Callouts & quotes from 1,436+ activist slides

"“The bottom line is that there is no compelling valuation opportunity in separating our retail business, and that any potential separation will cause loss of integration synergies, additional cash needed to maintain appropriate balance sheet strength, increase volatility in the remaining business, and, we believe, result in long term value disruption.” — Gary Heminger, Former Chairman & CEO of Marathon Petroleum"

""The reality is that there are several hundred new entrants in the market. Basically 99% or more of these brands will not survive, but the problem is that they do take market share." — Pierre Pringuet, CEO of Pernod Ricard. "In the US what did happen is you’ve had a lot of competitive entry; I think there are over 200 brands or items that came into the market in the last two years" — Ivan Menezes, CEO of Diageo."

""So we’ve got Alex [Fala] who is our FO. He’s been with me for just on a year now and he’s stepping into the role as acting CEO to free myself up to go out and find that global CE that we’re looking for; who knows how to grow a business from that $20 million of revenue to over $100 million of revenue, and in quick order." — Vaughan Rowsell, Exit Interview: Vaughan Rowsell steps down as CEO of Vend, Idealog, 2016"

""This is a market saturated with competition and regulation, the small players will not survive, so consolidation is a good move for the company." — SafeCharge CEO Avgi; "The acquisition is highly strategic and complementary to both businesses, aimed at accelerating the growth of the combined organization. It further strengthens Nuvei's payment technology and creates a truly global presence." — Nuvei CEO Fayer"

""We think we're about structured correctly for how we see each one of these markets today...I think Fred and Hudson made the point, we did the restructuring for the spin in front, not after. So, we like the size of the organization today, in fact, you'll see a little bit of increase - no, not a little bit. You'll see some investment in the R&D side." — Greg Poling, CEO, GCP Applied Technologies (January 2016)"

""The video advertising market is massive but highly concentrated among the largest publishers and broadcasters," said Doron Gerstel, Perion's CEO. "Just as Shopify's platform enables thousands of stores to compete with Amazon and Walmart, Vidazoo empowers hundreds of video-hungry publishers with a simple, highly scalable, plug-and-play video solution." — Doron Gerstel, Perion CEO (Deal Press Release Oct 2021)"

"CEO Demarco Q3'16: “At these estimated production levels, we believe the potential market opportunity for Gremlin type aircraft is in the high several hundreds of millions of dollars up into billions of dollars” — Eric DeMarco. CEO Eric DeMarco: “It is very competitive, I am sorry, I did not talk about it in the script and I am not talking about it anymore. It's focus time. So, I apologize.” — Eric DeMarco."

"“If you are lucky enough to get a hold of someone from Motif, they are very spicy about Ginkgo. They did not have a good experience with them and separated themselves as completely from Ginkgo as they could at the earliest possible date. I've not been told any of the details. All I know is that the CEO of Motif is barely on speaking terms with the Ginkgo folks anymore…” — Director-level employee of Joyn Bio"

"Gross margin was affected by product mix, including an increase in customer-funded R&D and early-stage programs. The inclusion of Themis, which has lower gross margins as well as an inventory step-up associated with the Themis purchase accounting. Germane will be dilutive to our gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin in FY 2019, but accretive to fiscal 2019 adjusted EPS — CEO Aslett on Q4'18 Earnings Call"

""We continue to remain focused as a Company and our Board of Directors on deleveraging. I think that when you look at our targets going out 2015 and 2016, our leverage ratios during that time period, particularly when you take into account an IPO during that time period, that our leverage ratios go to our long-time stated objective of 2.0 times our EBITDA." — Peter Huntsman, President & CEO, September 2013"

"「この1年ほど、業界は全体的に低迷しています。TSMCは投資を控えてきました。また、インテルも1年以上前から検査装置などの発注を控えてきました。」 — 半導体製造装置企業の上席幹部として長年の経験を持ち、レーザーテックのCEOに親しい人物; 「TSMCは発注を延期しています。アリゾナ州の建設計画は保留状態です。仕入れ先に対してそう言っています」 — インテルの上席エンジニアとして長年の経験を持ち、極端紫外線関連の製造について管理責任を持つ人物; 「サンノゼ市の工場にはレーザーテック製の装置が3台しかありません。また、工場は装置を増やす気はありません。私の元同僚のうち何人かは、オレゴン州に異動させられました。まず、数人をアリゾナ州に異動させて、その後、アリゾナ州から（オレゴン州の）ポートランド市に異動させました」 — インテルのマスク工場を現場で担当していた、レーザーテックの元フィールド・サービス・エンジニア"

"“I do belong to the camp where I think there is clear space for a product that is oral and has the tolerability that we believe our TYK2 agent has and has a efficacy that is comparable to biologics to carve a really important space in the market. And we do look at that opportunity as a really meaningful opportunity for us.” — Giovanni Caforio, Chairman & CEO, Guggenheim Partner Oncology Day, February 2019"

""We believe a separation of our retail business from the remainder of Valero by way of a tax-efficient distribution will create operational flexibility within the businesses and unlock value for our shareholders... As independent companies, both retail and the remaining business will be better-positioned to focus on their industry-specific strategies." — Bill Klesse, Valero Chairman and CEO, July 31, 2012"

""During the fourth quarter, we achieved our strategic priority targets for shareholder distributions and asset dispositions." — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, January 31, 2025; "Yesterday afternoon PSX announced it will acquire Pinnacle Midstream for 5 50mm... While the deal looks fine on its own, we suspect investors will react negatively to PSX's decision on capital allocation." — TPH & Co., May 21, 2024"

"“Mr. Tan has not sold a single share of Qutoutiao during the IPO or after the IPO, and has taken the CEO role to drive the business forward. All the shares owned by Mr. Tan are founder’s shares, and Mr. Tan has not earned any share rewards for his role as the CEO or Chairman of the Company. Mr. Tan has not pledged any of his shares to obtain cash advances either.” — Qutoutiao (quoted by Wolfpack Research)"

"[Y]ou can see as you move to the right, national accounts spaces for clients with employees over 1,000. We have about a little over $2 billion of revenue in that space and 4,000 clients. — Chris Reidy, CFO; And so this business -- our upmarket business is a little less than 20% of our overall [ES] revenues. So just to kind of put things in context. And it's 2,000 to 3,000 clients. — Carlos Rodriguez, CEO"

""ISS' quantitative analysis indicates that CEO pay significantly outranked peer companies within similar sector and size ranges, while 1- and 3-year TSRs were at or near the bottom ranking of the same peer group. Specifically, relative TSR performance has been at the lower end of the bottom quartile of peers while CEO pay has been in the top quartile." — ISS Proxy Advisory Services, Hess Core Report 2012"

"“nearly impossible to use”; “it has a lot more side effects”; “you have to repeatedly dose it during the day at these high levels and put the person at significant risk...DCCR was designed to get around these problems...allows us to not only have a better safety profile but also allows us to have efficacy with doses that are half to a third of what can be used with diazoxide today.” — CEO Anish Bhatnagar"

""The FTC settlement is an acknowledgment that our business model is sound and underscores our confidence in our ability to move forward successfully, otherwise we would not have agreed to these terms." — Michael O. Johnson, chairman & CEO, Herbalife. "The terms of the settlement in no way change our business model as a direct selling company but simply build upon current procedures." — Michael O. Johnson"

"“At the center of our strategy is really this agent platform, the Data Vault, which allows you to experience data, view data, see data from all of its sources, taking in data in a Web 3 format where all Web 2 formats such as video and telecom and things that were not traditional data sources are able to be seen, viewed and experience within the Data Vault.” — M&A Call 5/20/25, DVLT CEO, Nathaniel Bradley"

"No, it's a great question. So here's kind of how I roughly look at it. Active subscriptions leads me to look to retention and market share... And so months under subscription gives me a little snapshot there to say are we meeting that mission of having long-term proximity being closest to the veterinarian. And so that's how I look at that metric and that's a key success metric. — Kevin Wilson, Heska CEO"

"In a Star story last fall, GFL president and CEO Patrick Dovigi said his company chose to be a good corporate citizen by cleaning up the mess left on farmer Ruco Braat's land... After pleading guilty last week, Earthworx and its director, Claudio Villa, were fined $84,500... for offences related to the deposit of soil contaminated with metals and organic compounds on the sheep farm. — The Toronto Star"

"“the liver is supposed to go on the pump in the operating room right after recovery...it’s not supposed to be shipped and then go on the pump four or five hours later...that’s been our experience lately...they’re like, we’re going to put it on and then...transplant in the morning and then the lactic acid is too high,” — CEO of a major OPO (Organ Procurement Organization), longtime industry executive"

""The association did not help write the amendment. What (the association) did was throughout the session was to emphasize to legislators that if it was going to move forward on any type of medical marijuana bill, what they needed to do was ensure Florida agriculture, and especially nurseries that have greenhouse infrastructure, are not left on the cutting room floor." — Ben Bolusky, association CEO."

""What you don't know is I met VIP Petcare, because Susan, the President of Merial said, you need to be with VIP Petcare, because what they're doing and what you're doing will change the industry. So, it's not hard that she gets excited when we follow some of those instructions and put the piece of the puzzle together to show up and help us execute on that strategy." — McCord Christensen, CEO, PetIQ"

"“the layers race has ended” — SanDisk; “Overall, a good thing for us. It allows us to go after more of the disk market. One of the things that's very different this time around is that these – this round of NAND reductions is going to make flash, especially with our products on the QLC side with FlashArray//C and S much more competitive with pure disk-based products.” — Pure Storage CEO Giancarlo"

""The restricted stock units and stock options vest 6.25% on March 15, 2023 (the "Vesting Date") and the remainder of the restricted stock units and stock options vest at a rate of 6.25% on each quarterly anniversary of the Vesting Date. Vested shares will be delivered to the reporting person as soon as administratively feasible following his separation from service with the Issuer." — CEO Form 4"

"“Porch provides ERP and CRM software to a wide variety of home services companies. Those companies can pay us with typical software fees or we really encourage those companies to pay us by providing us access to their consumer, to their homebuyers, where we then generate B2B2C transactional revenues as we help those consumers with key services for their home.” — Porch's CEO At Gateway Conference"

""This reduction of the Import Tax diminishes the protection of the national industry and, if it comes along with the reduction of the tax benefit that we have today in the Computer Law, it may be big enough that there is no longer interest of a company, multinational company to produce in Brazil" — Rogerio Nunes, CEO of SMART Brazil and President of ABISEMI (industry association), June 12, 2019."

"「これに関しては顧客と一体になって、彼らのニーズについてしっかり確認しなければいけません。需要があって、コミットがあること。というのも、今現在、極端紫外線の量産が実現するタイミングが見えない。そのため、投資の課題としては厄介です。装置を開発しても、想定している市場が成り立たなければ、他の用途はありません。あの装置はひとつの用途にしか使えません。極端紫外線マスクを検査すること、それだけです。ウェハー検査用の高度な装置の開発の肝は、人がウェハーを作っていることであって、どんな技術で作っているかは関係のないのです。それこそ、顧客と一体になって、彼らのニーズについてしっかり確認しています。いずれ、彼らと協力して開発していくことになります。しかし、現時点ではこれほどの投資に踏み切りたくなるほど、強い関心を示していらっしゃらない」 — Richard P. Wallace, CEO of KLA"

""And we believe that the listing in New York in particular in the multi-capitalisation which will approach $20 billion once the synergies are factored in, will put us sort of mid-way in the S&P500 index and create index buying that actually will create flow forward, right. You typically talk about flow back in cross border deals. We would expect flow forward." — CEO Dalia, Deal Call Aug 7, 2018"

"“The business in Europe, which is, let's say, the purest general Flexibles business that we have at scale, which is a $3 billion-plus business had good sales growth last year and picked up momentum in the second half. So if anything, that business you would say is winning in the market and that's the expectation and it's been the experience as well.” — CEO Delia, FY 2018 Earnings Call Aug 2018"

""had 3 tenants basically go bankrupt" — Q4 2024 earnings call. "Yeah. So when we bought it, these leases were in place. And so they've already been addressed as far as the CapEx. So ...some of these boxes have been vacant for some time and now the tenants are just now getting to the build-out side of it, but we took credits for the landlord side of it when we acquired it." — John Albright, CEO"

"So I'll give you a little bit of background on the food hall as far as where they are just as an opportunity...So they're looking at more end of the year opening [2021] and when we sign this up, we thought it was going to be summer of this year, so a couple of months ago. And so, but they're making very good progress there about 80% built out. — CTO's CEO on Q3 2021 Earnings Call, October, 29"

"“...I think the fundamental issue sort of comes down to whether the IDTF, the CCTs, if you will, the clinical technicians, are they part of the product or are they not? And I think from the beginning of time, we view those as separate items. And I think the FDA has a bit of a different perspective right now that we're working through.” — iRhythm CEO Blackford on Q2 2024 Earnings Call, 8/1/24"

"Porch provides ERP and CRM software to a wide variety of home services companies. Those companies can pay us with typical software fees or we really encourage those companies to pay us by providing us access to their consumer, to their homebuyers, where we then generate B2B2C transactional revenues as we help those consumers with key services for their home. — Porch CEO At Gateway Conference"

"Well, of course, there's the antimony side. We received this $43 million award. You're going to start seeing news. We've already procured mining equipment and processing equipment, that will all be coming. I'm going to start construction on that Phase 1 plant next year. So news flow and things related to that to get into production with the antimony by mid to late next year. — CEO (Dec 2025)"

"The business in Europe, which is, let's say, the purest general Flexibles business that we have at scale, which is a $3 billion-plus business had good sales growth last year and picked up momentum in the second half. So if anything, that business you would say is winning in the market and that's the expectation and it's been the experience as well. — CEO Delia, FY 2018 Earnings Call Aug 2018"

"In addition to capital, what entrepreneurs really need is access to the broad expertise required to build a successful retail business. We see a tremendous opportunity to leverage Campfire's collective experience and relationships to further brand and scale FIGS to transform this $9 billion unbranded industry. — Christine Day, Partner at Campfire, current CEO of Luvo and ex-CEO of lululemon"

"“I've said this many times before, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the TiO2 industry as much as this is a business that when you start looking at the core performance, if you look at Huntsman without TiO2, we would be going into 2016 here...with some of the highest margins we've ever had in our history and with better than GDP growth.” — Peter Huntsman, President & CEO, April 2016"

""We put a lot of their pumps in our systems. So it makes a lot of sense. They are a very complementary company with what we do with water. They've always been viewed as a peer of ours because we both operate in the water treatment segment or the water segment as a whole. But never as a competitor of ours, more of a partner." — Evoqua CEO Keating, Pittsburgh Business Journal, Jan 23, 2023"

"More than 70 of our top 100 accounts now use Context Control. — CFO Pergola; 80 of our top 100 accounts now use Context Control for avoidance, up from 76 of our top 100 accounts last quarter. — CEO Utzschneider; We launched context control, Actually, in the height of Covid, in March of 2020... In the US alone, 86 of our top 100 advertisers have adopted context control. — CEO Utzschneider"

"“they placed an order, I think, for 10 tools, so they cannot come out with any negative papers [about Lasertec]”; “even upper management who accepted the purchase order will be put in an awkward situation...TSMC is a very hierarchical company...you don’t want to make any superior people look bad.” — Longtime, senior semicap equipment executive in Japan who is friendly with Lasertec’s CEO"

"You need to build a really good company. But instead, you hear a lot of this: Raise a ton of money, spend it on marketing, get a bunch of customers and build really fast. I’m not convinced that that’s the best way to build a long-lasting business. So if you want to build a long-term brand, you have to have incredible financials very early. — CEO Dudum in December 2018 Digiday Interview"

""But even without the growth of more MDI -- crude MDI, we're continuing to take the crude MDI that we're selling into the market...and moving that into our formulation and downstream system houses as aggressively as we can. And that will be the area of the business that we'll continue to see the growth in the margin expansion going forward." — Peter Huntsman, President & CEO, July 2017"

""Right now getting the typical Ecwid customers smaller than our own, but we do plan to serve both plan to serve, that customer that fits into our are typical, and also, I think that the typical Ecwid customers interesting, because they are the ones that will potentially grow into leads to customers that use more of the suite." — Dax Dasilva, Lightspeed CEO, BMO Conference Aug. 24, 2021"

""To this day, I don't believe in sequels. I can't follow popular cycles. I have to move on to new things—there are many new worlds to conquer." — Walt Disney, 1966 Letter to Shareholders; "I'd say we're leaning a little bit more into sequels and franchises... doing that, leaning on franchises that are familiar is actually a smart thing." — Robert A. Iger, CEO & Director, February 2024"

"OIG recently announced that they’re going to investigate every single OPO, and they’re going to investigate every single transplant program, and it’s going to happen by the end of 2025. ... I’d say I owe you 5 grand times however many kidneys I transplanted because I’ve been overcharging the whole time. — CEO of a major OPO (Organ Procurement Organization), longtime industry executive"

""thing to notice: patients are already in the operating room so AF treatment makes sense. So potential market on an annual basis is 85,000 U.S. patients per year; only 30% of the patients today are currently being treated. So there is significant opportunity for further penetration and growth." — David Drachman, AtriCure's Then-CEO, JMP Securities Research Conference – May 11th, 2010"

""The report issued by Muddy Waters contains many inaccuracies, omissions, fabrications, and unsubstantiated claims..." — Orient Paper. "We are committed to a high level of corporate governance and stand by the integrity of our company..." — Allen Chan, Chairman and CEO of Sino-Forest. "We categorically reject their allegations as inaccurate, unreliable and misleading." — Noble Group."

"“Elliott’s consultant and candidate for CEO – Larry Lawson, a former Spirit AeroSystems CEO – is legally restricted from taking the job and is on Elliott’s payroll. Elliott has agreed to pay him approximately $28 million over next two years, raising the question of whether he would truly serve the interests of ALL Arconic shareholders.” — Arconic’s Letter to Employees, April 7, 2017"

"“There really is nobody. And when I say nobody, nobody, not a carrier, not a VC-backed start-up, nobody that takes every component of what it means to manage a fertility benefit and addresses it. And so at the end of the day, a lot of people have marketing materials and have a lot of claims, but there is a reality.” — CEO Peter Anevski at 2022 JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, 1/11/22"

"CFO Reagan: “You're thinking about the Health margins, we are now -- and we continue to believe that the Health margins, which were very strong in the quarter, continue to be sustainable.”; CEO Krone: “We were able to sell part of the business that really wasn't in our portfolio. Clearly, that would have been lower-margin for us.” — JPMorgan, Leidos Earnings First Look, Oct 29, 2019"

""We have great assets, we are in Northwest Florida, 300,000 of our acres are within 40 miles of that new airport. We have development expertise; we have an extremely strong balance sheet to weather whatever storms coming our way. We have a new international airport unprecedented in the United States and we are poised for growth." — Britt Greene, CEO, Raymond James Conference 3/9/10"

""We are a technology company with a host of patents" — Fran Rathke, GMCR CFO; "I would define our company today as really a single serve beverage company that is sitting on top of this magnificent technology, call it disruptive technology platform" — Larry Blanford, GMCR CEO; "ETF on the rapid-growing single-serve market" — Jim Cramer; "We are the iPod of coffee" — GMCR Management."

""Obviously, Florida is the strongest. I mean it's just crazy how much Florida is growing." — CEO Smith, Analyst Day Oct 4, 2023. "Clearly, when you look at our states of Florida and Tennessee and South Carolina are just -- have great funding programs and are very, very active. Florida is clearly experiencing just an incredible amount of migration." — CEO Smith, Q1 2024 Feb 9, 2024."

""Our customer doesn't come to us expecting a Nordstrom's level of in-store shopping experience. They want value, treasures, merchandise on the floor and clean restrooms, and we need to meet those expectations," [CEO Steve] Fishman said in 2005. ... "We're an enigma," he said at an investor conference this month. "It's been a real challenge for the marketplace." — CEO Steve Fishman"

""In 1994, season passes to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey averaged $75... Fast forward 25 years to 2019, and we were still charging an average of only $75 for our season pass. Despite the fact that we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our parks..." — Selim Bassoul, CEO, Six Flags (NYSE: SIX), Q2 2022 SIX Earnings Conference Call, August 11th, 2022"

""Success and succession are fundamentally different objectives for CEOs. Someone in Mr. Iger's seat has too many competing interests and conflicting incentives to handle both... the guy who gets you lost in the woods isn't the right guy to find your way out." — Charles Elson, Founding Director of the University of Delaware's Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, December 2022"

"Research and Development. As a company specializing in sales and marketing, scil does not conduct its own research or development. — scil animal care German Entity's 2019 Financial Report. Yes. So they do have good products. They also have a great internal R&D team. Their technical team is extraordinary. And they have some very nice projects in progress. — Kevin Wilson, Heska CEO"