Callouts & quotes from 26,677+ activist slides

"We wish sell-side analysts – who haven't the tools, inclination, or interest to do the work – would respect the segregation of our jobs and not offer hollow reassurances to investors in these situations."

"The upper bound of management's 2019 revenue is not achieved through "share gains" or "above market growth" – you get to $14.3 billion just by taking the market growth forecasts provided by management..."

"Throughout his career, Mr. Wilson has worked with companies as an investor, a Board member, and an advisor, to address capital allocation strategies and to substantially enhance operational efficiencies."

"On the day the patent expires (the “patent cliff”), low-cost, generic products can enter the market. If generics enter, sales of more expensive, previously patented products usually decline substantially"

"Furthermore, we believe YY either transferred roughly RMB 1.326 billion to its WFOEs—the majority of which would have been transferred to its offshore WFOEs illegally—, or the cash simply does not exist."

"THE PARTICIPANTS STRONGLY ADVISE ALL SHAREHOLDERS OF THE COMPANY TO READ THE DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT AND OTHER PROXY MATERIALS AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION."

"We rebuilt the 2016 SSR pool by beginning with 2015 SSR pool and then adjusting for acquired properties and properties released after a period of vacancy to arrive at proper comparison to the prior year."

"BNY Mellon can scale its existing infrastructure to create a major passive asset manager, but successful execution requires new leadership, new technology, new product design teams and new marketing plan"

"Based on its (1) mix of emerging and developed market, (2) global scale and (3) significant marketing investments, we believe P&G should grow organic sales consistently at a 5% level on a long-term basis"

"Trian recommends that management explore share repurchases beyond GE’s initial guidance; we believe there is an opportunity to return over 40% of the current market cap to shareholders by the end of 2018"

"Trian recommends that management explore share repurchases beyond GE’s initial guidance; we believe there is an opportunity to return over 40% of the current market cap to shareholders by the end of 2018"

"Investors should be alarmed that unlike most of its peers, Samsara does not provide the most basic level of transparency on key performance indicators such as net subscriber additions and customer churn."

"Trian has a long track record to help investors judge, and its record of short-slate board participation and activism appears positive and constructive, and oriented towards longer-term value creation..."

"Retail’s leading position in a structurally attractive, fragmented distribution landscape amplifies the return on resolution of this cost issue, enhancing Retail’s position as a long-term secular winner."

"Phillips 66's conglomerate structure's leads to a low valuation multiple. Several recent midstream acquisitions were dilutive but could have been accretive for a standalone Phillips 66 midstream company."

"The implied value per TWX share represents a 30.2% - 48.5% premium to the current TWX stock price - implying aggregate incremental value of approximately $25 - $40 billion or $5.23 - $8.39 per TWX share."

"Based on the Comparable Company Analysis, a Broadband Asset Value multiple of 8.0x - 9.0x 2006PF OIBDA appears to be a reasonable range for TWC as a seasoned, fully distributed “must have” cable company."

"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."

"We believe that all of Herbalife’s payments to distributors are Recruiting Rewards, regardless of what they are called by Herbalife, and should be accounted for as commissions in HLF’s operating expenses"

"Phillips 66’s conglomerate structure’s leads to a low valuation multiple. Several recent midstream acquisitions were dilutive but could have been accretive for a standalone Phillips 66 midstream company."

"Given the trend toward expensive, human-intensive service delivery, we question whether Intuit’s Consumer segment should be valued more like a company such as TaskUs, which trades at just 1x NTM revenue."

"We find it concerning that accounts receivable has grown over 4x since 2018/2019, while the allowance for doubtful accounts has barely changed and remains far below past levels as a percent of gross A/R."

"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."

"Diane D. Dalmy was a Colorado Attorney used by UEC who was later charged by the SEC for a fraudulent scheme to issue false legal opinions. The DOJ also brought a case which resulted in 2 years of prison."

"Despite its stock decline post a downgrade by Stifel, and PERI raising its outlook, investors should be spooked to see that both the CFO and President of Undertone sold stock around the time of earnings."

"Perion just changed its SORT® performance claims and removed the source of the recent performance. It also obscured an apples-to-apples comparison by creating many more verticals and re-labeling results."

"If any members of the Board had knowledge of these serious issues for longer than what is implied in the Company’s recent disclosures, we believe those directors should immediately resign from the Board."

"But we know that Aurora has basically settled on the current generation of self-driving architecture, and as a result, we’re confident that they’ll be boxed into an operational and economic disadvantage."

"BHP Billiton Group operates in a business sector where proper financial, strategic and operational discipline is key to building and delivering optimal shareholder value - and avoiding value destruction."

"The intrinsic value of BHP’s US petroleum business is obscured by bundling it with BHP’s other assets within an overly complex group structure while managed from a great distance, with insufficient focus"

"As such, the fair value determination of the Level 3 derivatives allows for significant management discretion in its valuation and makes this category of derivative extremely susceptible to manipulation."

"As shown below, changing the Company's cost of capital by borrowing at today's ultra-low interest rates and using debt proceeds to repurchase ADT's stock results in a significant increase in equity value"

"Bunge is a cash incinerating agribusiness roll-up which we estimate has a cumulative cash flow deficit of ($1.6bn) since 1999 while distributing $4.7bn and $3.9bn towards dividends and share repurchases."

"Based on our analysis, which adjusts from the sale of U.S. (Amcor) and European “EC” (Bemis) assets, we estimate that Bemis and legacy Amcor were declining 3.0% and 4.0%, respectively, through Sept 2019."

"Based on our analysis, which adjusts from the sale of U.S. (Amcor) and European “EC” (Bemis) assets, we estimate that Bemis and legacy Amcor were declining 3.0% and 4.0%, respectively, through Sept 2019."

"Even before the FTC Settlement was announced, Herbalife began to engage in deceptive characterizations of the FTC settlement and its impact on its own business in an effort to prevent distributor flight."

"It is therefore not surprising that Nevro and its peers appear downright paranoid about doing any long term studies, preferring to cease evaluation at the 3-12 month mark lest they blow up reimbursement."

"Muddy Waters, LLC believes that CCME is engaging in a massive "pump and dump" scheme whereby it significantly inflates revenue and profits in order to enrich management through earn-outs and stock sales."

"When adding up the periodic net reductions (-€44.7 million + -€156.7 million + -109.7 million), Vivion’s controlling shareholders have been repaid at least €311.1 million (which as we show below is low)."

"He does. He has his paid - the biggest whore in my field in cardiac surgery was a guy named Abbas Ardehali at UCLA who was going around telling everybody that every heart should be put on the OCS system."

"The practice appears to be driven by surgeon ineptitude as well as a strategic decision, as the TransMedics pump seems to require collecting blood from the donor, which is used to then perfuse the organ."

"In 2024, Norfolk Southern has had derailments in ~14% of the U.S. states in which it operates. Last month’s derailment in Pennsylvania caused approximately $2.5 million in damages to equipment and track."

"The Board does not appear to have addressed excessive turnover in key operational roles. We believe shareholders are concerned that instability in key roles, particularly operations, hampers performance."

"We believe Mr. Stengel has ignored concerns about AOL's Peer Group expressed by Glass Lewis and has continued to oversee the construction of a peer group that violates ISS and Glass Lewis best practices."

"Though analysts project declining sales growth, they foresee margin expansion at the same time. This pair of estimates makes little sense to us and should make investors skeptical of consensus estimates."

"Fluid retention is a well-known, direct effect that is inherent to diazoxide’s KATP-channel based mechanism of action – ALL patients treated with diazoxide will retain water – via three distinct avenues."

"The KOL characterized Vykat as a total flop and exhibited concern about a cover-up and misrepresentation of the drug’s toxicity profile – and fears a looming safety debacle as patients begin to trial it."

"I haven't had emails from my patients or patients' families, which is very interesting, even though this is a pretty active community. So, that's just interesting, but I haven't, and that's maybe telling"

"LSPD Payments is so critical to the investment story, yet LSPD doesn't disclose how many paying customers it actually has, and quickly introduced and then abandoned a KPI called "Payments Adoption Rate"."

"Compensation structure was allegedly designed to incentivize off-label fraud; regional managers and reps hounded reimbursement staff for information they could use to convert off-label scrips to on-label"

"Spruce Point believes that ROAD's disclosures of its aggregate reserves are inadequate to fully access the risks of owning its shares or its valuation relative to peers that do disclose such information."

"I think 30% of drug patients, treated patients actually developed edema, while 10% of the placebo developed edema, which is 1 in 10 in the placebo group developed edema. I'm more worried about the edema."

"Even before the FTC Settlement was announced, Herbalife began to engage in deceptive characterizations of the FTC settlement and its impact on its own business in an effort to prevent distributor flight."

"In December 2017, after a contested proxy contest where Trian received the support of leading proxy advisory services, ISS and Glass Lewis, P&G announced that Nelson Peltz would be appointed to its Board"

"Many of our best investments have emerged when other investors whose time horizons are short term, discard great companies at prices that look extraordinarily attractive when one has a long-term horizon."

"Ultimately, we believe the market is mispricing the risk of DKNG losing market share during its peak Q4 earnings season given MLB playoffs, start of the NBA season, and the NFL and NCAA football seasons."

"Spruce Point has been following the DKNG story closely, and despite the recent share price movement and other prescient short-seller critiques, we believe there is still significantly more downside risk."

"Despite this length of time, these Board members only own 26,073 shares outright, or 0.12% of the outstanding, and four of the board members own 0 shares outright, despite their long tenure on the Board."

"Our survey reveals that 96% of respondents believe that Vets First Choice brings integrity in regards to an area of animal pharma that historically has had a very bad reputation filled with bad players."

"An interview Spruce Point conducted with a former SafeCharge employee confirmed our suspicions that the SafeCharge acquisition had not gone according to plan and was experiencing lower growth prospects."