Callouts & quotes from 533+ activist slides

"Investors don't need to take our word for it. Samsara CFO Phillips has already said that the future is increasingly cloudy as he attempted to manage down investor expectations for the Company's future earnings outperformance."

"To understand why NQ’s results were much worse than expected, investors need to realize that prior audits of the company were likely not as rigorous, and the extra scrutiny made it harder to fake profits and cash flow in Q4."

"Stated that he expects those physicians who want to use Vykat to just prescribe generic diazoxide suspension off-label instead - "of course...that’s probably what it will come to...I think that’s what it’s going to come to.""

"I guess that I'm feeling maybe a little more hypocritical after talking to you, but I feel like the expectation is there that since this is FDA approved and available, that trying to get on the drug is important to families."

"“They were just surprised to see that it was so extreme, especially given the fact that it seemed to happen so quickly after they came off the drug. They didn’t expect that. They expected it to be a slower withdrawal [...]”"

"Fox Pest Control has elicited strong and negative feedback from consumers recently. We expect Rollins will need to invest in additional reputational management and brand building exercises to counter the vitriolic feedback."

"On its Q2'23 earnings call, Redfin noted closed rates unexpectedly fell from ~6-7% in '22 to 5.5% in '23. This 100 bps decline is significant as it implies a ~15% reduction in conversion assuming lead count was comparable."

"By conducting a realistic sum-of-parts valuation of MSCI's business segments, we estimate 55% - 65% downside risk ($190 - $244 per share) and expect MSCI to underperform the S&P 500 and its own relevant benchmark indices."

"As music industry fundamentals continue to improve over the next few years, we expect the market will come to view Sony Music as a scarce, high-quality “compounder” that should be valued at ~20x operating income or higher"

"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:"

"Based on conversations with investors, we think the market believes that TCO is spending $500M, or 100% of the total expected investment in Beverly Center, to merely preserve 2015 NOI when the project stabilizes in 2020."

"Cars.com has experienced an almost two-year continuing trend of customer losses and organic declines in revenue, despite increasing operating expenses, resulting in a pattern of missed expectations and lowered guidance."

"Spruce Point evaluates Dropbox's sales and marketing spending per net Paying User addition over the trailing twelve month period. We find that customer acquisition costs are exploding, and expect the trend to continue."

"CEO Ridge often says, “these targets are probably wrong and roughly right”. We believe analysts targets are probably wrong, and Spruce Point is roughly right that WD-40 will severely disappoint optimistic expectations."

"The market believes in UEC's ability to significantly ramp its production and uranium sales to deliver rapid revenue and EBITDA growth. We believe expectations are simply too high and the valuation premium is extreme."

"The ex-employee stated that generic diazoxide oral suspension is perfectly substitutable for Vykat, based on Soleno’s own PK data despite their protestations to the contrary, and expects to see the substitution occur."

"They were just surprised to see that it was so extreme, especially given the fact that it seemed to happen so quickly after they came off the drug. They didn't expect that. They expected it to be a slower withdrawal."

"We believe this revenue model serves as a proxy for Wall Street's current revenue expectations. It also illustrates that the Street is expecting near flawless execution of ~84 program launches between 2016 and 2021."

"Using standard industry success rates, our base case implies a revenue miss against analyst expectations of more than 60%, while an aggressive case in the Company's favor would yield a revenue miss in excess of 50%."

"The most recent cycle of innovation has just not driven those behaviors resulting in a soft cycle for the cosmetics category in the U.S. as innovation and newness price the market has not driven the expected growth."

"The losses in the GSEs’ guarantee business during the financial crisis, when including $92bn of provisions, i.e. the accounting reserves for expected losses, significantly exceeded their minimum capital requirements"

"Wall Street analysts are projecting 2023 revenue growth of $283 million and improving margins. We believe these expectations are overly optimistic based on the breadth of revenue and profit headwinds we see in 2023."

"The losses in the GSEs' guarantee business during the financial crisis, when including $92bn of provisions, i.e. the accounting reserves for expected losses, significantly exceeded their minimum capital requirements"

"Expectations of a potential transaction announcement have contributed to HHH's substantial share price outperformance relative to peer benchmarks since August 5, 2024 (the day prior to Pershing Square's 13D filing)"

"We expect the Board to respond promptly and on a public basis to our formal shareholder proposal by confirming by no later than 6PM JST on 26 April 2024 that the Advisory Resolution will be added to the AGM agenda."

"Spruce Point believes that, not only could near-term uncertainty elicit earnings revisions which pressure the stock, but longer-term competitive challenges will prevent the Company from rebounding as bulls expect."

"Assuming the GCR segment continues to decline at a mid-single-digit rate through year-end, this implies the ODR segment is expected to grow nearly 35% y/y through year-end to support the midpoint of FY25 guidance."

"Based on a new addition to PBH's 2020 Proxy Statement, we believe PBH is warning investors that the business is not recession proof and is expecting to face challenges as a result of the macroeconomic environment"

"Our analysis shows MCY's California subsidiary is deep underwater as we expect more than $2 billion in claims will blow the top off its $1.3 billion reinsurance tower and eat up its subsidiary's existing capital."

"Zebra's multiple expansion and valuation premium to the sum-of-parts are difficult to explain; we estimate 65% – 80% long-term potential downside risk to the share price and expect it to underperform the market."

"Spruce Point believes that Avery's trend of disappointing sales expectations continued through the recent quarter. Despite a modest beat in Q3, its implied Q4 outlook leaves significant room for disappointment."

"Warning: Why Are Charges From 2015/16 Restructuring Programs Suddenly Ignored? Per the 2015 10-K: Charges From 2015/16 Were Expected “To Continue Through 2016 and be substantially complete by 2016” – Not 2018!"

"Spruce Point unearthed an interview from 2018 where OpenSlate's CEO said it scanned 400 million YouTube videos a day, and that it expected $2 billion of ads would be filtered through its software for the year."

"10/24/18: HLT Q3 2018 earnings call. Reported US RevPAR of +1% falls short of expectations. While management believes this an aberration, investors react negatively to the perception of a slowing lodging cycle"

"We expect the first generation of these devices to hit EP labs within the next 3-4 years, dealing the final blow to any rationale for broad adoption of hybrid/minimally-invasive surgical ablation approaches."

"Warning: If Oatly expects to make new product introductions into adjacent markets, we believe it won't be easy. For example, all key competitors are already marketing oat creamers at supermarkets and online."

"we are proposing that TI adopt a dynamic capacity-management strategy and introduce a free cash flow per share target of $9.00+ in 2026, representing a level that is ~40% above current investor expectations."

"As a result of fraud related to electric vehicle subsidies, Synergy and Broad Ocean now face much tighter requirements and longer payouts than they would have expected when partnering with Ballard in 2016."

"We believe FND trades at an irrational premium to peers and that sell-side expectations are too high. Where we differ the most is new store operating expenses which we estimate are set to rapidly increase."

"If Maxar were to admit earnings overstatement tied to incorrect accounting, we would expect a 25% to 30% in its share price. Recent admissions by similar companies suggest this to be a realistic estimate."

"We believe the counterintuitive DSO trend is likely indicative of Procept pushing systems on customers or relaxing payment terms, possibly as an attempt to boost sales to meet Street revenue expectations."

"Compared to the investor day guidance from less than 2 years ago, investors are now expecting UNP to grow volumes at only one-third of guided levels and grow revenue at half of guided incremental margins"

"We believe Intuit will see a material multiple de-rating over time, and thus we expect the shares to underperform those of its software peers, the technology sector, as well as the broader equity market."

"It is uneconomical and simply unnecessary to spend ~5x more on flash to store data that will be accessed infrequently, as any latency from HDDs is explicitly accounted for by service level expectations."

"Today's announcement marks the eighth guidance reduction at Southwest Airlines in the last 18 months with RASM (revenue per available seat mile) now expected to decline 4% to 4.5% in the second quarter."

"For 2019, Distributors Were Uniformly Negative: Though about half said that they expected sales to be roughly flat or to grow a little bit. Most expected sales declines but did not predict by how much."

"This does not include a $572 million “salvage recoverable” asset on its Balance Sheet, which AGO expects to recover against these losses. The actual “net reserve” number it quotes is only $844 million."

"The FTC is concerned that businesses make “clear and conspicuous disclosure of the generally expected performance whenever the testimonial is not generally representative of what consumers can expect.”"

"The Fed expected the wealth effect would drive growth to 3-4%. Despite the stock market rising about 50% over the last three years and tripling over the last six, GDP growth has stagnated at around 2%."

"Growth hormone’s diabetogenic action is well-known in the scientific literature: “One study demonstrated 2–6 times higher incidence of diabetes mellitus than expected in the normal general population”."

"During Q2 earnings season, GFL talked up a bullish recovery, especially in July, when most competitors were signaling caution, GFL then later recalibrates expectations around working capital benefits."

"We see 75-90% downside to PETQ on lower-than-expected services growth and margin contraction in the products business, as well as on multiple contraction as the market’s understanding of PETQ evolves."

"We are alarmed that the rate of increase in cloud storage costs is in decline. We find no indications that Tempus expected to be able to leverage cloud costs at scale, so why are costs not keeping up?"

"We would understand if margins declined due to investments in growth, but organic growth is worse than when Solventum was inside of 3M, and the Company has not created an expectation for improvement."

"We estimate 30% – 50% intermediate term potential downside risk to CLEAR's share price and expect it to underperform the technology and transportation industries along with the broader equity market."

"Shareholders expect the Board to expedite the sale process and capitalize on expressions of interest – especially since Forward Air already has multiple private equity firms in its shareholder base."

"We find that its prices are on average 15%-20% higher. Weis' prices decreased 8% relative to peers between mid-year 2017 and 2018. As a result, we expect Weis' gross margins to be pressured in 2018."

"Prestige Brand's current CFO was the former CFO of Boulder Brands, another consumer product focused roll-up touting growth, but ultimately collapsed upon disappointment and an unexpected impairment."

"Based on the highly cash-generative nature of HHH’s real estate assets, we expect that HHH will redeem PSH’s preferred stock and increase its economic ownership of Vantage to 100% within three years"

"Federal reports detailed a "culture of concealment" at Boeing fostered under Muilenburg's leadership and that "the desire to meet goals and expectations jeopardized the safety of the flying public"."