as “standard of care” with Vykat; physicians “surprised” at the answer; edema is a “known side effect” of diazoxide"

"Soleno appears to be worried about permanent edema, as their rep suggested patients remaining on diuretics as "standard of care" with Vykat; physicians "surprised" at the answer; edema is a "known side effect" of diazoxide"

"As of late 2018, the publicity of the UWO investigations and intent of the UK to aggressively pursue cases appears to have had a cooling effect on the market, reducing demand by despots seeking to clean their dirty money."

"Yangzhou (扬州) is a small city with no existing home and just one new home transaction. It appears to have an agent, but the agent and his associated store Deyou Fenghuang Cheng Flagship store are in neighboring Zhenjiang."

"KLA appears ready to leapfrog and make Lasertec obsolete as the transition to High NA gains momentum in 2024 – Lasertec cannot support High NA, while KLA has patiently prepared for it as the next phase of EUV lithography."

"We note that in half of the six earnings reports that were affected by the accounting “irregularities”, it appears that PPG either “beat” or “met” consensus earnings expectations by way of artificially inflated earnings:"

"HASI appears to have booked non-cash interest income from SunStrong PIKs totaling $26.4 million over 2019-2021 per SunStrong’s cash flow statement, which is approximately 9.5% of HASI’s interest income during this time."

"The current operating model appears to prioritize corporate mandates that show little regard for the day-to-day realities of running a restaurant. This is a problem when your business lives and dies on customer service"

"The current operating model appears to prioritize corporate mandates that show little regard for the day-to-day realities of running a restaurant. This is a problem when your business lives and dies on customer service"

"While heart rate and workout metrics are native to even inexpensive bikes, the only IP that Peloton appears to bring to the table is its leaderboard technology, which allows participants to compete against one another."

"Despite this fanfare and significant R&D spending, it appears that DSP has not generated meaningful revenue for its XpandR multimedia product and has not even mentioned the product during its last four conference calls"

"The market appears to lack confidence in Disney’s $7.5 billion cost reduction plan; Wall Street consensus estimates for FY 2024 and FY 2025 are now lower than they were when the commitments were made in February 2023."

"The market appears to lack confidence in Disney’s $7.5 billion cost reduction plan; Wall Street consensus estimates for FY 2024 and FY 2025 are now lower than they were when the commitments were made in February 2023."

"It appears that reps would latch onto a patient with narcolepsy and then try to get the physician or their office to expand the diagnosis to cataplexy – even if the patient didn't have it – to “comply” with the label."

"While it appears more substantive on the surface as an entity engaged in legitimate - albeit failed - R&D, later sections discuss why we believe that Ginkgo uses it as just another front to create fictitious revenue."

"About two thirds of Phillips 66's achieved $1/bbl of opex reduction appears to be driven by natural gas pricing reductions rather than fundamentally lower costs, according to the Company's own commodity sensitivity."

"Small problem: Cambium appears to have never raised any funding and its site is a single page with vaporware like "Deep Tech approach, fusing biotechnology, green chemistry, computation, automated material science.""

"Patrick Vitek appears to have unjustifiably profited by at least €52.1 million over seven months by flipping the entity owning Immofinanz shares to CPI PG and having the purchase price retroactively adjusted upward."

"As we discuss infra, the mention of a “mandatory takeover offer price” appears to be a false excuse. The adjustment seems to have merely been a way to extract an additional €52.1 million cash from outside investors."

"Interestingly, management appears to treat the "gift" as a component of COGS (and capitalizes some costs in inventory) rather than as part of compensation expense in SG&A, thereby inflating GPU by adjusting for it"

"Note the differences, the seal appears to have been photocopied, cut and glued. The seal number is the same as the one on the genuine report; however, the insignia lacks the clarity of that on the genuine report."

"As we demonstrate, YT appears to have lied about not owning any direct or indirect ownership of Blitz, because some of the shares in Blitz were used to pay off YT's debt to a large creditor during the bankruptcy."

"It appears incredibly suspicious that, after CFO Rao claimed new products don't generate higher ASPs or margin, MPWR would then report record price increases in 2017/18. Prices fell on average 5% from 2013-2016."

"Even Worse, Innomind Appears to Have Provided VIE $35 - $40 million of Shareholders’ Money. Because We are Skeptical of Much of the “Paper” in RINO’s Balance Sheet, These Funds Could Have Been Misappropriated."

"Spruce Point observes that Forescout appears to have experienced higher-than-average employee departures of late, particularly among its sales staff – confirming employee anecdotes that we’ve heard elsewhere."

"Investors should be cautioned that Weis is on its third auditor in the last four years. It also appears unusual to us that E&Y has served as its auditor twice, with the first time declining to be reappointed."

"It appears that someone has been buying large amounts of OTM call options on MOXC to create a gamma squeeze, in which the dealer selling the call options must buy the reference equity to hedge their position."

"FND's inventory accounting is called "moving weighted average cost method" and appears to be some hybrid of the method used by Lumber Liquidators and Tile Shop, which are both embattled and struggling peers."

"Changke Liu, the founder of Changing Edu, appears at the bottom as the legal representative of Guangzhou Shujia, but there is no suggestion GZ 1-1 is outside of Haoweilai or actually belongs to Changing Edu."

"It therefore appears that in 2022 alone, Sunrun claimed ITCs and other tax benefits on 14,390 systems that didn't exist, which equals approximately $205 million of inflated ITC and other tax benefit claims."

"Between Jaenicke’s departure and the loss of its CISO and CIO, Mercury appears to have very few (if any) well-tenured executives or employees with deep knowledge of or experience in the cybersecurity space."

"HASI's use of a low, risk free rate to value these increasingly commercial receivables appears disingenuous: one expert stated to us that a high teens discount rate was appropriate for commercial projects."

"In late December 2021, it appears that TaskUs just increased incentives for referrals by offering a $500 sign-on bonus to new recruits. In addition, $750 is paid to the individual who sources the new hire."

"In 2009, the California federal court stated that Herbalife appears to pay compensation facially unrelated to sale of products to ultimate users – an essential element of finding of an MLM to be a pyramid."

"In a world where Saputo has been expanding beyond Canada, and into the US, Europe, and Australia/Asia, it appears that its employee cost structure is not competitive with its global dairy-producing peers."

"Ownership by insiders decreases nearly every year. With little “at risk” we can understand why management appears, at best sloppy with the numbers, and at worst gaming them to extract unjust compensation."

"Trian has a long track record to help investors judge, and its record of short-slate board participation and activism appears positive and constructive, and oriented towards longer-term value creation..."

"Based on the Comparable Company Analysis, a Broadband Asset Value multiple of 8.0x - 9.0x 2006PF OIBDA appears to be a reasonable range for TWC as a seasoned, fully distributed “must have” cable company."

"The practice appears to be driven by surgeon ineptitude as well as a strategic decision, as the TransMedics pump seems to require collecting blood from the donor, which is used to then perfuse the organ."

"As we pointed out on a previous slide, it appears that FND's customer mix has shift away from homeowners, which has important implications for the growth of high margin installation materials and tools."

"AMT has, in its conference calls, stressed the growth in Adjusted Funds From Operations (“AFFO”) as one of its most important metrics, and this appears to have been followed by ATL’s telecom analysts."

"Our research suggests both pillars seem unrealistic: it appears that DigitalGlobe is more likely to see prices decreases on the NGA contract and opportunities outside of U.S. government appear limited"

"The system appears to be property of the US government, which we presume would create far more serious legal jeopardy for TransMedics than infiltrating a private network, if the allegations are true."

"The transaction appears to be another de facto lending transaction, making AMT management’s pronouncements about growth potential misleading because additional tenants will not move the needle much."

"TWX, by any measure, is undervalued. There appears to be a significant valuation gap between the current stock price of TWX and the estimated intrinsic value of the underlying assets of the Company."

"The prevalence of edema appears to increase the longer that Vykat is used, with no apparent plateau – indicating that a tipping point is eventually reached whether discontinuation or a safety event."

"With the estimated impact of Actix and Celcite backed out of total sales, Amdocs’ revenue appears to have grown only between 1-2% on an annual basis through the quarters following the acquisitions."

"The brand appears in the top ten search results for only 31 skincare-related keywords—five times less than its direct competitor Cetaphil, and well behind other competitors like Cerave and Eucerin."

"The chief of a liver transplant program, who stated he knows Ghobrial well and appears to be in communication, indicated the relationship with TransMedics is improper and may be seen as a kickback."

"In short, these transactions bear hallmarks of money laundering, where CPI PG appears in the final, critical stage—possibly cashing out launderers and their clients with clean, bondholder funds."

"The scale is impossible to validate because each trial appears to have its own version with different prompts and grids/layouts, and it is unclear which version(s) were used in Harmony’s trials."