Callouts & quotes from 387+ activist slides

"The first $500 million of synergies is expected to create a company with EBITDA margins of over 20% and annual EBITDA of over $3 billion, giving us the firepower to reduce the leverage ratio to 3 times to 3.5 times within two years to three years and then, subsequently, to deploy capital to create further value beyond our organic agenda. — CEO Michael Polk – Q4 2015 Earnings Call"

"CFO Rowland: "We're also excited as we continue to lean in and drive a conversion of our revenue portfolio towards digital, that roughly 50% of this backlog is higher-margin digital business." — Investor Day Sept 2021; CFO Rowland: "And then, of course, our backlog has a higher digital mix. And so that will naturally bring with it some higher margins." — Q3'22 Earnings Nov 2022"

"Yes in 2018 and 2019, I was there. I saw it. The freight was extremely high and not considered part of the cost of goods sold. Then the company moved with the supply chain optimizing the cost analysis and started making a decent gross profit in 2020. And clearly because the Company was paying extremely high freight, it was affecting the gross margin. — Former Oatly Accountant"

"Renee Pearson joined us 6 to 9 months ago as a Head of Technology. She joins us and brings a wealth of knowledge on that front. And we continue to make more changes across the back office. We think those people will drive further change, further productivity improvements and improvement in overall margin profile as we think about the future. — JP Morgan Conf Sept 19, 2023"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"Talk about a fall from grace. Of all the US airlines, Southwest has evolved the least since 9/11, relative to an industry that has undergone a massive profit transformation ... We believe substantive changes to its business model are required if margins are ever going to reclaim the high ground, but management (thus far) appears uninterested. — J.P. Morgan, December 2023"

"The sale of these surgical products will strengthen our ability to focus our resources across our portfolio... This transaction underscores our strategic focus on high-growth, high-margin categories where Hillrom can demonstrate leadership and supports our commitment to deliver on our promise of Advancing Connected Care. — John P. Groetelaars, Hillrom President and CEO"

""[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 Investor Relations, March 14, 2024; "The biggest delta is in refining and well below mid-cycle refining environments baked into the '25, '26 outlook." — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

""[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 Investor Relations, March 14, 2024; "The biggest delta is in refining and well below mid-cycle refining environments baked into the '25, '26 outlook." — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, January 7, 2025"

""By positioning ourselves as a "one-stop" environmental services provider, we plan to leverage our diverse service offerings to unlock potential cross-selling opportunities across our business lines. As we execute on our growth strategies, we will continue to leverage our scalable capabilities to manage costs and drive higher operating margins." — GFL Environmental"

""And similarly -- slightly different with Fetch. So Fetch, just given its maturity and where it's at in its life cycle, was dilutive to EBITDA at the time of acquisition, but one that, over time, with the subscription model it has, we think both accretive to gross margin as well as profitability as we scale that business." — CFO Winters JPMorgan Conf, May 23, 2022"

"[M]ultiple hundreds of millions of dollars — Gary Butler, Q4'2010 Earnings Call. [S]trong double-digit kind of bottom line margin — Gary Butler, Q1'2012 Earnings Call. [O]ur HR BPO products excluding the pass-throughs have margin characteristics that are roughly in line for most of the cases, with our overall margin profile. — Management, Q2'2016 conference call."

""Retail GM declined 120 bp, with CTR down 100bp, reflecting a lower true-up benefit related to margin sharing and negative shipment mix." — Patricia Baker, Scotiabank, August 8, 2018; "GM% was down 120 bps, primarily at CTR. -50 bps was driven by a negative swing in dealer profit sharing and another ~50 bps from poor sales mix" — Mark Petrie, CIBC, August 8, 2018"

""We also won by a wide margin at the US Army's most prestigious live-fire exercise in April of this year. Subsequently, we received a contract from the US Army, which will likely make us their preferred C-UAS standard solution. The US combat vehicle fleet will be equipped with an EOS R400 Slinger in a semi-autonomous special configuration." — CEO (December 2025)"

""We will operate a low-cost operating model in all that we do. In essence, we will continue to apply a low-margin operating mindset to a high-margin business. We will take pride in our frugality, our ability to make quick decisions based on internal resources, our willingness to all wear different hats at different times." — Mike Pearson, 2010 Chairman’s Letter"

"Gross margin decreased to 45.6% in the current year compared to 46.4% for the prior year primarily due to product volume deleveraging, the negative impact of foreign currency changes and inventory-related charges, partially offset by pricing, higher service and software margins, and lower premium freight and component part costs. — Zebra Technologies 2023 10-K"

"“The question that we're getting a lot from investors is how to think about EPS growth and should EPS growth just follow and marry revenue growth, or is there opportunity and would management and the Board come off their 19% and 20% margin range or even perhaps get more aggressive on share repurchases or get more aggressive on M&A.” — Oppenheimer, Aug. 2016"

""This 250-basis-point decline in gross margin as compared to the prior year was mainly the result of an unfavorable mix -- sales mix. The shift in mix was driven by the significant growth in shipments of portable generators and mobile products during the quarter, which carry lower gross margins relative to the consolidated corporate average." — CFO Q3 2017"

"“...we are pleased to share that $150 million announced cumulative savings will drive a $100 million improvement in operating profit for the fiscal year 2020 [relative to 2017]. With these savings, along with modest low single-digit revenue growth, we believe we can achieve an operating margin of 13% in fiscal year 2020.” — 5/25/17 FQ4 2017 earnings call"

"“These are all high-margin specialty applications...You can see the margins for construction are best in class here running from 23%, to just under 26%. We maintain these margins because of the specialty nature of the product, the distribution network, and the fact that their specified for high-end applications.” — Greg Poling, President & CEO, May 2016"

"Lower net per litre fuel margin at Petroleum reflecting a more competitive marketplace and the impact of the newly implemented carbon tax in some regions, lower growth in profit from the Company's margin-sharing arrangement with its Dealers, the impact of IFRS 16, and higher interest expense. — 2019 Second Third Quarter Earnings Presentation (slide 7)"

"So I guess when you think about ecobee and you look at -- as we ramp that up and they grow, their margin profile in the out years looks very similar to our clean energy business. We've talked about how that will probably be in the mid- to high teens EBITDA margins from a gross margin standpoint, closer to that mid-30% range. — Q3 2021 Conference Call"

"Gross margin for the quarter was 44.8%... Our gross margin for the quarter was approximately $25.2 million or 44.8% of revenue as compared to 40% in Q3 FY '21 and up from 38.3% in Q2. The increased gross margin reflects the impact of higher revenues in particular higher NGS revenues and thus leveraging our fixed costs. — James M. Thorburn, Twist CFO"

""And finally, Broadridge's objectives to expand margins through scale and efficiency to strengthen by adding Itiviti. Itiviti's 30% plus operating margin business will increase our adjusted operating income margin by 50 basis points by fiscal '23 and positions us for higher adjusted earnings growth." — CEO Gokey, Itiviti M&A Call, March 29, 2021"

""The notion of a dilutive acquisition casts doubt on the assumption of margin expansion" — Dougherty (July 27th, 2016); "The acquisition is not an inexpensive one ... we are wary of the possibility that these moves bring TYPE into more direct competition with digital marketing companies, including Adobe, over time" — JP Morgan (July 21st, 2016)"

""Canada is a relatively large business... and it's quite profitable." — Carlos Rodriguez, Q2'2015 Conference Call. "[T]he old GSI in Europe was what I would call more margin focused." — Gary Butler, 2008 Analyst Meeting. "Our margins in France, where when we acquired GSI back in '95, are excellent." — Arthur Weinbach, Q4'2006 Conference Call."

"“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” — Pediatric endocrinologist, leads one of the largest PWS clinics in US with 30-40 patients; 11 endocrinologists, major academic center"

"We have true opportunity for margin expansion through operating leverage, driving commercial and operational excellence and continuing to shift our portfolio towards digital solutions. — CFO Roland, Investor/Analyst Day Sept 30, 2021; The reality is Xylem’s digital sales are actually dilutive, not accretive. — Former Xylem Executive Response"

"I guess the question to really ask is what's the continuing value proposition in the world that has significantly changed? ... I think revenue is going to be pretty easy for them to drive, but I think margin is the one that I really question, if they don't have a significant differentiator. — Former TASK Executive Interviewed By Spruce Point"

"We’re going to have higher margins with the delivery of these cost synergies, and we haven’t quantified the benefits of any revenue synergies but we would clearly expect to be able to grow at higher rates over the longer term than we would independently.... And we see some very specific opportunities — CEO on Revenue Synergies, Aug 7, 2018"

""Our operating leverage was up 245 basis points year-over-year..." — Todd Gibbons. "This is one of our real focuses, delivering positive operating leverage and improving the operating margins of our company...And so you can see over the last 12 months, the operating margin has in fact, improved by 78 bps across the firm" — Gerald Hassell."

"So, we’ve said most of the $10 million is around COGS synergies. So, we would expect gross margin to expand 200 basis points to 300 basis points over the next few years.... we’ve always – we’ve never been disappointed, and we’ve always overachieved our synergy number. And I’ll probably leave it at that — CEO Waterpik Deal Call, July 2017"

"“...we've maintained margins in the 75% to 80% range over time and we expect the long-term margins to stay in that 75% to 80% range.” — CFO Dylan Smith, August 2015; “...75% to 80% long-term range, which is still our current view in terms of the steady state and long-term gross margins of the business.” — CFO Dylan Smith, December 2015"

"“We finally received a little peek into the future of Disney’s streaming plan as the company shared a target of double-digit profit margins in streaming. As new CFO Hugh Johnston rightly admitted, that target should have been obvious, however, the timing and path forward still remain pretty ambiguous.” — MoffettNathanson, February 2024"

"“We finally received a little peek into the future of Disney’s streaming plan as the company shared a target of double-digit profit margins in streaming. As new CFO Hugh Johnston rightly admitted, that target should have been obvious, however, the timing and path forward still remain pretty ambiguous.” — MoffettNathanson, February 2024"

"We've talked about sort of balancing the continued data center investments with a lot of the operational efficiency improvements and scale that we're seeing in the model...we'd expect our gross margin to begin trending back upwards sometime in the fiscal '18 year and then to remain in the 75% to 80% range. — Q1 FY2017 Box Commentary"

""As you’ll be aware, 2025 Brent strip is at around $75 per barrel, and other commodities and prices, including refining margins, are under pressure. Were these prices to play out, the rule of thumb impact in 2025 would be around $4 billion – but that’s a price call that we don’t know at this stage" — BP CEO at the Q2 2024 results."

"“We’re going to have higher margins with the delivery of these cost synergies, and we haven’t quantified the benefits of any revenue synergies but we would clearly expect to be able to grow at higher rates over the longer term than we would independently”.... “And we see some very specific opportunities” — Amcor CEO, Aug 7, 2018"

""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"

"In addition, these loans are priced at market rates, which not only helps to diversify our balance sheet, but also provides an additional return above our cost of funding and a yield similar to the net interest margin of our loans, which are unsecured. — CFO Lapointe, SOFI Technologies, Inc., Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript"

"Analyst: “We always talk about incremental margins with you.... You got all this operating leverage. How do we think about operating margin then?” Mark Donegan (PCC CEO): “And again they move, but I think that the range in which you should expect to see it move is somewhere between that 35% and 45%, 48%.” — December 3, 2014"

"As you’ll be aware, 2025 Brent strip is at around $75 per barrel, and other commodities and prices, including refining margins, are under pressure. Were these prices to play out, the rule of thumb impact in 2025 would be around $4 billion – but that’s a price call that we don’t know at this stage. — BP Q2 2024 Earnings Call"

""In the fourth quarter of 2022, we executed multiple restructuring programs to lower costs, increase margins and position us for growth resulting in restructuring and impairment expenses of $35 million. We expect to fully execute our restructuring initiatives and programs over the next 12-24 months." — Resideo 2022 10-K"

""In October, we acquired Antuit for approximately $145 million to further advance our Enterprise Asset Intelligence vision. This high-margin Software as a Service business generated sales of approximately $27 million in 2020, nearly doubling over a 3-year period." — CEO Gustafsson, Q3'21 Conf. Call, November 2, 2021"

"“Last night, Rui Tiantian was fighting with a beautiful anchor. During the fight, Rui Tiantian got up and left her seat. Tycoon Yangyang appeared and brushed a jumbo jet, launching her into the lead in a matter of seconds, helping Rui Tiantian's defeat her opponent by a wide margin.” — https://www.yy.com/yue/182938"

"We start with the customer in all deals and saying what does this do from that standpoint. But naturally, costs come out. Normally, we'll see gross margin fall to EBITDA. And within 1 year to 1.5 years after the acquisitions, they're highly accretive -- to our margins. — Evoqua CFO, CS Industrial Conf, Dec 2, 2022"

"On your second question, so about 21% of our revenue in Q4 was spent on inventory, on our IoT devices and on inventory. And so with a minus 3% free cash flow margin, our free cash flow margin sans dollars going out the door for inventory would have been positive 18%. — Samsara CFO Phillips, Q4 FY2023 Earnings Call"

"We're also adjusting the timeline by which we expect to achieve our longer-term margin targets laid out at our December 2020 Investor Day.... We remain committed to 60% gross margin and 31% adjusted EBITDA margin, and we'll provide an update on timing in 2023... — CEO Jeff Simmons Q2 2022 Earnings Call 8/8/2022"

""We also acknowledge activism could create an opportunity to highlight value that is even higher at $40 (and in the range of the activist target) to account for significant margin expansion from current levels, premised on a market P/E of 17x and earnings of $2.37." — Morgan Stanley Research, February 1, 2017"

""It's about the size of your arm from your elbow to your fingers. Half of it is just a metal stick with the scope part. The other part is molded plastic with a tiny chip on it, so it's probably double-digit dollars to make. So, the margin is infinite. It's a huge margin." — Major Hospital Urologist, Nov 2024"

"“We (will) consider divesting of brands or products that generate five billion yen or less in sales, that have a profit margin of less than 15%, and that have no growth potential... We aim to complete this selection process within one to two years.” — Yoshihiro Hasebe, June 2021 Small Meeting with CEO"

"With gross margin in excess of 70%, FIGS is starting from a position of strength and in the company of TPR (historically 70%+) and LULU (which we estimate to have merchandise margin in excess of 70%). — Barclays FIGS report, “Initiating Overweight, The Path to 10x”, Price Target: $50.00, June 21, 2021"

"There is certainly opportunity for operating margin expansion beyond '23, as we begin to leverage those operating costs more, but we'll still likely be based on where we're at today and closer to those single -- to close to double digit operating margin metrics. — Wilson at Investor Day November 2020"

"“The biggest problem with this class is with the CYP3A4 having a very narrow therapeutic margin, and metabolism is the biggest problem you have here. That's the enzyme that actually degrades it.” — Senior pharmaceutical executive/scientist, previously at Abbott and now at another major pharma company"

"“We are well on track in establishing the product, distribution, services, support, and marketing foundations to enable us to achieve our FY 2015 objectives, and over the next three years, to achieve our billion-dollar plan and maintain mid-20s operating margin objectives” — Commvault, January 2014."

""the cost of goods are pretty horrendous"; the gross margins "were pretty shitty...yeah, they were negative." — Gen9 executive; "you’re definitely going bankrupt"; "you’re going to lose money...it’s something I don’t think [investors] get...you’re not long for this world." — DNA manufacturing expert"

"“Yes, there are tons of players. If you don't want to manufacture on a global scale, there's a very low barrier to entry. There's always someone willing to do it for less margin than you'd like to make, so you have to do something to differentiate it.” — Ex-employee in senior product and sales roles"

"“We are well on track in establishing the product, distribution, services, support, and marketing foundations to enable us to achieve our FY 2015 objectives, and over the next three years, to achieve our billion-dollar plan and maintain mid-20s operating margin objectives” — Commvault, January 2014"