Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"Allied's auditors, Arthur Andersen LLP, either would not, could not, or did not feel they were required to provide Allied's Board of Directors and Shareholders in 2001 the following assurance they had provided in previous years."

"We are concerned by the apparent divergence of cash costs related to capex and amounts recorded on the balance sheet within PP&E. Through 2023, the reported amounts reconciled, but in 2024 and 2025 it appears that they diverged."

"Dissenting views have no place at the company...different interpretations of the science. You're picking up on it [the discrepancies]. I'm sure a lot of the science team there would do it differently, but it's all up to the CEO."

"Ex-employees and leading researchers we interviewed indicate the notion "violated the laws of physics," was a crackpot idea, and one of the reasons the company doesn't "have the world's greatest reputation" in the battery space."

"Red flag 3: Solid-state cells expand while charging due to properties of lithium metal, dooming efforts to stack them in layers. Experts and ex-employees indicate it’s basically unsolvable: “mechanical breathing,” swollen cells."

"Based on the data below, since the deal was first announced on November 7, 2022, we suspect that Luxor and its affiliates, may have been, or may be currently short IAA to benefit from IAA's shares declining upon a failed merger."

"No. Although independent verification reports in China and toilet paper are often intended to hold the same substance, our research indicates that investors are much better off sticking with 2-4 ply toilet paper in the bathroom."

"We believe McDonald’s needs independent directors who will drive the Company’s commitments to ESG, including animal welfare, forward and protect shareholders’ interests because the current Board has historically failed to do so."

"Spruce Point frequently finds that when companies have trouble meeting their capex projections, it is at best an indication of poor financial management, and at worst a symptom of significant underlying problems in the business."

"Apparently, Spruce Point isn't the only one that has reservations about Director Harker's fitness for the Board. We see that she has consistently received the largest number of votes against her for the annual Director election."

"While Align has relative scale in manufacturing, it has not been pressured to leverage its scale to match competitors' prices until now, as it was effectively the only major player in the clear aligner space until the mid-2010s."

"Twist’s chip can only make smaller oligos, which are a small niche; limited growth opportunity; larger vendors will continue to dominate; Twist may “go bankrupt” or “collapse” because of their pricing; Novartis will reduce spend"

"Mr Christopher Jordinson, a former CEO of UCL Resources Limited (UCL), his nephew, Mr Joe Turner, and Mr Jonathan Breen were convicted and sentenced for their roles in an insider trading scheme which generated $20,000 in profit."

"In our opinion, Broad Ocean (002249 CH) is a weak partner for Ballard in China. Based in South China, it lacks a network into the central ministries that determine policies and SOE's that are the agents for delivering on policy."

"An executive named Gene Reznik touted by CEO Siebel as heading up a key growth initiative recently resigned in Jan 2022. Based on our analysis, sales and alliance executives have short duration tenures, often leaving under 2yrs."

"HIMS has gradually reduced its level of business and financial disclosure since the SPAC transaction. This behavioral pattern is consistent with companies that we've analyzed in the past that have delayed bad news for investors."

"We estimate that, when the effects of acquisitions and foreign exchange of acquisitions and foreign exchange movements are removed, Amdocs organic revenue contracted on an annual basis on average over all quarters since Q1 2014."

"Spruce Point observes a very abrupt shift in language around the acquisition of Carolina Aseptic and Dairy (completed Aug 31, 2021, $148m) and the Reedsburg Facility of Wisconsin Specialty Protein (completed May 29, 2021, $37m)."

"Investors are either giving Marathon no credit for the premium valuation of its leading retail and midstream businesses or almost no value for its world-class refining footprint. Either way: Marathon’s asset value remains locked"

"AOL should be “liberated” to engage in an aggressive broadband access migration, to re-establish its advertising credibility, and to develop (through acquisitions as well as organic growth) new brands, applications and features."

"Distributors purchase products from Herbalife at what HLF deems to be “wholesale” prices and consume the products themselves (“Internal Consumption”) or resell them at retail prices thereby capturing the markup (“Retail Profit”)"

"Axon's financial operating metrics continue to slow down and deteriorate. The fact that this happened ahead of the CFO transition, 10-K delay, and multiple SEC comment letters that Axon failed to promptly address are concerning."

"Once DuPont replaced management and started to execute on Trian’s operating initiatives, including eliminating the matrix structure, standalone DuPont improved organic growth by ~400bps and eliminated ~$1.7bn of costs pre-merger"

"Spruce Point believes there is a certain comedic humor in the ratings and price targets of MSCI. Notably, one of the highest price targets on the Street is Morgan Stanley, who recently upgraded the stock calling it a “Top Pick”."

"We believe there are two potential reasons why: (1) doing so shines a brighter light on the poor results of the non-Live offerings, and (2) Live results contain concerning data points that could potentially disappoint investors."

"We observe that PERI recently retracted key buzzwords from its self-description. However, most alarming is the removal of the reference to the Microsoft Bing partnership which is 35% of revenues and the contract expires in 2024."

"On behalf of Ancora’s clients, the destruction of value at Forward Air since 2023 by Chair George S. Mayes, Jr., Director Javier Polit and Director Laurie A. Tucker requires Ancora to attempt to remove the problematic directors."

"If Darden can execute on the operational opportunities that we will discuss prior to the Special Meeting, the potential for value creation is even greater than the value creation available through a real estate separation alone."

"The Board can begin working collaboratively with its largest shareholders on an orderly boardroom refreshment focused on attracting individuals who possess strong track records of value creation and relevant industry experience."

"It takes 6 months to learn how to even use the machine; extremely complex and difficult to maintain; can become a “very expensive doorstop”; easy to break with high downtimes; Bristol wouldn’t let the “average scientist” use it."

"Yet this even likely overstates the true extent of the misrepresentation, as our field work found many examples of ghost and clone stores which were listed as ‘active’ on BEKE’s platform and existed on paper, but not in reality."

"Since other benefit managers have largely adopted the PGNY treatment protocol, we expect that fertility outcomes, a major (although questionable) marketing point for PGNY, will cease to be a point of competitive differentiation."

"Aldi drives superior retention of its customers. Below, an Earnest Research cohort analysis of new Weis and Aldi shoppers in July 2017 shows 15.9% of Aldi customers continued to shop at Aldi after 12 months versus 10.7% at Weis."

"Based on peer data and an expert interview, we believe that Resideo's average customer life assumption of 12 years in the Snap One transaction to be extremely aggressive and well beyond the 7 – 8 years supported by our analysis."

"As investors watch yet another SPAC fail to deliver on lofty projections and with its cash balance burning away like a rocket with a fuel leak (which Astra has experienced), Astra shares will be left smoldering on the launchpad."

"Conversations with an individual familiar with Astra’s rocket design and manufacturing suggest investors may have to endure an uncomfortably high rate of failure as the company ramps to a targeted monthly launch cadence in 2022."

"Absent M&A, FX impacts, and the beneficial effects of ASC 606 (discussed later), Spruce Point estimates that Verint would have seen top-line contraction, as opposed to the high-single-digit top-line growth reported by management"

"Absent M&A, FX impacts, and the beneficial effects of ASC 606 (discussed later), Spruce Point estimates that Verint would have seen top-line contraction, as opposed to the high-single-digit top-line growth reported by management"

"Similar to Amcor’s merger with Bemis, WestRock acquired KapStone in January 2018 in a $5 billion dollar deal. Since announcing the acquisition, shares have fallen over [50%] from continued revenue misses vs. analysts’ estimates."

"But it indicates his playbook, which we encourage investors to note, as they gauge the veracity of his claims regarding Nevro's supposed safety, efficacy, and lack of explants, particularly next week at the JP Morgan conference."

"Contrary to his May comments that “the use of lower frequencies standalone or combined would increase over time,” it is abundantly clear that Omnia remains just another high frequency stimulator – even about a year after launch."

"United Airlines owned warrants in CLEAR that could be exercised if certain performance conditions were met. All of the warrants were exercised or expired in 2024 and United no longer discloses CLEAR as an investment in its 10-K."

"We estimate that Nova’s share price has near-term downside risk of approximately 45% - 60% ($2.50 - $3.50 per ADS), but under certain scenarios, including a potential loss of a $43.5m Department of War award, up to 100% downside"

"Nova may also be signaling weaker confidence in its prospects. We noticed the Company removed a competitive strength that it has a commercially viable project. Moreover, it stopped referring to its discovery as "truly tier one"."

"Based on multiple interviews with former Carvana employees, a concerning lack of fundamental automotive and logistics know-how at the senior management level contributed to poor execution as market dynamics shifted in late 2021."

"Gross margins materially compressed from the 40% - 50% range to 23% in 2019. The compression was from cost of good sold rising much faster than revenues. This could suggest L3Harris pushed high priced product to its distributor."

"The ex-employee indicated that the smell of the Vykat table versus placebo unblinded the trial and allowed parents to game the trial; and that individuals inside Soleno were concerned about the impact on HQ-CT hyperphagia scores"

"Looking carefully at the Company's financial reporting language, it says "we renegotiated certain contracts with payments processors", which contradicts the prior statement of the CFO who said just one contract with one partner."

"cardiotoxicity is a feature, not a bug, and explains one of the many reasons why virtually large pharma company went after the H3 receptor for more than two decades – with a 100% failure rate due to lack of efficacy or toxicity."

"HARMONY 1 and the other pivotal trials allowed concomitant use of a wide range of medications for narcolepsy, cataplexy, and excessive daytime sleepiness, creating a confounding factor that renders the trials flawed and useless."

"In July 2021, Generac recently conducted a recall of more than 350,000 backup portable generators due to eight injuries, including seven finger amputations. There are currently personal injury lawsuits related to these injuries."

"We view this as a stronger indicator that it is looking more carefully at goodwill impairment. We believe qualitative testing is more subjective relative to quantitative testing and may have allowed Stryker to defer impairments."

"The least squared trendline in figure 1 indicates that the statistically expected outcome for the stock of a suing company is a valuation decline of 80% against the index over the next 6 years (2,192 days) after the publication."

"Our investigator visited the property in March 2020 and confirmed that minimal improvements have been made. We see construction to the right of the greenhouses, of what appears to be the early construction of an empty warehouse."

"Preventing shareholders who do not support the Company's failed leadership and oversight from purchasing additional stock reflects exceptionally poor governance and underscores the immediate need for accountability at Southwest."

"INOD was nowhere to be found in this fundraising blitz. Instead, it appears INOD's management was busy crafting press releases to pump its stock price and trying to convince shareholders it offered a top-of-the-line AI platform."

"Ceres’ royalty outlook from Doosan is objectively weak, and the evidence across disclosures, Korean filings, bid results, and Doosan’s own Q3 investor materials makes this increasingly clear that it will likely continue to stay."

"The bull-case for the drugs and company is that this is a tumor-agnostic therapeutic approach with wide potential therapeutic applications. However, PMV's proposed therapeutic strategy has been tried before, and it never worked."

"The loss of the PPB will undoubtedly hit margins. While the sell-side optimistically projects a gross margin rebound and a reversal in R&D and SG&A as a percentage of revenue, the changes to tax policy make this scenario absurd."

"Our modeling reveals that the average annual reagent revenues per fully installed system is below $40,000 and is trailing down, despite management claiming it to be somewhere around $55,000 (average of $45,000 to $65,000 range)."