Callouts & quotes from 387+ activist slides

"During 2017, sales and operating profit performance for Garden Fresh Gourmet... were well below expectations, and we lowered our outlook for the second half of 2017 due to customer losses and failure to meet product distribution goals. Based upon the business performance in 2017, our reduced near-term outlook, and reduced expectations for sales, operating margins and discounted cash flows, we performed an interim impairment assessment in the second quarter, which resulted in a $64 million impairment charge. — Campbell Soup (FY18 10-K); In 2018, sales and operating performance were well below expectations due in part to competitive pressure and reduced margins. In the fourth quarter of 2018, as part of a strategic review initiated by a new leadership team and based on recent performance, we lowered our long-term outlook for future sales. In the fourth quarter of 2018, as part of our annual review of intangible assets, we recognized an impairment charge of $54 million. — Campbell Soup (FY18 10-K)"

""[T]he last minute exercise of the first right of refusal to buy a big block of franchise stores in 2015 ...is a perfect example of how misguided your incentive compensation structure is and how poor strategic planning can lead to poor capital allocation decisions" — Howard Penney, Hedgeye, 10/17/16; "[T]he most recent acquisition (38 units in the 3Q15) has weighed on earnings and came with a rich multiple, adjusting for the foregone royalties" — John Glass, Morgan Stanley, 7/25/16; "[R]eturn metrics suffered from the company's FY15 decision to acquire a large number of franchisees...[which] resulted in lower operating margins and financial returns as incremental capital was deployed to eliminate a high margin royalty revenue stream" — John Zolidis, Buckingham, 7/26/16; "Acquiring franchise stores increases business risk...Why in a slowing sales[,] lower return environment would the parent company want even greater exposure to the volatility in the business?" — Howard Penney, Hedgeye, 6/13/16"

""As Patrick mentioned in his comments, and as Franz (VP of Emerging Markets) is going to speak about shortly, emerging markets is still a key growth focus for us. We're in a strong position now to accelerate our product development capability in the region to develop more products and solutions locally that are more aligned with the needs of customers in those markets." — CFO Rowland, Analyst Day Sept 2021; "They invested heavily and early in China, India and the MidEast. We look like a local competitor with local nationals running them. The challenge there in China and India (less so in the MidEast) – there's a market segment that wants premium products and willing to pay a premium price. That's 20% of the market. The rest are price sensitive, looking for the cheapest price. That drives a market dynamic that's different from the rest of the geographies. Places like India have dilutive margins. Growth potential is there, but margin potential is dilutive." — Former Xylem Executive Response"

""So the first question I have for Cord, both you and John discussed the - I guess, I'd say somewhat disconnects in your results here with sales and gross and on the EBIDTA side. You mentioned that it had to do with distributor sales from a distributed product. Can you explain further what that was? And then how we should think about that?" — Brian Nagel – Oppenheimer & Co. "...so if you look at our flea and tick category on the OTC side, we've had a historical mix in how those products have been purchased in tens and thousands of locations over the last five years... What we've seen differently is, we've sold more $32 boxes than $10 boxes. And so that's why when you look at our gross margin dollars for the quarter, they're right in line with what we thought we would have because the margin was agnostic and why the EBITDA number is online with that is we're really get our growth rate, our unit growth rate, but the mix is a little bit different." — McCord Christensen – CEO, PetIQ"

""[W]e believe BWLD company-owned stores could improve margins substantially, by up to 500 [basis points] based on our analysis, by adopting labor practices currently deployed by [franchisees]" — Jim Sanderson, Arthur Wood, 3/28/17; "Our advisor believes there is an opportunity to bring lower performers more in line with the rest of the system, with store-level labor perhaps the largest opportunity. The example of Guest Experience Captains was cited...In his experience, BWLD franchisees are as or more qualified to run a large number of restaurants than corporate personnel" — Nick Setyan, Wedbush, 2/7/17; "[Margin opportunities] exist across labor, operating expenses, and COGS...Diversified Restaurant Holdings, Buffalo Wild Wing's largest franchisee, highlights opportunity for greater margin efficiency. While there are notable differences, including geographic and overall exposure, SAUC has exhibited favorable food & labor margins relative to BWLD" — Dennis Geiger, UBS, 1/5/17"

""We see Starboard stake as a positive – We see the news as a positive as the involvement of an activist further validates the opportunity for value creation at Autodesk." — Citi, June 2024. "We believe Autodesk is a good business that has the potential for multiple expansion due to improved execution... most tend to agree that Autodesk is a great company, but one that needs to improve its execution, investor messaging and margins." — RBC Capital, June 2024. "ADSK has close to a monopolistic market position in AEC software and believe an activist can have ADSK increase its focus on efficiency as it undergoes its agency model transition." — Wolfe Research, June 2024. "The company’s billing system transition, transaction model change and recent financial audit all add complexity and uncertainty. Starboard’s involvement may provide an opportunity for investors to gain greater confidence and clarity and for management to engage with investors." — BofA Securities, June 2024."

""So if you go anywhere in the world and you order McDonald hamburger is gonna taste like a McDonald hamburger, right? And the reason behind that is they have an infrastructure and an ingredients and a process that they've really dialed in so they can get predictable results wherever they go... there's no secret that they have stumbled with new offices and, and that, that would be an ongoing concern is, you know, they're hiring people from bigger BPOs who have seen that and wanna put that into place. Um, but it's tricky." — Fmr Business Dev. Employee. "All the BPOs servicing Facebook, and I'm not sure but probably at least a dozen, are doing low margins just to have the name, to learn, and leverage that name in their sales efforts. It's not uncommon for BPOs to take a haircut or even a loss for the first year or two for a long-term relationship. Now with wages increasing, it throws a bomb in the middle of everyone's strategic plan." — Fmr Business Dev. Employee."

"“As we continue to consolidate and grow relative market share throughout our footprint, our business scales and margins expand.” — CEO Smith, Q2 2023; “Michael, it's interesting. We're in a relative market share business. So in the markets that we compete in, and we see this because SunTx invests really in the Sunbelt of the country. There is some -- continues to be a lot of growth. The demographic trends are driving that, number one; and number 2, the business trends are driving that. So in a relative market share business, what we're worried about is the growth in Raleigh-Durham, the growth in Huntsville, Alabama. And in each of these 70-plus distinct markets, we continue to see growth commercially, residentially, everything.” — Chairman Fleming, Q4 2023; “Finally, we completed 8 acquisitions in fiscal 2024 that expanded our geographic footprint into new growth markets and enhanced relative market share across our Sunbelt states.” — CEO Smith, Q4 2024"

"“One of the big benefits of Twist is the lower entry point if you’ve got a custom panel. You can get a custom panel from Twist for around $2,000. With the likes of Agilent, the minimum is something like $10,000 to $20,000... IDT, their minimum level of synthesis is like 1,000 times higher, and you will pay $10 per oligo, whereas, with Twist, you’re getting millions of oligos for $1,000. Each oligo costs way less.” — Major Twist customer, one of largest genomics centers in Europe; “Customization is sort of an inherent aspect of the DNA synthesis industry... To your question about why are they so unprofitable? DNA synthesis is extremely low margins, and the reason is there are so many competitors out there.” — Former Twist manager in a manufacturing role; “It’s like going to the supermarket and buying a pack of 1,000 eggs. Twist will sell you six eggs; Agilent will sell you 1000 eggs.” — Major Twist customer, one of largest genomics centers in Europe"

"“Longer-term margins, two of your competitors have a little bit of a different margin structure: Paychex, high 30s%, 40%; ADP, mid 20s%. Where do you guys think you shake out over the very long term?” — Justin Furby, William Blair. “We look at Paychex's business model and think that that's one that we can emulate as we grow over time. I don't know when you get to, what is it, 35%, 40%. But we can see us steadily expanding margins for a number of years. The goal is to try to see if we can keep growing at 20% as long as we can. If you're growing that fast, it's going to be hard to expand the operating margins by a lot more. But at some point, I think we can get up there.” — Mitch Dauerman, Ultimate Software, CFO. “...If I go out to the kind of the ending, when growth really slows, I think you would look at a company like Paychex, and you could see kind of the margin in that 35% to 40% range.” — Mitch Dauerman, Ultimate Software, CFO."

"“The CEO came from Chevron Phillips Chemical. That is another thing I think they should look at. Take Mark Lashier, he's an expert there, and spin off that business.” — Third-party Shareholder Survey; “This last Q4 where Phillips came out and their refining margins were so weak, so weak. That is just fundamentally unacceptable... That is a CEO problem.” — Third-party Shareholder Survey; “We have had significant issues with Mark Lashier, who's the CEO. He is on the hot seat at this point due to these operational issues... There is an open question if he is the right man for the moment for me.” — Third-party Shareholder Survey; “Mark controls everything and that is not a good thing and as you can see that does not lead to strong corporate performance.” — Third-party Shareholder Survey; “He's doing what's right for his buddies on the Chevron Phillips side which is just not that shareholder friendly.” — Third-party Shareholder Survey"

"“We are only using TransMedics for DCD organs. Donors from cardiac death as opposed to donors from brain death. We’re not really convinced that the donors from brain death, the organs get a lot of benefit from being on a TransMedics device because often the ones that you’d like to put on are those that are very poor quality and, the thing is, if you put them on a machine, you’re not going to make a poor-quality organ into a good-quality organ. So, if the organ is poor quality because it’s fatty because the donor was obese or was scarred from drinking, you’re not going to reverse those changes by putting it on a machine… with a marginal organ that’s, let’s say, fatty or scarred, that’s a chronic injury over many, many years. You’re not going to reverse that by putting it on a pump. So, it’s not as beneficial in my mind for those organs.” — Transplant surgeon and transplant program director at a leading Northeast academic center"

""Yeah, RUN also has the advantage of being on newer technology which scales more cheaply in terms of incremental margins." — Gary C. Butler, President and CEO; "So the number around that the difference between sales last year and this year is about 20 percentage points of additional new business coming in using our web entry systems versus Teledata which is our phone-in system." — Carlos A. Rodriguez, President, Small Business; "Really it's kind of the best of both worlds because the client gets better accuracy because you have real time payroll with real time validation of data, so you have fewer errors, fewer reruns and it takes down our labor component to both, it take the payroll and service the payroll and we think we're going to get a longer life client out of that because the overall quality and number of reruns and all those kinds of issues should be significantly down over time." — Gary C. Butler, President and CEO"

"“We believe the time has come for material changes in leadership here as BOX remains in a “no-man’s land” for investors – not enough growth and not enough margin. We have covered tech/software for 18 years and have never come across a company that is a leader in a $40B TAM and continues to mis-execute so badly. The commentary every quarter of “strong demand”, “sales productivity/enablement improvements” and “solid momentum” in the business have not correlated with decelerating growth across all metrics for a number of quarters. It is also amazing to us the Board of Directors has done nothing to push the issue. We believe this is potentially an activist investor’s dream but with five of the nine board members being founders/VCs we see a bit of a roadblock...Management is now two years into a go-to-market transformation with no indicators pointing to any sign of success. Something must change.” — Craig-Hallum, August 2019"

"“I also want to reiterate what our fiscal '23 targets are; 16% to 18% revenue CAGR, $2.4 billion in free cash flow, roughly a 40% operating margin, and again a sum of revenue growth in free cash flow that stays between 55% and 65%. We are confident in these targets at this point, and I want to make sure that you understand that it is our goal to achieve these to the same degree that we achieved our FY '20 targets that we set over three years ago.” — Andrew Anagnost, CEO, 2020 Digital Investor Day; “We continue to manage our business using a Rule of Forty framework with a goal of reaching 45% or more over time. We are taking significant steps towards our goal this year and next. We think this balance between compounding revenue growth and strong free cash flow margins captured in the Rule of Forty framework is the hallmark of the most valuable companies in the world…” — Andrew Anagnost, CEO, Q1 FY2025 Earnings Call"

"“I also want to reiterate what our fiscal '23 targets are; 16% to 18% revenue CAGR, $2.4 billion in free cash flow, roughly a 40% operating margin, and again a sum of revenue growth in free cash flow that stays between 55% and 65%. We are confident in these targets at this point, and I want to make sure that you understand that it is our goal to achieve these to the same degree that we achieved our FY '20 targets that we set over three years ago.” — Andrew Anagnost, CEO, 2020 Digital Investor Day; “We continue to manage our business using a Rule of Forty framework with a goal of reaching 45% or more over time. We are taking significant steps towards our goal this year and next. We think this balance between compounding revenue growth and strong free cash flow margins captured in the Rule of Forty framework is the hallmark of the most valuable companies in the world…” — Andrew Anagnost, CEO, Q1 FY2025 Earnings Call"

""We are skeptical that TXN can achieve their revenue targets given its growth rate of mid-single digits. Given elevated capex and depreciation, we believe TI’s margins will remain under pressure through 2026 unless capex is cut." — Citi; "Texas Instruments (TXN): We wish we could all have a 15-year investment horizon...downgrading to Underperform" — AB; "We are initiating coverage of TXN with an Underweight (UW) rating and $150 price tgt. Our rating reflects a concern TXN can’t achieve rev tgts & related utilization; i.e., 300mm capacity expansion plans intended to reach $30B FY26 rev. 19% CAGR." — Wells Fargo; "We still believe investing in mature node capacity is the right strategic decision long-term. That said, with a 20% CAGR off 2024 Street estimates needed to reach 2030's $45B capacity target, we think the magnitude of the development is difficult for investors to underwrite, even with subsidies." — Cowen"

""If we look at our business without our existing TiO2 division, we would be looking at 2016 as a record year for...EBITDA margins, a materially different and stronger company than we what we have today. Obviously, the conclusion of this separation is a very high priority for this company." — Peter Huntsman, President & CEO; "And if we were a business today that we're separated from our TiO2, we would be going into 2016 saying...2016 will be a record EBITDA margin year in the history of this company." — Peter Huntsman, President & CEO; "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"

"We sold our holding in Kao as the company continues to underperform its peers — AVA Investment Managers. Killer Strengths, Just Needs a Killer Growth Strategy — SMBC. We believe Kao can do much more to raise the profile of its successful brands outside of Japan and expand overseas consumer product sales, especially given population demographics in Japan provide a headwind to future domestic growth. Historically Kao’s dominant position in its domestic market may have given it a ready source of stable cashflows, but the company needs to look abroad for its growth in the future. — LINDSELL TRAIN. Kao has great technology and many interesting products, but management has yet to translate this expertise into strong revenue-generating products — CLSA. the operating margin now looks likely to stop falling. However, we see no signs of next-generation growth businesses or other growth drivers — J.P.Morgan."

""Part of the reason we struggle to underwrite Box’s story of accelerating growth and expanding margins is the fact that Box has discussed initiatives to accelerate growth in the past, but not delivered on it, and has had several different target models, consistently needing to walk them back" — RBC Capital Markets, July 2021; "Box managed modest growth acceleration for the quarter, existing only if we consider the company’s results on a sequential basis. In simpler terms, Box’s newly reported 10% growth in the first quarter of its fiscal 2022 was better than the 8% growth it earned during the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2021, but worse than the 13% growth it managed in its year-ago Q1. With Box, however, instead of judging it by normal rules, we’re hunting in its numbers each quarter for signs of promised acceleration. By that standard, Box met its own goals" — TechCrunch, May 2021"

""It's not just about cost, as you well know. And on the cost side, our people are very efficient." — John Hess, Chairman & CEO Hess, April 2012; "Not really familiar with what you are talking about [in response to question about Hess closing gap with other Bakken operators]. I will tell you that our data shows us as very competitive with other operators in North Dakota [Bakken]." — Gregory Hill, EVP Worldwide E&P Hess, April 2012; "Essentially [we are] always focusing on how we're working on the cost side of the margin equation... [the bakken is] our oil factory, [we]continue to work on our oil factory way of driving down costs." — Harold Hamm, Founder/Chairman/CEO Continental, October 2012; "The big focus is driving down costs." — Michael Lou, CFO Oasis Petroleum, November 2012; "Our focus right now is getting our well cost down." — Jim Brown, COO Whiting Petroleum, November 2012."

""It was a maze. We were doing a disservice selling a 1,200 employee client Vantage when we would have done a better job selling Workforce Now... I'm not sure that the customer is at the center of the decision." — Former SVP Product Strategy; "Why are margins so low? Overhead. So many layers, so many inefficiencies with regards to the same people doing the same thing... each product or team has its own duplicative organization. There are still silo's." — Former Sr. Director of Business Transformation; "There were always turf wars at the seams. Imagine a 49 employee client moved into Majors and is now being sold Workforce Now. Who owns that client? Is this an SBS or a Majors upsell opportunity? Consider it – there’s separate sales leaders. Everything is segmented by size. The revenue is ‘owned’ by regional GMs with their own P&L. It’s a mess." — Former DVP, Business Transformation"

""Our [buying] group has a committee looking to get a relationship with one of these as our own print farm." — Orthodontist, Platinum Align Tier; "There are over 100 aligner companies coming out of Asia. Two to three years from now, I don't see how Invisalign will see the same amount of cases that they had in the past." — Dentist, DSO; "The need for Invisalign is diminishing. Dental laboratories are going to have the software and printing capabilities to compete with Invisalign. The production costs will not be as cheap as Invisalign [per aligner], but the lab will not need the same margin as Align because they won't have to cover advertising costs. This is going to cause significant pricing pressure in the industry. Today, we have a few big competitors. As soon as labs get involved, there will be different pricing." — Former C-Level Executive, Major Dental Equipment Company"

""Thanks and good morning. In the write up, in the discussion of the foreign exchange headwinds and gross margin you also said you made select changes to your product mix. I am just wondering if you could elaborate are there certain categories that your emphasizing in certain categories, you are deemphasizing I am just wondering what that sentence really meant?" — Peter Sklar, BMO Capital Markets; "It's really an item by item discussion. Where the compelling value remains and we are able to take for example two pencils out of a pack and still be competitive to help with offsetting some of the headwinds, that's the way we handle it or in other cases if we replace the product with a new offering that's just as compelling but different at a lower cost potentially. That's another way Buyers can use that tool to help them with current challenges." — Michael Ross, CFO, Dollarama"

""Despite a reduced investment outlook, we remain concerned with the pace of SG&A spend to support growth of owned retail doors, which could still generate lower marginal returns than anticipated leaving earnings growth challenged longer-term. Total SG&A intensity is up 600bp over the last three years." — 1/30/15 Credit Suisse. "...it looks like if you take out that $7 million of cost savings you're talking about in 4Q, you're still looking at almost 10% SG&A growth in fourth quarter against the minus 5% top line." — Research Analyst, 2/2/17 Earnings Call. "Some of it is some additional marketing around our E-Commerce business. And another item is there are some increased incentive comp this year relative to year ago, and that's really related to -- incentive comp related to lower levels of management relative to a year ago." — Thomas George (CFO), 2/2/17 Earnings Call."

""The other thing and Mike, I don't know if you want to comment on this, but with our SaaS-based products we're investing not only for future functionality but for scalability, so the computer hosting costs, which have been a relatively significant portion of the cost are coming down on a per unit basis fairly dramatically and we expect that to continue in the future." — Gary C. Butler, President and CEO; "That's correct. Typically 15% year-over-year reduction in hosting costs and the fact that they are SaaS-based, and our clients are always on the same version of a platform means that we don't have the expense of other software companies of maintaining different versions of the software." — Mike Capone, VP and Chief Information Officer; "I have to stop the bragging now or we're going to get too many margin improvement questions." — Gary C. Butler, President and CEO"

""If they're tracking at 15-17% share right now, I think the question is, is there anything else that can significantly move the needle? And I don't know that there is with the landscape of the SCS market being what it is. The other big companies, especially Boston and Abbott, have spent enormous time and resources on very strong KOL and relationship development and have very, very strong marketing and sales organizations and that's going to be hard to crack." — Former Nevro executive; "I would not invest in Nevro today. The outlook is so unclear. I don't know that I see the long-term value. It's just a question of what's the long term business model for a company in the SCS space - the heavy ongoing cost associated with support and retention of physicians and patients... Once you factor all of that in, the profit margin is very slim." — Former Nevro executive"

"Gross profit. Gross profit increased $4.1 million, or 3.0%, to $142.0 million for the thirteen weeks ended July 1, 2023 from $137.8 million for the thirteen weeks ended June 25, 2022. As a percentage of net sales, gross profit was 37.0% and 37.7% for the thirteen weeks ended July 1, 2023 and June 25, 2022, respectively. Gross profit increased primarily due to higher sales. The decrease in gross profit rate of 70 basis points was driven primarily by 160 basis points of deleverage in buying, occupancy and distribution center costs partially offset by a 90 basis-point increase in merchandise margin rate. The increase in merchandise margin rate was driven by 80 basis points of product margin expansion resulting primarily from growth in exclusive brand penetration and a 10 basis-point tailwind from lower freight expense as a percentage of net sales. — Q1'24 10-Q"

""When I joined the business I think we had a 15% gross margin, but this just wasn't sustainable at that level of profit. And so the last round of label negotiations was about elevating the margins to a point where, I think, the business would self-sustain...So what was good for Spotify was good for the labels and that's why the margin increased. Now on a go-forward basis, is that going to happen again? No that's not going to happen again. It's not in their economic interest to allow it to happen again. So how is it that the margin improves? The only way the margin improves is, we provide them with some value-added services that don't exist today that makes their business more profitable as a consequence and we benefit as well for doing it right now." — Spotify CFO Barry McCarthy, February 26, 2019, Bloomberg Transcript, Morgan Stanley Media Conference"

""Always. It's always a concern. Walmart, they're the big 800-pound gorilla. They are a big customer, so price is always a concern. For a Walmart customer, it's very difficult to tell them the value [of named brand products]. For some mid tier stores we could give some concessions. So if price was not delivered, we'll come up with some other ways with volume rebates, IRC, coupons to drive those kinds of things to make up the margin." — Former PBH Employee; "For Walmart there is a lot of price pressure there and there's a lot of price pressure on off-invoice discounts. You can't get too creative with Walmart because you need them to help grow your top line. You can be creative with out mid-tier segments, but you can't be too creative with Walmart. Their expansion was hitting our margin with those big retailers." — Former PBH Employee"

"“Great. And maybe just kind of very high level here, during the road show you had kind of guided to 7% to 11.5% EBITDA margins and CarMax probably your closest competitor is around 7.8% last year... So, without opening a capital finance company you are running your own auctions, how do you kind of think about getting to the midpoint or the higher end of your long-term EBITDA guidance?” — Mike Levin, Deutsche Bank; “So I think it's a reasonable question to ask kind of what's the gap there, that gap part of that is made up by pricing differences... We built a pretty unique finance platform that allows us to while not taking credit risk monetize finance originations across the entire credit spectrum, not just to the top end of the credit spectrum, while passing that credit risk on to third parties.” — Ernie Garcia III – CEO, Carvana"

"“Substantial long-term operating leverage: Longer term, our hypothetical margin expansion analysis shows the potential for a significant ramp in pro forma operating margins from 12% currently to 30-40%, in theory, as revenues grow to scale and sales and marketing (S&M) costs normalize. We strongly believe that the SaaS business model can ultimately achieve a margin structure similar to that of traditional on-premise software businesses—a view that we believe is underappreciated by the Street.” — Nomura, Aug 2012; “Performing the same analysis for Ultimate Software Group, with its current renewal margins between 48% and 50% over the last four years, this would imply long-run, fully- scaled potential operating margins in the low-30% range (Ultimate’s non-GAAP operating margins today are ~20%).” — Goldman Sachs, July 2017"

"“Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said Box’s revenue growth of just 10% was ‘measly’ and that shareholders such as Starboard were right to ask why the company has not performed better...‘But the question needs to be asked, why has Box only grown by 10% during pandemic times, while the global economy is restarting and reinventing itself around digital processes?’” — Silicon Angle, May 2021; “Box has guided to a meaningfully improved financial model, expecting to achieve the ‘Rule of 40’ by FY24 and calling for accelerating growth with meaningful margin expansion. While we would certainly like to see that, the problem is Box has always ranked low on sales efficiency and seen declining net retention rates, which makes it tough for us to underwrite the combination of the two.” — RBC Capital Markets, July 2021"

""We have now finished our sale-leaseback program, which resulted in the completion of transactions on 37 restaurants, resulting in $83 million of gross proceeds at average cap rates under 6.7%, including cap rates in the range of 6.25% on our most recent transactions." — Ruby Tuesday July 24, 2013 earnings conference call. "The company's real estate could be worth another $800MM - $1B" — CL King research report. "We are upgrading BOBE...due to what we view as a cleaner story for investors with improving margins, good underlying sales momentum in its core businesses and nearly $900 mil. in real estate value" — Stephens Inc. research report. "In fiscal 2011, it cost approximately $2.3 million to build a new stand-alone Bob Evans restaurant, including the land." — Bob Evans 10-K for the fiscal year ended April 29, 2011."

"“Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said Box’s revenue growth of just 10% was ‘measly’ and that shareholders such as Starboard were right to ask why the company has not performed better...But the question needs to be asked, why has Box only grown by 10% during pandemic times, while the global economy is restarting and reinventing itself around digital processes?” — Silicon Angle, May 2021; “Box has guided to a meaningfully improved financial model, expecting to achieve the “Rule of 40” by FY24 and calling for accelerating growth with meaningful margin expansion. While we would certainly like to see that, the problem is Box has always ranked low on sales efficiency and seen declining net retention rates, which makes it tough for us to underwrite the combination of the two.” — RBC Capital Markets, July 2021"

""We're not aiming to make much money on agents' self-sourced sales, as few traditional brokers have ever earned a decent margin; our goal is to recruit agents who can close Redfin-sourced sales at a high rate. The margins on Redfin-sourced sales should remain well above those of other brokers. Even if Max agents' sales turn out to be largely self-sourced, lowering margins on a larger volume of sales in our pilot markets, the impact on Redfin's overall gross margin will be negligible. We won't extend Redfin Max to a large number of markets unless we become convinced that it will net more gross profits. For Max to succeed, a new cohort of motivated, high-caliber agents has to close only a few more sales each year than we normally would with the same set of site-sourced opportunities." — Redfin Q3'23 Earnings Call"

""I'm going to just give you the highlight -- we will achieve profitability in 2012, and we have a clear path to get there." — Andrew Marsh – CEO, Plug Power; "When I step back and look at it all, I'm more bullish than ever that Plug Power is in the early stages of a very rapid growth market. I'm also bullish that we will make our goal of EBITDA breakeven in 2014." — Andrew Marsh – CEO, Plug Power; "This is something that, as we grow the top line, as we expand the margin side, we are going to grow into that and look to turn profitable in 2016." — Andrew Marsh – CEO, Plug Power; "This year-to-date performance, the growing contract backlog and the continued momentum of driving cost down are a strong indication that we're on track to build a profitable long-term enterprise." — Andrew Marsh – CEO, Plug Power"

"“The retailers that we are dealing with are certainly focused on sales, but they are far more focused today on profitability and cash flow, which leads to capital allocation for new stores or remodeled stores upon renewal. What we faced in 2009 was, most retailers saying we are preserving our cash because we are unsure about our line [of credit]. And we are insecure about our ability to finance. Now that they have better cash margins and better cash on deposit, we are now hearing that they are allocating money for new open-to-buys. And I think David gave you a list in his comments of those stores that are looking at that. So I think it is going to be less correlated with sales and more correlated with profitability and cash flow generation.” — Rick Sokolov, COO of Simon Property Group, October 30, 2009"

"“Of our net sales, we believe that 73% of our business or our cost structure is highly variable. Our royalties that we pay distributors, about 36% of sales. Our product costs, 21%, and distributor facing spending, which is sort of sacrosanct. This is what Des mentioned earlier, and Michael. This is the last area that we want to touch as it relates to trying to leverage our margins. In fact, if anything, what we try to do is over-invest in this area because we do believe that complementing our royalty expense with very prudent incentives and promotion can actually drive incremental ROI on the spending. So, when we look at our essentially fixed overhead, and fixed is relative depending on what time horizon, we look at 12% of our cost structure being essentially fixed.” — Rich Goudis, CFO, Herbalife"

""We have the solutions the market is looking for. We have the IP. It’s just a matter of the execution to bring down admin to industry normal levels, not more, not better than the industry, but just the normal levels in the industry and also bringing cost of goods sold both in Pharmacy and MLR on the medical side to industry norms will yield enormous upside for us in the company." — CEO Barry Smith, 2019 Guidance Call; "In summary, while we’re not pleased with our results this year, I’m confident that our growth strategy is sound. After transforming our business and achieving strong top line growth over the past few years, we have significant earnings power in our current portfolio as we work to increase our margins to industry competitive levels." — CFO Jonathan Rubin, Q3 2018 Earnings Call"

""And then can you talk a little bit more about the profitability in your clean energy business and with PWRcell? ... And just how should we think of it more on like a 2 to 3-year basis as you continue to ramp?" — Roth Analyst. "Yes. Ross, it's York. So yes, making very good progress on gross margin optimization... we do expect to ramp up our gross margins to somewhere in the mid-30% range... maybe hitting double digits there by the end of the year for EBITDA margins." — CFO York, Q4 2020. "Today, clean energy, just thinking storage, that is a profitable business today. We haven't quoted exactly what margin profile is. It's profitable today. But over time, over the next call it, few years, that will also grow into that mid- to high teens EBITDA margins as well." — CFO York, Q3 2021."

"“No, I don't remember. $500 million—between $300 to 500 million and that basically translates to the POs that they had from Intel but the POs are at a significantly reduced price. They don't have a lot of margin on those tools, very low margins on those tools.” — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group. “I think that $300 to $500 million is a little high in my estimation. I'm sure they've invested some significant money in Lasertec, and they do have a significant say in the direction of Lasertec, and Lasertec views them as sort of their core customer or founding customer per se...they've also obviously ordered and prepaid for some stuff...” — Longtime semiconductor consultant recently working for Lasertec; close to KLA management"

"“I’ll be very candid with you, if I was the product lead on the hook for these kinds of [80%] margins, I would be very, very scared...this is just not a believable scenario even with the scale of a hyperscaler...this is definitely a very sort of utopian best-case scenario.” — Former Engineer at CoreWeave; “The illustration appears to indicate the revenue from the residual assets in year 5 and beyond will represent 75% of the revenue in years 1-4 of the original contract. We will reserve our language to simply indicate that is highly unlikely.” — D.A. Davidson Research, June 9, 205; “Wishful thinking. That’s how old data centers worked before AI chips.” — Former Principal Architect at Nvidia; “Totally bullshit.” — Former Senior Product Manager at Nebius"

""Gross profit increased by $62.7 million, or 94.1%, to $129.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 from $66.6 million. Gross margin decreased by 1.9%, to 30.7% for the year ended December 31, 2020 from 32.6% for the year ended December 31, 2019, which is due to a number of factors, including a change in channel mix from foodservice to retail, our greater reliance on co-packer outsourcing production compared to 2019 as well as an increase in logistics costs. The COVID-19 pandemic and changing consumption patterns increased demand for logistics services, resulting in higher freight rates during the second half of 2020 across our segments. We also experienced higher container rates for our shipments from EMEA to Asia during 2020." — Prospectus"

""Then just the last question -- the Dealer margin is obviously doing terrific now that you've lapped the Kerridge. Can you give us a sense, as you look out over the next few years, what's sort of the margin potential of this business? Does it remain substantially above the levels you've been reporting in the last couple of quarters?" — Gary Bisbee, Lehman Brothers; "Yes. Again, the business model there is no different than Employer Services. Again, sans acquisitions or significant investments, we would expect the core Dealer business to improve its margins 0.5 point a year as a way to think about it. So there are clearly 2 or 3 more points of margin improvement available in the Dealer market over a planning horizon." — Gary Butler, ADP, Former CEO"

"“No, that's their income. So then you're looking at now our retail sales, because the single biggest opportunity for those supervisors is their 50% off list discount. That's the biggest component of their income. They get a small piece on their royalties, because they really haven't started building a sales organization yet to get rewards down below. Whereas someone up in the very top, they're $2+ million, they're probably working on very little retail margin, because they're not really retailers.” — Rich Goudis, CFO; “They're recruiters.” — Michael Johnson, CEO, Chairman; “They're building their sales organization, so more of their compensation or income is based on the commission structuring in their multiple level marketing.” — Rich Goudis, CFO"

"“We’re in the very lucky situation that in our seven target market we have everywhere opportunity to grow…from concrete to roofing to waterproofing, great opportunities.” — Sika (May 2018); “So we have a market growth rate that is a little – still growing but a little softer than this year. So if we see a stronger construction market, that clearly would be a positive.” — GCP (November 2018); “SBM's revenue was down 11% year-over-year. Our project-based Building Envelope business was down 12% as growth in EMEA was more than offset by declines in North America and Asia Pacific.” — GCP (November 2019); “The reduction of the Building Envelope business contributed significantly to the margin reduction as well as the overall mix.” — GCP (February 2020)"

""Included in transaction revenues was the impact of a newly negotiated contract with our payments partner at Upserve and ShopKeep. This new contract did two things, provide us with better economics than the businesses who are achieving on their own and also brought us better control over the end customer relationships. As a result of this, we were able to realize an uplift in revenue of approximately $7 million in the quarter and greater gross margins as well. This is a great new story that reflective of how our scale has improved our negotiating power. But it's worthwhile noting that even without this, our revenue performance for the quarter handily beat our previous guidance of $68 million to $70 million." — CFO Nussey, Q4 and FY 2021 Conf Call"

""They have a fairly significant credit card portfolio, which – if I’m right about the credit in the Canadian banks – eventually those problems will show up in Canadian Tire’s credit card business." – Steve Eisman. "As you know, Canadian Tire is a very significant retailer in Canada and I think the last two quarters they’ve had some real margin pressure... I think the reason for the margin pressure is they’re feeling the heat from Amazon." – Steve Eisman. "It would seem to me with all the uncertainty out there, both in Canada and the world, this would be the last time in the world you should grow your commercial loan books double digits, but that’s what the banks are doing." – Steve Eisman. "I find it puzzling and unexplainable." – Steve Eisman."

"“...as I mentioned in the last quarter, we're predicting now that our gross margin going forward, we're sort of at the trough now of gross margin. So as you've seen over the last several years, we've had, primarily because of mix, the strong growth of Eliquis, we've had margin degradation, but we feel that we're now bottoming out on that gross margin.” — Charles Bancroft, CFO, Q2 2018 Earnings Call, July 26, 2018; “And if you look back last year and again this year, we've continued to up-invest in R&D, while we have reductions in MS&A. So, we've continued to leverage our operating margin and we continue to see operating margin favorability going forward.” — Charles Bancroft, CFO, UBS Global Healthcare and Life Sciences Conference, May 22, 2018"

"In Q1 2019, we expect gross margins to be in the range of 61% to 63% and build higher over the rest of the year — Axon Q1'19E Gross Margin Guidance. Gross margin of 59.5% represents 260 basis points of sequential improvement, driven by strength in software and sensors, partially offset by TASER 7 program startup costs, including customer trade-in credits — Axon Q1'19 Press Release. In Q1 TASER segment gross margins were pressured by two main factors ASP, average selling price and scrap rates both will improve over time and we're improving even as we speak. — Axon Q1'19 Conf Call. Additionally, margins were compressed related to the rollout of our newest TASER device and increased data storage and tariff and customs expenses. — Axon Q1'19 10-Q."

""We believe the question of whether Kao accelerates growth for beauty care and cosmetics in FY2025 is very important for achieving FY2025 guidance and the medium-term business plan" — J.P. Morgan. "The health & beauty care business did not perform as well as we were expecting, due partly to the booking of costs associated with business revamps and higher marketing outlays. The cosmetics business also continued to struggle." — Daiwa. "Growth strategies for health & beauty care and cosmetics look a bit underwhelming based on 4Q results and FY12/25 sales guidance" — SMBC. "[Hasebe] noted that cosmetics are a high-margin business and that the company would work towards a 15-20% OPM in the business without providing a timeframe" — CLSA."

"Sure. Their largest customer is Google. They don't disclose that for some reason. Maybe Google doesn't want to, but they do work with Google in Brazil, which is your largest customer, and in Chile as well as, and in Colombia, I guess, which is a very... because Dlocal their core business is doing cross-border payments, right? So, collecting locally, doing the exchange in remitting the money abroad. It's their core business where they make more money because you have this portion of doing the FX, right, converting on from local currency to U.S. dollars. And for Google they don't that, they do local collecting in local settlements. So, their margins there are very, very thin. But the volume of Google is just huge, right? — Source A"

"“Quinn, this is Michael. Although the company's strategy is that we don't really care in which market segment how we time it and how we time it in related to growing our MPS revenues, so these -- we actually -- in opposite, we don't want to -- we want to get associated with -- are we tied to Xbox, we tied to whatever the game console have, like game platforms, and the Intel, when they're going to release the -- into production of whatever the processor is. These are just our opportunity and that we only want to ensure our gross margin and a steady growth. And our customers phasing whatever the -- whichever the product is, we don't count that. And it's all within a plus/minus 6, 7 months, as I said earlier.” — CEO Hsing (Q1 2017)"

""Our lease financing team inside SunPower has been very actively working on improving our lease offering as well. We're just a few days away from announcing a significant addition to our lease portfolio, which takes funding well through 2021. Most importantly, it doesn't just provide great lease capability to customers and our dealer partners, this technology actually increased our gross margins over $0.40 a watt. I would say this is one of the areas since we became much more focused on the space that has really improved our fundamental financials as a company. Advances in financing are playing a big part in driving our increased profitability, but also our increased dealer loyalty." — SunPower Investor Call, September 10, 2020"

"“I heard Waleed’s head almost exploded” — Prominent surgeon, Director of leading academic transplant center. “Whether I use TransMedics or whether I put it in a cooler of ice, I still get $300,000. But when I put it in the cooler of ice and bring the organ, my margin on the case is, let’s say, $100,000-120,000 or something. When I do it, and I then use the OCS device, my margin on the case is $10,000” — Transplant surgeon and transplant program director at a leading Northeast academic center. “All of this is very true and it very much eats up your margin...you are eating up a very, very substantial amount of the margin, no doubt about it.” — Transplant hepatologist and director of the liver program at a Midwest academic center."

"I would say that many of my patients are on Facebook groups and so on...they've been excited for it...they've been wanting to start it as soon as it was released...but people positioned like me are probably prescribing it, but with some question about how successful it's going to be — Endocrinologist #6. The failure of the clinical trial and then the extension that had the signal, of course, I'm familiar with that...I agree that it's marginal...there is definitely some pressure and expectation from families — Endocrinologist #6. It's a very unique situation in the PWS community because Miller is a destination for these families... there's other interventions that are not evidence-based that she promotes — Endocrinologist #6."

""During the fourth quarter, we continued to benefit from our ongoing investments and focus on ecommerce. Our e-comm business grew over 60% in the quarter as we benefited from consumers shifting to online purchasing." — Christine Sacco, CFO, Q4 2020 Call. "The financial profile of our online business is pretty consistent with brick-and-mortar. So although we have different tactics, the overall cost of connecting and winning with consumers is fairly similar for us." — Ronald Lombardi, Q4 2020 Call. "For Amazon, our margins would be slightly better or the same. We don't have the middleman, but when we sell direct to the consumer, the cost of the transaction goes a bit higher. For example, shipping." — Former PBH Employee."

"The acquisitions that you've done since the beginning of the strategic cycle, are they similar margins? Or are they margin accretive to your mix? — Canaccord Analyst Q2 2023. Similar margin profile. But the cost synergies and something I perhaps should have mentioned in our -- in my remark, but the cost synergies that we are able to generate is going very, very well as well. So I think we are seeing, in all fairness, a bit more cost synergies than we were anticipating during due diligence, number one. And then the performance of the companies that we've acquired, is also up to par, if not a bit better than what we were anticipating in the first place, actually very consistent with our legacy business — CEO L'Heureux."

""Margins will expand in coming years, driven by mix shift towards premium alcohol and ingredients products..." — Apis Capital Dec 2015; "The company benefits from secular tailwinds in favor of whiskey – rye whiskey in particular" and "Existing Business Growth with Significant Market Share and Sustainable Barriers." — Apis Capital Dec 2015; "The real strategic win, however, appears on the balance sheet as "barreled distillate". These barrels are filled with distillate, booked at cost, and owned by MGP for the aging process. In a sense, this is MGP's "reserve" which they can access at any point after aging for 4 years. Aged barrels of distillate can sell for 3x the cost after ~4 years of aging." — Apis Capital Dec 2015"