Every emphasised callout and every pulled quote, extracted slide-by-slide. Search by keyword, filter by slide type or by source.
"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"
"In contrast to the CEO’s lofty claims, former employees paint a picture of a company still struggling with the same basic, unsolved issues that have blown up previous attempts at a viable solid-state battery for 50+ years."
"Are we to believe that AT&T – a business facing tremendous pressure – is cutting spending on IT services "just because"? Is this not begging the question? Even if true, could the CEO have said this in fewer than 600 words?"
"We will generally vote for proposals looking to separate the CEO and Chairman roles unless the company has governance structures in place that can satisfactorily counterbalance a combined chairman and CEO/ president post."
"We believe that UEC is a “trust me” story from a promotional CEO with documented connections to bad actors, and a resource base that has never been proven to have economically viable uranium that can be produced at scale."
"The CEO touted each company's "strong culture of innovation" and the attractive profile of the transaction. As the following slides will show, former Snap executives tell a different story about Snap's innovation culture."
"USCR's CEO promotes the Company's stock to retail investors. Investors should be aware Mr. Sandbrook pled guilty to reckless driving - indicative of questionable judgement. This is conveniently omitted from his biography."
"In total, since Clarence Otis was named CEO in 2004, Darden has spent approximately $6.1 billion – or $46.50 per Darden share, nearly the entire market capitalization of Darden – on capital expenditures and acquisitions."
"Chairman & CEO Jason Jiang, board member & venture capital star Neil Shen, and close business associate of Mr. Jiang & venture capital star Xiong Xiangdong were among the selling shareholders of Allyes at the rich price."
"After two years as CEO, Dr. Kleinfeld re-combined the Chairman and CEO positions. Since then, Dr. Kleinfeld has held both positions. But a lead independent director can be just as good as an independent chairman, right?"
"A close evaluation of the transaction shows that neither the CEO/founder of LiNiCo or Aqua Metals are putting any real cash into the deal. In fact, the Founder is receiving $500,000, but for no explicitly clear reason."
"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 longtime SCS executive stated his belief that Grossman “doesn’t have a strategy” beyond initially wanting to “flip it in six months,” did little diligence before taking the CEO role, and is in now in over his head."
"Looking carefully at CEO Jagdfeld's recent trading activity, we find he entered into his single largest stock sale transaction in his trading history on Feb 1, 2022 by disposing of 34,894 for proceeds of $9.8 million."
"In a chart filed in TASK's SEC prospectus, it claims growth to nearly 1,000 employees by 2012. However, other sources directly from the Company and CEO indicate a workforce closer to 270 – 400 at the same time period."
"The CEO of Porch is Matt Ehrlichman, the former Chief Strategy Officer, a named executive, at The Active Network (formerly NYSE: ACTV), a company that Spruce Point's founder Ben Axler successfully bet against in 2012."
"When we asked if the CEO was the one pushing to conceal device/safety events, the ex-employee stated “yeah, yeah, absolutely” and alleged “a lot of changes” to replace compliance-minded staff with more amenable ones."
"Multiple former employees detail Quantumscape’s ongoing problems with dendrites and imply the CEO is misleading investors with “hype”: “twisted the knobs,” “science is not there yet,” problems even at coin cell size"
"Our nominees will ask the right questions in the boardroom that we believe are not currently being asked due to the many interrelationships between the current Board members and AOL's Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong."
"Niccolo De Masi, Genius director and CEO of DMYD, has been vocal about Genius on his Twitter account. We find it very uncommon for a Company executive to be publicly promoting a sell-side analyst’s research report."
"Why did the compensation committee grant options on much harsher terms to a new CFO than to the CEO and his long-time associate Mr. Abbo? We observe that C3 does not have a formal Clawback Policy for fraud adopted."
"Based on a forensic linguistic analysis of LDOS's CEO at the recent Morgan Stanley Conference in Sept 2020, we believe he tried avoid direct comments on SD&A acquisition until finally claiming it's performing well."
"As CEO, Lance Fritz has only been earning ~83% of a 200% potential annual incentive bonus (only one year above 100%). This is a low earn rate and significantly below the best-in-class railroad CEO average of ~155%"
"We believe CEO Blackford just informed investors that the Company's widely assumed easiest source of growth, increasing share in the existing MCT market, holds at least 20% less potential than previously believed."
"Synergy, the company that has made the single largest purchase in the history of Ballard, is essentially owned and controlled by the local government (Yunfu City), the CEO, Ma Dongsheng, and some venture investors"
"In addition to the Rollins family selling stock, we observe that the CEO adopted a 10b5-1 trading plan to liquidate stock as early as October 2022, coincident with the completion of the Terminix / Rentokil merger."
"Investors in Comstock Mining (LODE) should come to grips with the fact that it has failed investors before in its previous efforts to become a mining company while under the management of CEO Corrado De Gasperis."
"In 2023, B4Ukraine wrote to Accor's CEO Sébastien Bazin cautioning that by remaining in Russia, companies face a growing risk of criminal liability for complicity in international crimes. Bazin has never replied."
"Here’s more evidence we believe the CEO is not entirely focused on ABML. He attempted to hide a recent Director role at True Nature Holdings. Cole’s other undisclosed positions were also with troubled companies."
"XPO's CEO Bradley Jacobs has lectured in the past about honesty. Our report will stress test XPO's financial statements and accounting to see if they give an honest view of its financial performance and outlook."
"Spruce Point is equally as concerned by the leadership chosen to support and oversee CEO Conroy, with multiple executives and Board members associated with companies that had financial restatements and scandals."
"Spruce Point finds that AMR's CEO Stetson has also engaged in undisclosed stock sales contrary to SEC guidelines which mandate that a Form 4 must be filed with two business days following an insider transaction."
"Monster's Co-CEO said they saw a shift to dollar channels which we view negatively. A search for “energy drinks” at some of the country's largest dollar stores returned more Celsius brands featured than Monster."
"Can you imagine this happening at any reputable company? Andy Moore is still the CEO of B. Riley Securities, and this begs the question – how many more undisclosed margin loans do RILY’s executives have at risk?"
"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."
"In sharp contrast to the CEO’s denials, every major transplant center we spoke with described what sounds to us like a racket, where they have no choice but to use TransMedics high-cost jets for air transport."
"Mr. Boychuk’s industry background and scheduled railroadine expertise make him the ideal partner for proposed CEO Jim Barber, representing an operational dream team with vast transportation network experience."
"Small problem with the CEO’s claim: six ex-employees imply it’s false, made up, or “total bullshit”, implying that QS is still struggling with dendrites and slamming the data as “useless,” “crude,” “immature”"
"Spruce Point has a track record with InnerWorkings, which was co-founded by TEM’s CEO and run by a TEM board member. We also have a track record with another promotional AI company touting big partnerships."
"Land & Buildings urges its fellow shareholders to WITHHOLD on CEO and Chairman Mr. Chad Williams and Chair of the Compensation Committee Mr. William Grabe at the QTS Realty Trust May 3, 2018 Annual Meeting."
"XPO’s CEO Brad Jacobs Known Business Associates Include Two Convicted Felons, A Director Whose Firm Was Just Sanctioned By FINRA, And An Audit Committee Director With A Role Promoting A $700M+ Ponzi Scheme"
"XPO's CEO Brad Jacobs Known Business Associates Include Two Convicted Felons, A Director Whose Firm Was Just Sanctioned By FINRA, And An Audit Committee Director With A Role Promoting A $700M+ Ponzi Scheme"
"We believe CEO Blackford has too frequently been shown to sugar coat or, frankly, be incorrect about key issues related to both the Company’s business prospects and the regulatory processes, in particular."
"A former employee in a regulatory role alleged a number of troubling interactions with the CEO, such as allegedly being pressured to doctor adverse event reports to downplay any link to TransMedics device."
"The level of stonewalling by the CEO – when asked for even the tiniest crumbs on EUV contribution – would alarm any investor who reviews each quarterly Q&A in the 5 years since its ACTIS EUV tool launched."
"With the context of knowing the CEO's predisposition to embellish and exaggerate, and before getting too excited about the TASK story, we suggest evaluating the Company's ability to hit its stated goals."
"Two different views on pricing, depending on which CEO you ask. Cintas sees no change, yet Unifirst sees consolidation causing disruption, customer dissatisfaction and prices tightening at big accounts."
"Confirming our suspicion about the potential to use TransMedics jets for free private air travel as a kickback or inducement, the CEO of the OPO recounted anecdotes of such offers from Trinity and NORA."
"WD-40 lists China as its biggest opportunity and the CEO has made claims of $100m in potential revenue in 2016. Fast forward to Q1 2020, the Company produced $2.3m of sales, or a run rate of just $9.2m"
"Spruce Point believes the bear case against FND is validated from recent disclosures by the CEO, General Counsel and Chairman of the Board, all of whom recently enacted insider stock selling programs."
"Allowed CEO Mark Lashier to consolidate Chairman role, add new directors with questionable independence from the CEO and receive generous compensation despite stock underperformance and missed targets"
"Since the appointment of Mr Looney as CEO (as a proxy for the current strategy) BP's TSR of 34% lags all of its peers (69% for Shell, 87% for Chevron, 101% for Total Energies and 143% for ExxonMobil)."
"AOL's EBITDA growth ranked lowest among its peers and free cash flow growth was near the lowest quartile, while its CEO and CFO bonus payouts ranked in the 83rd and 96th percentile compared to peers."
"The CEO claimed Remitly has a "secret sauce" in paid search, yet in a letter to the SEC from 2021 said that commercial data available could be used to reverse engineer its media investment strategy."
"Mr. Maaranu even alleges that when he visited the office he saw org charts that included “Philip something from Nuvei...as a corporate officer” – potentially a reference that CEO Fayer was involved?"
"We strongly believe our slate, with its legal technology and operating software expertise and experience running successful CEO searches, is best placed to hire, guide and oversee a world-class CEO."
"We strongly believe our slate, with its legal technology and operating software expertise and experience running successful CEO searches, is best placed to hire, guide and oversee a world-class CEO."
"The survey found that investors rank Phillips 66 last among its peers on operational execution, CEO effectiveness, capital-allocation strategy and overall delivery against its value-creation agenda."
"The survey found that investors rank Phillips 66 last among its peers on operational execution, CEO effectiveness, capital-allocation strategy and overall delivery against its value-creation agenda."
"Since the Board announced its intended promotion of Mr. Shaw to CEO, Norfolk Southern has only changed for the worse and shareholders have only suffered, as evidenced by an objective review of data."