Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"We believe Huntsman should both explore ways to transition customers away from raw material-indexed contracts, and concurrently develop a plan to transition volumes away from end markets that predominantly use such contracts."

"The RBOCs are currently courting consumers with aggressive prices. Verizon and AT&T currently offer introductory DSL rates of as low as $15 per month for the first year, less than AOL charges for its standard dial-up service."

"Per Herbalife’s rules, “the purchase of products primarily as an attempt to qualify for advancement in the Marketing Plan is not permitted;” yet, Powell purchases just enough Personal Volume each month to advance up the chain"

"Incomes applicable to the individuals (or examples) depicted [are] not average. For average financial performance data, see the Statement of Average Gross Compensation of U.S. Supervisors at Herbalife.com and MyHerbalife.com."

"If a plan purports to sell a product or service, check to see whether its price is inflated, whether new members must buy costly inventory, or whether members make most “sales” to other members rather than the general public."

"Perion cites awards related to its SORT® cookieless technology, but when we investigated the awards carefully and evaluated the criteria, we identified numerous concerns about the rigor and relevance of the award recognition."

"We believe releasing the GSEs from conservatorship could generate ~$300 billion for taxpayers, while maintaining the same availability and affordability of mortgage financing that exists today with the GSEs in conservatorship"

"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."

"Beware of hyper promotional technology companies throwing spaghetti on the wall to find a business model. We will explain why we believe Porch.com is the mirror image of The Active Network, a successful short from years past."

"Two Chinese advertising companies provided us data from IQ’s back-end system which show that IQ’s actual mobile DAUs from September 2019 were 60.3% lower than the 175 million average mobile DAUs claimed by IQ in October 2019."

"Being an S&P 500 index member is a validation of absolutely nothing, and can be a wasteland of corporate mediocrity. It affords investors zero protections against companies and their ability to scheme investors. Buyer beware!"

"Spruce Point believes BR is retroactively reducing segment margins, notably in its Global Technology and Operations segment by approximately 80 - 90 basis points, with a reclassification involving foreign exchange allocation."

"Spruce Point believes that any failure by management to disclose its full financial outlook to prospective buyers could, at the very least, provide sufficient grounds for Advent to ask Forescout to renegotiate the deal price."

"According to BlackRock, it is in the best interest of their clients to have their capital invested in a company whose CEO has a serious criminal record for falsifying the financial statement of another publicly listed company"

"Not much benefit from the machine, at most incremental; unusable for early-stage drug discovery given its lack of throughput; wouldn't use it “even if it was affordable” extremely niche instrument for occasional, one-off use."

"A recent Tegus interview conducted Oct 4, 2021 of both a former Zimmer Biomet and Stryker employee confirms that the market has shifted towards giving away the robots for free or reduced cost in exchange for implant minimums."

"Post-unification discounted off-market share buybacks are the clear gateway to greater franking credit usage and the increased shareholder value which can be delivered in that way for the benefit of all of BHP’s shareholders."

"This acquisition is puzzling, and might only make sense from a financial engineering perspective where Olam buys positions at various prices from low to high, then books a) revaluation gains for throwing good money after bad."

"I think this is a huge swing for Construction Partners. It's a completely new geography. I think they are paying full value plus plus for that business. I think they don't know Texas and they don't know Wheeler [the founder]."

"Logically, if in 2020 the lower margin cohorts from 2018 and 2020 grew to become the majority of the TPV, we would expect the average take rates to fall; however, the opposite occurred, and average take rates spiked by 17.5%."

"Land & Buildings seriously questions whether the NHI directors can faithfully execute their fiduciary duties to shareholders given their longstanding professional and personal relationships with Robert Adams and Andrew Adams."

"Approximately 52% of e-commerce Sales is Retargeting, with Incrementality of Only ~25%-35%. We Estimate Q1 2025 Churn is ~23%. APP’s Code Evidences its Business is Built on Systematically Violating Third Party Platforms’ TOS."

"At a $36 share price (adjusting for ~$4 of equity value ascribed to the NWC at the Mall and International Stores), Borders would trade at 7x '08E EBITDA, 7.5x '08E EBITDAR and approximately 11x '08E Maintenance Free Cash Flow"

"A current Joyn executive called them “a glorified CRO” and said that while of their R&D spend is with Ginkgo today, by virtue of it being a captive entity, they’d slash that to 15-20% of their R&D budget if it was up to them."

"While the CCASS data is inconclusive as to the exact number of shares pledged the significant movement of shares into the CCASS clearing system gives a strong indication that a significant amount of Huishan shares is pledged."

"Recall on the previous slide, G&K revenue guidance was suppressed ~$165-$195 below G&K projections. Is it a coincidence that Cintas actual results came in above the initial range by an amount close to the reduced G&K revenue?"

"In 2018, Aerojet benefitted from boosts in missile orders which will not be repeated in the 2019 budget. Based on the 2020E overall budget, key programs are expected to fall by 11% driven by declines in THAAD and PAC-3 / MSE."

"Without a proper focus on Kao’s strongest brands, it is hard to believe that Kao has the same ‘right to win’ in the global marketplace as peers and its poor portfolio management will continue to act as a drag on a turnaround."

"We believe releasing the GSEs from conservatorship could generate ~$300 billion for taxpayers, while maintaining the same availability and affordability of mortgage financing that exists today with the GSEs in conservatorship"

"Not only do we believe Zillow will fall well short of these targets, but the Company also quietly excluded some of these targets from their 2024 investor presentation, without ever having publicly commented on the retraction."

"We believe a large driver of Zillow's recent push for repurchases (the Company has spent nearly $1.4 billion over the last two years) is to offset dilution from the Company's overly-indulgent stock-based compensation program."

"These results have rightfully led investors to dismiss the Company’s subsequent targets – not based on their estimation of the opportunity, but on their estimation of the management team’s ability to achieve its stated goals."

"Nieuwoudt's extensive experience evaluating plans to maximize shareholder value and investing across the energy sector, as well as her public company board experience, would make her a valuable addition to the Phillips Board."

"The surgeon indicated that the TransMedics retrieval surgeon was aware of the damage but withheld it - although, as indicated previously, TransMedics allegedly prevents them from communicating directly with receiving centers."

"Investors were initially told that proceeds from the SPAC meant financing risk would be "substantially eliminated." A year and half later, the company needs additional funding just to get commercial operations off the ground."

"We expect management will wrack its brain to find another excuse about why it is hiring engineers to run its internal bot network. We thought we would help. Management or IR, please feel free to cut and paste the reply below."

"IRBT would like you to believe they are in an "explosion" stage. However, with robotic vacuum cleaners now having been on the market for over a decade, our opinion is that its products are really in the commoditization stage."

"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."

"CHD acquired Waterpik clear of any loss accruals for product liability. In 2018, there was an FDA recall for the Sonic-Fusion product that CHD conveniently didn’t highlight. Personal injury lawyers are clamoring for lawsuits."

"Spruce Point finds it highly unusual that all its executive officers serve at the discretion of the Board except the Financial Controller and Chief Accounting Officer, who serves at the discretion of Chairman and CEO Farrell."

"We think it says a lot about UFPT’s management team and the future direction of the company under their leadership that instead of telling investors about ISRG’s plan to insource drapes they instead sold $51 million of stock."

"This leads us to conclude that Trustpilot is not only accepting but fostering fake review services as it gives Trustpilot the opportunity for selective enforcement that benefits paying clients and hurts non-paying businesses."

"Bisher haben wir berechnet, dass 77 % der HelloFresh-Bestände von Dominik Richter über DSR Ventures verpfändet sind. Dies bedeutet, dass ein weiterer Rückgang des Aktienkurses um 23% einen weiteren Margin Call auslösen würde."

"Enfusion's Audit Chairman was the Chief Accounting Officer and Controller at General Electric when the SEC slammed it with a $200 million penalty for misleading investors related to costs, receivables and financial estimates."

"The ACTIS A150 is an earlier version, and it has a lot of problems. When the company switched to EUV, it had to change the structure of the chamber, and there were some problems regarding the chamber structure and the source."

"They were replacing them every, give or take, two weeks. Being able to work on the system became rather challenging because one of the things with EUV is you can't really have it travel through air; you have to make a vacuum."

"Explore the key issues driving the Streamline 66 campaign – where Phillips 66 went wrong, how the Company can regain its industry-leading position and boost returns, and what shareholders need to do to enact positive change."

"Explore the key issues driving the Streamline 66 campaign - where Phillips 66 went wrong, how the Company can regain its industry-leading position and boost returns, and what shareholders need to do to enact positive change."

"BRX stuns investors by announcing that throughout its entire history as a public company its senior officers had been smoothing income items both up and down to create the illusion of consistent SS NOI growth across quarters"

"We give credit to Generac’s CEO for relentlessly promoting and evangelizing the investment story. The public should review his seven most recent CNBC appearances, especially his three “Mad Money” appearances with Jim Cramer."

"In reality, Mr. Fife is not a truly independent director, and as a senior advisor to BC Partners, we believe he will still be heavily inclined to protect BC Partners' interests above the interests of the common shareholders."

"We find Procept’s historical pattern of inventory reclassifications and COGS definition changes, accompanied by extra mid-year auditor work, troubling. As a result, we lack confidence in the Company’s reported gross margins."

"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."

"It is inconceivable to us that Bo Hu would be able to understate its revenue by over $200 million (or 99.9%) – at over $200 million in annual revenue, Bo Hu would be one of the larger privately-owned businesses in Zhanjiang."

"As we have already explained in one of the previous answers, BaFin is checking the legal ramifications of the Muddy Waters report. In our estimation, legal action against Muddy Waters is currently not sufficiently promising."

"While numerous studies provided evidence that the stent retriever method was safe, effective, and superior to the prevailing standard of care, concurrent studies which focused on aspiration thrombectomy were less successful."

"We found that 63% of respondents who used the Dexcom G4 or G5 stockpiled legacy Dexcom CGMs in anticipation of the release of the G6 and its more expensive sensors (taking into account the fact that the G6 cannot be hacked)."

"Insiders have been aggressive sellers of DXCM shares throughout the history of the Company, and sold in particular size as the stock ran up in 2015. Insiders and directors now own just 1.8% of shares, down from 8.2% in 2012."

"Upon learning of our search interest in Boot Barn, Facebook served dozens of sponsored ads for boots, none of which were from Boot Barn. In fact, even a search of Boot Barn returned a sponsored ad for new competitor Tecovas."

"In contrast to the significant opportunity touted by the Company, we learned that the margins in this region are typically dilutive because a majority of the market is low-cost driven and not seeking premium priced products."