Callouts & quotes from 10,384+ activist slides

"“BlackRock clearly stated that climate risk is an investment risk, but actions speak louder than words. The appointment of the CEO of the world’s largest oil producer to BlackRock’s board undermines its own stated climate commitments. At a time when financial institutions need to take a collective approach to addressing the financial risks from climate change, BlackRock shareholders expect climate-competent, not climate-conflicted, directors” — Brad Lander, the New York City Comptroller, 19 July 2023"

""Our guidance includes the following assumptions related to the acquired G&K business: no transaction and integration expenses; revenue of $870 million to $900 million, compared to a prior year run rate of $965 million; synergies of approximately $50 million to $55 million; purchase price amortization expense related to intangible assets of $50 million; interest expense on G&K acquisition debt of about $65 million; and an EPS contribution of $0.15 to $0.17." — CFO Q4 2017 Earnings Call, July 20, 2017"

"“I’m watching out for that...[she] already has quite big ankles”; “my son can’t tell me if he’s in pain or not but his legs looks bigger to me”; “I’m noticing several people experiencing edema as a potentially serious side effect...my kiddo struggles with expressive language and I’m not confident he will communicate or notice if he is uncomfortable...he has severe OSA...so I absolutely do not want any extra strain on his heart/lungs from fluid retention.” — Anonymous parents in Vykat discussion group"

"“systems violations”; “an increase in out-of-sequence offers, ‘open offers,’ and similar workarounds to the allocation system”; “a patchwork of opaque organ allocation practices”; patients are not “getting a fair opportunity” for an organ if they are at a center that is “not favored as an aggressive center by the participating OPO”; and that not a single OPO or transplant center has been “held accountable for any violation” of match rules. — American Society of Nephrology letter to OPTN/HHS, Feb 2024"

"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. While Nuvei has traditionally operated in the US and Canada focusing on the SMB market, SafeCharge has established a solid foothold across European, Asian and Latin-American territories, servicing large scale merchants in both revenues and size. — Nuvei Press Release, Aug 1, 2019"

"As previously disclosed, the Securities and Exchange Commission began an informal inquiry into the issues associated with the restatement of some of our financial statements in 2001 through 2003. On August 18, 2006, we received verbal notification from the SEC that the inquiry will continue under a formal order of investigation, which we believe is a common step in such matters. We believe that the focus of the investigation is substantially the same as the informal inquiry. — MasTec Inc. SEC Filing"

""The new governance is a concern to us, the risk of dismantling and governance that would not take into account the shareholders' interest may cause Vivendi to consider as permitted by law, to request the convening of a Shareholders' Meeting to propose to reorganize the board of directors." — Arnaud de Puyfontaine, Vivendi CEO, May 17, 2018; "A Board with any single party in control faces the likely prospect of continued proxy challenges by the other party." — Vivendi Presentation, February 25, 2019"

""[We] designed our mid-cycle methodology around the 2012 to 2019 time frame. You had cycles of strong margins and weak margins during that period of time." — Phillips 66 IR, March 14, 2024; "Q: ...[W]hen you look at the differences... between Wall Street and that $14 billion, where do you think the biggest delta still are? Is it chems? Is it refining? A: The biggest delta is in refining and well below mid-cycle refining environments baked into the '25, '26 outlook..." — Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

""The other thing that they're not showing is separator thickness across the board...I mean, if they reported separator thickness, that would go a long way toward answering these questions." — Solid-state expert; "One of the solutions was to make the separator thicker, and that typically reduces the performance of the cell, and it quickly negates a lot of the advantages that solid-state gives ...If they say they can make a separator that works, but they won't tell us how thick it is..." — Ex-employee"

""[We] designed our mid-cycle methodology around the 2012 to 2019 time frame. You had cycles of strong margins and weak margins during that period of time." — Phillips 66 IR, March 14, 2024; "Q: ...[W]hen you look at the differences... between Wall Street and that $14 billion, where do you think the biggest delta still are? Is it chems? Is it refining? A: The biggest delta is in refining and well below mid-cycle refining environments baked into the '25, '26 outlook..." — Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

""How do you measure success? The answer is right here. We launched in the US and within 9 months there was a national oat milk shortage. It's cool but not cool because you want to supply that. We've come to realize we'll never be able to make enough oat milk. The demand is more great than the supply. It doesn't matter how fast we build our factories, because we're building them as fast as we can. And that's a cool way to measure success." — John Schoolcraft, Oatly's Creative Director of Mind Control"

"“In terms of margins, the accounting change really accounts for the shift that you're seeing. So we have not revised up or revised down our expectations” — DuPont Management. “...Safety and Protection margin [targets] that you show are 21% to 23% which is what they were 18 months ago. But you now exclude your pension cost...[which was] more than 500 basis points.” — Jeff Zekauskas, JP Morgan. “...You're right, Jeff. The margin is lower between 400 and 500 basis points from that standpoint” — DuPont."

"We're realists about the business and about the impact technology has had on how product is distributed, marketed, and consumed... All of this has and will continue to put pressure on the multi-channel ecosystem, which has seen a decline in overall households as well as growth in so-called skinny or cable-light packages. ESPN has experienced some modest sub losses, although those have been less than reported by one of the prominent research firms. — Robert A. Iger, Disney CEO & Director, August 2015"

""The goal is to set up the policies and incentive systems so that increasing number of quality agencies professional performers can feel motivated and driven enough to offer higher quality and more differentiated content through our platform." — Momo Earnings Call; "On the product side, one of the key hurdles that we had in improving the long-term user retention was the fact that our core use case, which was pretty much based on nearby people and instant messaging was kind of limited" — CEO Tang Yan"

"Although dd-cfDNA is an interesting and promising marker of solid transplant organ health, much work still needs to be done before clinical implementation...In conclusion, whereas observational studies published so far point to dd-cfDNA as a promising marker in the transplantation field, randomized control studies are mandatory comparing a dd-cfDNA-based monitoring strategy with the standard post-transplantation monitoring in terms of graft and patient survival. — American Journal of Transplantation"

""[We] designed our mid-cycle methodology around the 2012 to 2019 time frame. You had cycles of strong margins and weak margins during that period of time." — Phillips 66 IR, March 14, 2024; "Q: ...[W]hen you look at the differences... between Wall Street and that $14 billion, where do you think the biggest delta still are? Is it chems? Is it refining? A: The biggest delta is in refining and well below mid-cycle refining environments baked into the '25, '26 outlook..." — Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

""The stage has two problems: significantly high cost and complexity. and two, the fact that it produces particulation into the entire area. The problem with particles is two-fold. One, there is all the optics of the mask inspection system whether it's Lasertec or KLA is open optic. There is no window anywhere because you cannot put windows in EUV. So, it's a big, big chamber or two chambers are connected with a phalange." — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group"

""Shareholder returns continue to underperform peers similar in size and industry (as well as the broad industry and market index) over the last 1- and 3-fiscal year periods, while CEO compensation outranked most peers." — ISS Proxy Advisory Services, 2012 Hess Core Report. "The Company has been deficient in linking executive pay to corporate performance, as indicated by the "D" grade received by the Company in Glass Lewis' pay-for-performance model." — Glass Lewis 2012 Hess Corporation Proxy Paper."

"BlackRock clearly stated that climate risk is an investment risk, but actions speak louder than words. The appointment of the CEO of the world’s largest oil producer to BlackRock’s board undermines its own stated climate commitments. At a time when financial institutions need to take a collective approach to addressing the financial risks from climate change, BlackRock shareholders expect climate-competent, not climate-conflicted, directors — Brad Lander, the New York City Comptroller, 19 July 2023"

"As a holder of the residual value or other such interests, we are more exposed to losses on the underlying collateral because the interest we retain in the securitization vehicle or other entity would be subordinate to the more senior notes or interests issued to investors and we would, therefore, absorb all of the losses, up to the value of our interests, sustained with respect to the underlying assets before the owners of the notes or other interests experience any losses. — HASI 2021 10-K, p. 30"

"…A shareholder of a professional corporation or of a foreign professional corporation qualified to render professional services in this state shall not enter into a voting trust, proxy, or any other arrangement vesting another person (other than another person who is a shareholder of the same corporation) with the authority to exercise the voting power of any or all of the shareholder's shares, and any purported voting trust, proxy, or other arrangement shall be void. — California Corporations Code"

""2018 was the best year in TaskUs history," said CEO Bryce Maddock. "Jaspar and I started this company with $20,000 and a one room office in the Philippines; so, I am a bit awestruck by the accomplishments of our team this year, which include the Blackstone investment, being named one of the world's 100 best places to work by Glassdoor and growing to over 15,000 people worldwide. I am so proud of what the team has accomplished." — TaskUs Announces Meteoric Growth in 2018, Jan 24, 2019, Businesswire"

"I'd like to now speak about our Q3 results in the context of the key drivers of our business: people, products, traffic, and revenue. Starting with people, we ended the quarter with 10,700 full-time employees and just under 800 contractors, bringing our overall head count down 14% year over year and down 32% over the current management's tenure. We will continue to be disciplined on our head count and our thoughtful work on this area has helped appreciably on expenses. — Mayer on Q315 Earnings Call"

"“Exactly. I would say that the person that was the director of R&D, pretty much overseeing the project, was actually a Ginkgo employee at first, so he had really little say because he was an insider from Ginkgo, so he couldn’t really tell them what you’re doing is not the perfect thing. I work for Motif, and I need to have the best result for Motif. And so, you can promise me everything or anything, but at the end of the day, you have to deliver commercial strains for us.” — Current Motif executive"

""We got to put all that together when we put our 2022 guidance together formally, but I would say the initial receptivity (related to the Chilicon Power acquisition) continues to be strong. Our project remains online and on target and the internal excitement here around what we can do with that product line is -- if you talk to Ross Minick (Chief Marketing Officer) and his team, he's incredibly bullish on what we're going to be able to do with that longer-term" — CEO, Generac Q3 2021 Earnings Call"

""I am 70% Sofia [Terumo], probably 15% Medtronic React 71, and 15% Penumbra. It used to be that we were 100% Penumbra when they were the only thing out there... Their Jet7 catheter sucks and they know it." — Neurosurgeon; "Penumbra used to always beat itself. Once something new came out, Penumbra would come out with something better. But now Medtronic has the React 71, and that is kicking ass. In our shop, we have shifted 40-50% of our business from the Penumbra Jet to Medtronic..." — Neurosurgeon"

""And just having the Bakken or Utica standalone, they would not be self-funding. They could not get access to the credit markets and that's a real issue." — John Hess, January 2013. "Even without any initial debt, Singer's ResourceCo would likely be a sub-investment grade credit with limited stand-alone debt capacity. As a result, ResourceCo's ability to fund growth in the Bakken and hence realize future value for Hess shareholders would be harmed." — Hess Presentation to Shareholders, March 2013."

"“With the anticipated sale of INVISTA, DuPont will be a smaller company with the potential for higher growth and profitability...But unlocking that potential means doing things differently. If we are to meet our earnings growth objectives – which we will – we cannot support the complexity and cost entailed by diverse and specialized organizations and processes. The actions we are announcing today are necessary to ensure the near- and long-term competitiveness of DuPont.” — Press release, 12/1/2003"

""With the anticipated sale of INVISTA, DuPont will be a smaller company with the potential for higher growth and profitability...But unlocking that potential means doing things differently. If we are to meet our earnings growth objectives – which we will – we cannot support the complexity and cost entailed by diverse and specialized organizations and processes. The actions we are announcing today are necessary to ensure the near- and long-term competitiveness of DuPont." — Press release, 12/1/2003"

""With the anticipated sale of INVISTA, DuPont will be a smaller company with the potential for higher growth and profitability...But unlocking that potential means doing things differently. If we are to meet our earnings growth objectives - which we will - we cannot support the complexity and cost entailed by diverse and specialized organizations and processes. The actions we are announcing today are necessary to ensure the near- and long-term competitiveness of DuPont." — Press release, 12/1/2003"

"“I never had a turn down,” no matter what the pump indicated for lactase, bile, or other biomarkers of viability... “they always wanted people to get people to accept the organ right away, and that is what it boiled down to...get it on the machine, and everything else was questionable...I never had a turn-down...I had thought that maybe people wouldn't want my liver because it wasn't putting much bile out, but they were like, no, we're actually happy with this.” — Former TransMedics OCS specialist"

""With the anticipated sale of INVISTA, DuPont will be a smaller company with the potential for higher growth and profitability...But unlocking that potential means doing things differently. If we are to meet our earnings growth objectives - which we will - we cannot support the complexity and cost entailed by diverse and specialized organizations and processes. The actions we are announcing today are necessary to ensure the near- and long-term competitiveness of DuPont." — Press release, 12/1/2003"

"Monsanto announced a fundamental change in its idea of an appropriate capital structure...Monsanto intends to begin an accelerated share repurchase program of $6b in 4Q:F14 or 1Q:F15 and to repurchase $11b in shares over a two year period or approximately 85 million shares or 16% of outstanding common [shares]. Monsanto is a good free cash flow generator and maintaining a 1.5x leverage target would imply meaningful future repurchase beyond the current $11b target by mid 2016. — JP Morgan (6/26/14)"

"“I have zero confidence this team can get this right and certainly not in the timeframe that is needed. I rarely call for wholesale change at a company, but that is what is needed here.” — Top 10 Active Shareholder; “Having the current CEO drive the process for a new strategy is not a good idea... This is a good time for the change.” — Top 10 Active Shareholder; “We have years of disdain from leadership, and that’s how labor has been treated... And here we are with an activist” — SWAPA leadership"

"“Opdivo had been considered the leader among the new class of medicines... The view of the rival drugs began to change in August, with the surprise announcement by Bristol-Myers that Opdivo had failed to best older chemotherapies in the Phase III [CHECKMATE-026] trial.... ‘Merck will completely ‘own’ the segment of first-line lung cancer patients who have high PD-L1 expression levels, and Bristol-Myers will capture nothing really,’ [Sanford Bernstein’s Tim] Anderson said.” — Reuters, October 2016"

"And so we launched our MVP Pro Rewards Program, which has been incredibly successful and exceeded all of our expectations. And when you combine it with our Lowe’s credit, those customers are incredibly more valuable, shop a lot more frequently. And then we put in a best-in-class CRM platform that gives us the ability to not only recognize the customer but recognize what they’re buying but more importantly, what they’re not buying and how we can help them grow their business. — MS Conf Dec 5, 2023"

""...operating priority is simply execution...I use data to drive decisions, I set clear targets...I set the competitive benchmarks and I continuously raise the bar." — Ellen Kullman, May 2, 2013 Investor Day. "Relative to our five year, long-term rolling growth targets (7% rev growth, 12% earnings growth)... we believe these goals are both appropriate and achievable. We fully endorse management's plan to achieve them and are encouraged by progress against them." — Alexander Cutler, March 5, 2014."

"CSIM believes that the board is typically best positioned to determine its leadership structure. Therefore, CSIM will typically not support proposals requiring the separation of these roles unless certain circumstances are in place. — Charles Schwab; We will generally vote for proposals looking to separate the CEO and Chairman roles unless the company has governance structures in place that can satisfactorily counterbalance a combined chairman and CEO/ president post. — JP Morgan Asset Management"

""In numerous instances in connection with the advertising, marketing, promotion, offering for sale, or sale of the right to participate in the Herbalife program, Defendants have represented, directly or indirectly, expressly or by implication, that consumers who become Herbalife Distributors are likely to earn substantial income. In truth and in fact... consumers who become Herbalife Distributors are not likely to earn substantial income." — FTC v. Herbalife International of America, Inc., et al."

"“...so if I'm looking at an account that has 15 urologists and the average monthly utilization is seven, I'm going to sit there and think, well, something's wrong...as for why it's not growing, I don't know.” — Former Procept Executive, Nov 2024. “It's just not a money maker for the doctor. So, they're never going to bully us into doing more.” — Major Hospital Urologist, Nov 2024. “you're not seeing an increase in usage per physician, there's a stalemate...” — Former Procept Sales Rep, Nov 2024."

""As a result of the Company’s performance and in consideration of management’s transformation accomplishments and the importance of retaining and motivating IC-eligible executives and managers to complete the separation, the Compensation Committee approved a 34.2 percentage point increase (an aggregate increase of approximately $16.8 million for all IC-eligible participants) to the attained IC pool, resulting in a final below-target IC payout of 88.5%." — Alcoa 2016 Proxy Statement (for FY 2015)"

""Smart Provosts and CFOs are already rejecting OPM contracts as inconsistent with the long-term goals of the university... We are fast approaching the moment at which the permanent revenue share model will disappear. And so some of the traditional OPMs now offer schools as much as $2 million as a signing bonus. They're not doing it out of a humanitarian impulse; they're doing it to prop themselves up, knowing that their profit on your students will be ten or twenty times that." — Noodle Partners"

""Allegion was spun-off from Ingersoll Rand in December 2013. As an Ingersoll Rand board member, Nelson worked with us to craft a shareholder friendly governance structure that is an important element in keeping our leadership accountable for performance as a standalone entity. Nelson Peltz, the Trian team and Allegion believe that good corporate governance and good operational results go hand in hand. The results speak for themselves." — David Petratis, Chairman, President and CEO, Allegion, plc"

"“The [New York] Times interviewed a dozen former executives at companies targeted by Mr. Peltz, and all said he had bolstered results. . .” — The New York Times; “I’ve owned [Disney] stock in the past. The stock was a $200 stock three years ago. I would rather buy this stock at $150, with some synergy and some cooperation between Mr. Peltz and Disney’s Board and Bob Iger than at $112 with the Disney Board and Bob Iger saying, ‘thanks but no thanks, I don’t need your help.’” — Joe Terranova, CNBC"

"B. Riley has acquired Targus in a transaction valued at approximately $250 million on an enterprise value basis, which represents a multiple of approximately 5.2x Adjusted EBITDA for the trailing twelve-month period ending June 2022. Targus generated revenues of approximately $415 million for the same trailing twelve-month period. Financing for the transaction included approximately $85.5 million of bank financing, and $114 million of seller financing and B. Riley bonds. — B. Riley Press Release"

"PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and JOSEPH M. DEMAREST, JR., Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced today that Optimal Group, Inc ("Optimal")—a company based in Canada and publicly traded on the NASDAQ—agreed to forfeit approximately $19.2 million in criminal proceeds derived from processing payments for illegal Internet gambling websites as part of a non-prosecution agreement ("NPA")."

"To assess the inspection capability of the High-NA ACTIS A3XX, we performed imaging simulations using a rigorous optical simulator with electromagnetic calculations with conditions of circular illumination and a standard TaBn-based absorber with a thickness of 70 nm. In this simulation, A3XX shows a significant improvement in contrast, with more than 30% improvement for 30 nm half-pitch line-and-space and 64 nm contact holes. — Lasertec SPIE paper on ACTIS A300 High NA capabilities, Nov 21, 2023"

"During fiscal 2018, we generated $43.3 million in cash from operating activities compared to $59.1 million in cash generated from operating activities in fiscal 2017. The decrease was primarily a result of higher cash uses for income tax payables, accounts payables, accounts receivables and inventory. The decrease was partially offset by higher comparable net income, additional depreciation and amortization expense and deferred revenues and customer advances. — Mercury Systems FY 18 10-K, p. 41"

"“We hope that you will urge Elliott to cease its attempt to liquidate the company...” — John Hess, Hess Letter to Shareholders, March 2013. “...the board has backhandedly dismissed [shareholder's analysis] as a plan to 'liquidate' the company... 'Liquidation' is what results when a board takes its eye off the business equation for too long, not what happens when shareholders insist on taking a look for themselves.” — ISS Proxy Advisory Services, Recommendation: AOL Inc Proxy Contest, June 2012."

"Beginning January 1, 2023, a new CPT code went into effect covering full transcriptome testing when performed separately from DNA testing. Historically, our xT assay was actually comprised of two separate and distinct procedures, DNA and RNA. Given there was not an applicable CPT code for RNA, we did not bill that test. With the introduction of the new code, we now have two separate assays, one analyzing DNA – xT and one analyzing RNA – xR that are ordered and billed for separately. — Tempus AI"

"I would categorize Dropbox revenue growth as mid-growth (~20% YoY top-line growth). The interesting part is in the net income and free cash flow. The Company has guided to $1.6 billion revenue in FY19. If we apply a 20% growth rate to FY20, that would imply a ~$1.9 billion revenue. If we take management estimates of $375m of free cash flow, it would imply ~20x forward EV/FCF, below high growth profitable peers that routinely trade at 50x EV/FCF. — Seeking Alpha, "Finding Value in SaaS, Jan 2020"

""I was at a [CFM International] lessor conference with my CEO and we actually asked for a show of hands. This was two years ago. Has anybody in this room bought a standalone module? And no one raised their hand. So, I just don't believe that there's 82 standalone modules being sold. And if you tell me that that comprises, they sold 20 standalone modules in the quarter and the rest are three times the engines they sold, okay, I don't, that's not bad." — Source E, former CFM & GE senior engineer."

"In numerous instances in connection with the advertising, marketing, promotion, offering for sale, or sale of the right to participate in the Herbalife program, Defendants have represented, directly or indirectly, expressly or by implication, that consumers who become Herbalife Distributors are likely to earn substantial income. In truth and in fact... consumers who become Herbalife Distributors are not likely to earn substantial income. — FTC v. Herbalife International of America, Inc., et al."

"“uncertain whether or not Yunfu EHang’s funding would be available” — Management Committee. "Our PRC subsidiaries have received various financial subsidies from PRC local government authorities. The financial subsidiaries result from discretionary incentives and policies adopted by PRC local government authorities. The discontinuation of such financial subsidies or imposition of any additional taxes could adversely affect our financial condition and results of operations." — EH 2019 20-F, p. 32"

"TSMC is not buying the High-NA Lasertec tool... no confidence... it will be reliable product... I hear offline it's not very reliable... the A150... needs a lot of support, and it has a lot of issues... what I know is that TSMC is upset because the source is not working... the source does not have enough uptime... cost of service is too high... they are flickering... I heard that they failed... Lasertec probably must write off those tools. — Ex-KLA director of engineering / Former KLA executive"

""Director Smith serves as CFO of the Company. We believe that the unique financial information and control over a company's finances that is typical for a CFO should place the CFO in the position of reporting to and not serving on the board. It is crucial for the board to be in the position of overseeing the Company's finances and its reporting. This oversight is likely to be more complicated and less rigorous when the CFO sits on the same board to which they report." — Glass Lewis 2017 Report"

"“There's also a lot of pressure in Germany to make all those nice PowerPoint slides and press releases real, so there's a lot of pressure internally, But when you're talking with the experts, with the battery experts [at VW], there are still a lot of question marks. The experts on our side were quite skeptical. They've been working with the current technology for years, with pouch cells, prismatic cells, and they know what kinds of challenges and problems they had to go through.” — VW employee"

""I started my programming career at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at 16. My first programing project was working on Logo (with 8K of memory) for Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert." — Peter Chapman (LinkedIn profile). "I'm super duper excited to have Peter Chapman CEO of IonQ on the show today...Peter, going into your background, you're programming computers 16 years of age at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, a super smart genius type character." — Aug 2021 interview with Peter Chapman."

"Allegion was spun-off from Ingersoll Rand in December 2013. As an Ingersoll Rand board member, Nelson worked with us to craft a shareholder friendly governance structure that is an important element in keeping our leadership accountable for performance as a standalone entity. Nelson Peltz, the Trian team and Allegion believe that good corporate governance and good operational results go hand in hand. The results speak for themselves. — David Petratis, Chairman, President and CEO, Allegion, plc"

"Allegion was spun-off from Ingersoll Rand in December 2013. As an Ingersoll Rand board member, Nelson worked with us to craft a shareholder friendly governance structure that is an important element in keeping our leadership accountable for performance as a standalone entity. Nelson Peltz, the Trian team and Allegion believe that good corporate governance and good operational results go hand in hand. The results speak for themselves. — David Petratis, Chairman, President and CEO, Allegion, plc"