Callouts & quotes from 3,339+ activist slides

"We believe a resurgence of door-to-door pest control sales models has also been chipping away at Rollins’ ability to source new customers. In fact, as we’ll discuss later in the report, Rollins recently acquired Fox Pest Control, a large door-to-door sales operation."

"We believe this is truly a unique opportunity to unlock significant value in Hyundai Motor Group by taking the necessary steps to realign its equity value with the top-class business that the Founding Family and the leadership of the Group have built over the decades"

"Investors should be attuned to Aerojet’s large revenue miss in Q4’18 that disappointed investors by nearly 15%. Given our fundamental review of its program and revenue opportunities, we believe this is just the beginning of the revenue disappointment story unfolding."

"Investors shouldn't just listen to Spruce Point in our belief that FND's share price is overvalued. A majority of sell-side promoters have a neutral/hold/market perform rating and are waiting to see improvement in the business and believe FND's issues are temporary."

"MSCI's leverage ratio keeps rising and is at a decade high which significantly increases the risk to equity holders. At the current time, we believe it is a recipe for disaster that leverage is rising while client Retention Rate falls and competitive risks increase."

"We believe Agilent's current valuation represents a discount to intrinsic value and does not fully reflect the company's high-quality business model, increasing mix of recurring revenue, strong long-term growth potential and significant margin expansion opportunity"

"Based on our own detailed analysis, we firmly believe that Capricorn's standalone value is at least 330 pence per share – representing a 50% upside to the current share price and implying that the Proposed Merger represents a value give-away of over US$500 million."

"While BOOT is struggling, it splurged on a brand new 116,000 square feet corporate headquarters which is 37% bigger that its existing space. Spruce Point believes that BOOT should be doing more with less and not expanding SG&A while it posts poor financial results."

"We believe Huntsman is deliberately including the positive impact of M&A in order to overstate its 2021 Adjusted EBITDA results by $92 million, in order to fool shareholders into believing its FALSE narrative of almost having achieved its 2018 Investor Day target."

"If Valeant’s durable portfolio were valued within the range of multiples of businesses that we believe to be comparable, and its patent cliff portfolio were valued using a DCF analysis, then we estimate that Valeant’s forward earnings multiple would be as follows:"

"We believe the widespread availability of such OTC alternatives that do not require a doctor consultation or subscription could negatively impact HIMS' core sexual health franchise, which relies on its ability to facilitate easy access to prescription medications."

"We believe the widespread availability of such OTC alternatives that do not require a doctor consultation or subscription could negatively impact HIMS’ core sexual health franchise, which relies on its ability to facilitate easy access to prescription medications."

"We believe that Ms. Giesselman’s significant leadership experience as a specialty chemicals industry and her expertise in growth strategies and innovation, as well as her service on a number of public company boards would make her a valuable addition to the Board."

"We believe MSCI is a classic case of a struggling company failing to transform itself while engaging in value-destructive (and even worse nepotism-like) acquisitions and share repurchases with abusive financial reporting and accounting tactics to bolster earnings."

"If Valeant’s durable portfolio were valued within the range of multiples of businesses that we believe to be comparable, and its patent cliff portfolio were valued using a DCF analysis, then we estimate that Valeant’s forward earnings multiple would be as follows:"

"We believe the Red Lobster Sale, combined with management and the Board’s poor capital allocation, excessive corporate spending, and lack of focus on restaurant operations, has already threatened the sustainability of Darden’s investment grade rating and dividend"

"We believe the Red Lobster Sale, combined with management and the Board’s poor capital allocation, excessive corporate spending, and lack of focus on restaurant operations, has already threatened the sustainability of Darden’s investment grade rating and dividend"

"Part 12. TransMedics device has no value proposition. Even its largest customers admit it has no clinical benefit to organs, using it off-label strictly for “surgeon lifestyle” and scheduling convenience; or, we believe, in exchange for organs steered improperly."

"The reality: not only do you have to believe in the underlying economics of the business, but you have to believe that (A) the sales today are real and self-sustaining, and (B) that the financing will continue to be there until Carvana is a sustainable business."

"Although operationally we believe SRG could be spun off in approximately 6 months, as discussed in Section XI, we would recommend a more conservative approach, with management and the Board focusing first on the operational turnaround and real estate separation."

"Although operationally we believe SRG could be spun off in approximately 6 months, as discussed in Section XI, we would recommend a more conservative approach, with management and the Board focusing first on the operational turnaround and real estate separation."

"Applying that rate of revenue contraction to each geography implies that areas outside those markets must grow 15% and 20%, respectively, to meet Street consensus, which we believe is unlikely, particularly given Skechers' challenges in the domestic U.S. market."

"In summary, the author believes IULs are complex instruments that contain features that are hard for the average consumer to understand; many of these features ultimately come with very high fees, which can threaten a policy's cash value during market downturns."

"We believe this is further evidence that INGN are nearing saturation. Would a company that is selling a market-leading product in a category that is only 11% penetrated really be seeing such significant margin pressure at such an early stage in its growth cycle?"

"Spruce Point believes investors should be outraged that management is receiving “off cycle” RSU grants to “retain” management. Is something going wrong at Stryker that the Board is helping to conceal from investors such that management needs inducements to stay?"

"Believes physicians will simply substitute generic suspension – “Yep, I agree 100%...that’s what I would do probably” – and listed similar precedents where an expensive branded drug was immediately substituted by an inexpensive generic in a different formulation"

"Spruce Point believes that the recent terrible financial results reported by Carvana continue to validate our concern about its uneconomic business model that isn’t scaling, is capital destructive, and favors insider enrichment over shareholder wealth creation."

"We believe that a key role of an independent board is to bring an outside perspective to challenge strategies that might have worked in the past but will likely need to evolve over time – contrary to Target’s board’s apparent instinct to maintain the status quo"

"We firmly believe that a comprehensive reconstitution of the Board, including the appointment of shareholder representatives and qualified independent directors, is necessary to ensure a thorough evaluation of all paths to delivering enhanced shareholder value."

"In order for [refranchising to 90%] to create value requires...selling nearly 500 stores at multiples higher than we believe are achievable...[and] trading multiple expansion to levels significantly higher than demonstrated on a sustained basis by casual diners"

"There is a $229m difference between the 2011 Adjusted EBITDA reported by Axalta and DuPont, for its Coatings business (same company, same year). We believe much of the difference is excess corporate expense, which in our view, burdens all of DuPont’s businesses"

"There is a $229m difference between the 2011 Adjusted EBITDA reported by Axalta and DuPont, for its Coatings business (same company, same year). We believe much of the difference is excess corporate expense, which in our view, burdens all of DuPont’s businesses"

"Ballard's press releases and local government officials would have you believe Foshan Feichi have produced 114 FCV buses. Based on our research, we believe they have likely produced less than 50 buses to date, and only 11 of those are licensed and on the road."

"Trian believes the mindset and culture at State Street has prioritized growth (in AUCA, AUM and revenue) over profitability. The “land grab” mentality must transition to a focus on EPS growth, return on invested capital and maximizing total shareholder returns"

"We believe that, even on reasonable base-case assumptions for growth in new products and the legacy business, respectively, Hill-Rom should miss consensus core revenue estimates by 2% – a top-line miss the likes of which the Company has not seen since Q2 FY16."

"During FY2018, PBH changed its organic revenue disclosure to “organic & proforma revenue growth” to include the benefit of the acquired brands growth. We believe investors should not give management credit for the high growth of PBH’s recently acquired brands."

"Today, we reveal why we believe EHang (NASDAQ: EH) is an elaborate stock promotion, built on largely fabricated revenues based on sham sales contracts with a customer who appears to us to be more interested in helping inflate the value of its investment in EH."

"When combining the opportunity to rationalize certain Technology and Development expenses with other growth and margin improvement opportunities, we believe GoDaddy should commit to delivering a growth + profitability metric of at least 40% by the end of 2024."

"Trian believes the successful execution of management's new strategic plan could result in Lazard earning slightly more than $3.50 per share in 2014, which could translate into an implied value per share of more than double the current trading price of $23.09"

"Intuit is one of the most US-centric software companies. We believe Intuit management often talks up the 50% international customer base of Mailchimp to suggest that it will catalyze international success despite years of struggles and little product synergy."

"PBH reports “non-GAAP adjusted free cash flow.” Spruce Point believes this is particularly egregious and aggressive, as the Company adds back integration and transition costs, therefore ignoring the costs of M&A but wanting to show investors all the benefits."

"We believe that WTRG subtly cut its organic growth estimate for water rate base growth between January and February 2023. The latest investor presentation uploaded February 27, 2023 now includes acquisitions to achieve the targets 6-7% rate base CAGR growth."

"We believe Bent Tree Properties is a company that provides land acquisition services. Land acquisition companies generally work under contract to secure land or mineral rights and then subsequently transfer those rights to the underlying investor or company."

"ECP provided Sungevity with project financing in 2013. The loan was repaid in December 2016, three months before the Company filled for bankruptcy protection. ECP exited Sungevity at the perfect time. We believe it is wise to follow the activity of insiders."

"It is this strategy, coupled with expanded trading, that has driven what we believe is essentially a modestly profitable (at a smaller scale) trading business to take on crushing debt levels and, in our opinion, destroy substantial amounts of investor funds."

"Greenlight believes both anecdotal evidence and methodological valuation flaws suggest that Allied’s portfolio investments have not been marked to current “fair value” according to Allied’s own standards or as required by the Investment Company Act of 1940."

"Dexcom recently amended its licensing agreement with Google whereby royalty payments were replaced by an up-front payment of $250M in DXCM shares. We believe this reflects Verily's loss of confidence in Dexcom's ability to come to market in a timely manner."

"The Company is arbitrarily selecting the ONLY time period in recent history where relative TSR against performance peers has performed better. We believe this is a blatant attempt to mislead shareholders on the Company's track record of dismal relative TSR."

"We believe that Globant should explicitly disclose to investors which of their related parties are affiliated with WPP. We believe the spirit of related party disclosure is to highlight to investors how much revenues are coming from your largest shareholder"

"Spruce Point believes it is a major red flag when a company stops being able to provide Free Cash Flow (FCF) guidance. We observe this happened after the departure of CFO Young in mid 2020. In the year he left, BR missed FCF guidance by an astounding 15.3%."

"Spruce Point has analyzed REZI’s guidance practices since coming public. We find a notable reduction in guidance practices starting in 2024 and accelerating into 2025. We believe this shift undermines confidence in the long-term visibility for the business."

"We believe that NICE's acquisition of inContact put it in position to increase share as customers demanded broader cloud capabilities. Meanwhile, Verint's acquisition of KANA simply expanded its suite of products without transforming its cloud capabilities."

"As discussed on slide 9, we believe HMHC's stock would have been higher after the announcement of strong Q4 results leading to a share price at or above $19.50 per share, implying an insufficient premium of 7.7% instead of the 36% advertised by the Company"

"We have a more sober view of Axon’s valuation as we believe there is ample room for disappointment around Axon’s ability to penetrate adjacent software needs of law enforcement, including dispatch, records management, and artificial intelligence analytics."

"According to an expert, due to nationalistic pride of wanting to partner with Amazon, we believe there will be fiercer competition resulting in: 1) Lower margins to Kornit or, 2) A complete loss of the business to a Japanese firm with more local resources."

"Spruce Point believes there is significant downside risk to MSCI’s share price as its premium multiple is reconsidered by institutional investors in the face of intensifying competition, moderating cash flow and dividend growth, and lower earnings quality."

"From a penny stock to a $5 billion market cap with no proven or probable reserves and now trading at 42x highly questionable 2026E revenue estimates, we believe investors should exercise extreme caution and believe there is 65%-85% potential downside risk."

"Spruce Point believes there is significant downside risk to PERI’s share price as the Company is signaling financial strain and will have difficulty in hitting lofty growth targets while cash flow is starting to contract and it accrues for severance costs."

"A majority of the BR stock promoters are neutral / hold with their BR recommendations. Yet, we don't believe any of the analysts have conducted a rigorous forensic review of the Company to stress test its accounting and claims of being a SaaS-like fintech."

"Spruce Point believes DY's margins are not likely sustainable and may have benefited from various actions that may be difficult to continue. As further evidence of our concern, management has walked back talk of what its long-term EBITDA margin should be."