Callouts & quotes from 387+ activist slides

"“Margins will be the same because that is how they are managing the business. Net profit on legacy business may slowly shrink because as their costs come down, the total dollar or margin might shrink. 40% of a penny versus two pennies is just less money.” — Former Avery Dennison RFID Sales Manager"

"Beyond Meat explicitly tells investors: "we include outbound shipping and handling costs within SG&A expenses. As a result, our gross profit and gross margin may not be comparable to other entities that present all shipping and handling costs as a component of cost of goods sold" — Beyond Meat"

"we've always thought about kind of the long-term EBITDA margin in the mid 11s. — CEO Response (Nov 23, 2021); So as you said, kind of long-term average for EBITDA has been the middle average. — CEO Response (June 14, 2022); we think that's an opportunity. — CEO Response (May 22, 2024)"

"These record top-line results are not translating to record profitability, nor the Southwest standard of profitability levels (i.e., Southwest was once a profit leader) ... [Southwest’s margins are] roughly 1,000 basis points below the industry leader. — Deutsche Bank, October 2023"

"These record top-line results are not translating to record profitability, nor the Southwest standard of profitability levels (i.e., Southwest was once a profit leader) ... [Southwest’s margins are] roughly 1,000 basis points below the industry leader. — Deutsche Bank, October 2023"

"These record top-line results are not translating to record profitability, nor the Southwest standard of profitability levels (i.e., Southwest was once a profit leader) ... [Southwest’s margins are] roughly 1,000 basis points below the industry leader. — Deutsche Bank, October 2023"

"These record top-line results are not translating to record profitability, nor the Southwest standard of profitability levels (i.e., Southwest was once a profit leader) ... [Southwest’s margins are] roughly 1,000 basis points below the industry leader. — Deutsche Bank, October 2023"

"We aren't going to give you a specific margin target, but it should result in between 100 to 150 bps of margin improvement annually on the pathway to narrow the margin gap with peers and deliver industry competitive margins. — CEO Alan Shaw, Q4 2023 Earnings Call, Jan. 26, 2024"

"The biggest EBIT contributor is Agribusiness oilseed processing. The further down the value chain we go, the higher the unit contribution margin. And the oilseed value chain, in particular, holds significant opportunity for value creation downstream. — CEO, Feb 2017 / May 2017"

""Margin arbitrage is difficult to execute. Capacity must be shifted on extremely short notice, and a core competency must be developed internally to be successful. Even the strongest companies know arbitrage is only ‘worth it’ in certain situations." — Industry Expert"

""[PCC] generally leverages superb execution for market share gains through pricing strategies and long-term contracts. We believe [PCC] is one of the best operators in our space, as operating margins are generally above peer companies." — Bank of America, June 4, 2014"

"Improved the Company’s financial health by driving companywide efforts to improve profit margins, reduce debt, secure credit rating, and increase return on capital, positioning the Company to take advantage of future growth opportunities — DuPont 2014 proxy statement"

"DLO's prospectus claims its "direct connections with merchants serve as a strong competitive advantage and barrier to entry for competing providers, and makes incremental volume that flows through [its] platform highly margin accretive." — DLO F-1, May 5, 2021, p.82"

"Something to think about when you're studying them is, kind of, why are their margins so high, and my theory is that their [Aerospace Products] asset base is at [the] depreciated book value and that's the cost that gets baked into their margins. — MRO Competitor"

"If you look even at the big airlines that have lower margins than the top two, there’s a core airline within them that has the same kind of margins as United and Delta, but it’s dragged down by the stuff that loses money. — United CEO Scott Kirby, June 2024"

"Over the long term, margin is really not the best measure of our profitability due to that raw material volatility. We think a more appropriate measure of our progress is return on invested capital. — Laura Thompson, Former CFO, Goodyear’s 2016 Investor Day"

"If you look even at the big airlines that have lower margins than the top two, there’s a core airline within them that has the same kind of margins as United and Delta, but it’s dragged down by the stuff that loses money. — United CEO Scott Kirby, June 2024"

"If you look even at the big airlines that have lower margins than the top two, there’s a core airline within them that has the same kind of margins as United and Delta, but it’s dragged down by the stuff that loses money. — United CEO Scott Kirby, June 2024"

"According to the 10-K, BID generated $26M of 2013 Agency commission revenue from Finance loan collateral. Assuming ~28% average Agency margins and 35% taxes, yields $4.7M of net income, or ~4% of ROE. Some of these sales may have occurred without financing."

"If you look even at the big airlines that have lower margins than the top two, there’s a core airline within them that has the same kind of margins as United and Delta, but it’s dragged down by the stuff that loses money. — United CEO Scott Kirby, June 2024"

"If you look even at the big airlines that have lower margins than the top two, there’s a core airline within them that has the same kind of margins as United and Delta, but it’s dragged down by the stuff that loses money. — United CEO Scott Kirby, June 2024"

"Yes. Obviously, we don't give margin targets by segment, but I would say that within ESG and Climate, our focus is really on driving top line growth, not margin expansion. And so we're not targeting for the margin to expand from current levels. — CFO Q2'22"

"We made some modest adjustments to our EBITDA margin outlook at the midyear point raising Imagery a bit higher and putting Space Systems segment a bit lower due to continue Geo concept market weakness and program performance. — CEO Howard L. Lance"

"Basically, on the crush margin, so if you really talk about crush margin, I would really expect it to be a little bit of flat or let's say a little bit on the lower side. The reason is there is overcapacity of the crushing. — Former Bunge Director"

"“And so they have great margins just in their contracting but then they add to that margin by capturing the value of aggregates and liquid asphalt by vertically integrating, which is our second margin lever.” — CEO Smith Deal Call Oct 21, 2024"

"the continuing shift in sales mix within food grade alcohol from lower margin industrial alcohol products to higher margin premium beverage alcohol products, a decline in input costs, and an increase in warehouse revenue. — MGPI Press Release"

"Based on the synergy plan, we are confident that the combined entity will generate about a 24% operating margin by the end of this decade versus the 18.5% P&G delivered in fiscal 2004-5. — A.G. Lafley, CEO, Gillette M&A Presentation 10/3/05"

""The Retail segment margin rate was not as strong as we would have liked... We recorded a lower benefit than last year from a true-up related to the margin sharing arrangements with dealers" — Dean McCann, CFO, Q2 2019 Call, August 8, 2019"

""[W]orking capital could be reduced... without a detrimental effect on margins... best-of-breed distributors and retailers are able to drive down working capital needs while at the same time boosting profitability" — Piper Jaffray, 12/2/12"

"I will say growing margin is very hard to do. I specifically have a lot of experience in that area given I was on the pricing side. I really considered myself more in margin management. — Former Avery Global Pricing and Revenue Specialist"

"Although we were able to offset increased material costs through our pricing initiatives during fiscal 2022, inflationary pressures have limited, and may continue to limit, our ability to achieve margin expansion. — Evoqua 2022 10-K"

"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, March 2016"

"There is no question, on ETF and index products our margins are huge. It’s the highest margin business for us, or it’s one of the highest margin businesses for us — Larry Fink, BlackRock 4th Quarter 2010 earnings call"

""Filed false and misleading financial statements." "Artificially inflated its revenue and gross margin recognition by fraudulently recognizing revenue on barter transactions..." — The North Face (SEC Filing Quote)"

"A strong fourth quarter capped another great year for Broadridge, with record closed sales, 16% recurring revenue growth, continued margin expansion, and 14% Adjusted EPS growth. — CEO Gokey, Q4 2022 Press Release"

"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"

""[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"

"Our capacity to improve our margin profile provides us with the confidence to achieve the strategic planned target to increase adjusted EBITDA margin annually by 30 to 50 basis points. — CFO Michaud Q3'23"

""[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 higher gross profit margin was due to (i) efficient utilization of our plants and equipment fleet and (ii) completion of new backlog with more favorable margins. — Construction Partners, Inc. (2024)"

"Our due diligence suggests that the underlying gross margins of P&G’s categories could be as high as 54%. This analysis takes into account P&G’s scale as well the premium pricing of its leading brands"

"We said to our investors, in return for the privilege of having slightly lower but stable margins, you should expect some very strong, industry-leading revenue growth. — Cognizant, September 2015"

"As you'd expect, we pay a higher designer. Now they have a much higher ticket, better gross margin, better customer interaction, so you get a good return on those investments. — CFO Lang, Q3 2022"

"They tend to be in line with our consumables, and perhaps maybe a little bit additive....But you can think of them roughly in line with our consumables gross margin. — Kevin Wilson, Heska CEO"

""We really focus more on the overall operating margin of 20 or above, low 20s kind of thing is really how we focus anything on 2012 and beyond." — Thomas George, CFO, 2/24/11 earnings call"

"And then starting next year, the actual spend on these programs will start to decrease, and you'll start to have a margin pickup starting in ‘19. — CEO Kevin Lobo, JPM Conf, Jan 10, 2018"

"Second, our gross margins were healthy, exceeding 53% this quarter. We were positive on the price/cost equation and saw good performance across several key cost categories? — Rollins CFO"

"CFO: "The Cintas legacy gross margins continue to expand and the G&K gross margins will too as we realize the acquisition synergies." — Cintas CFO Q1 2018 Earnings Call Sept 26, 2017"

"significant profit opportunities can be lost in the false pursuit of reducing input costs — Marginal Thinking: Making Money on a Dairy Farm, WCDS Advances in Dairy Technology (2006)"

"So the characteristic of ADP, in a very interesting way is that we have a margin profile that is actually very similar between our product sets. — Jan Siegmund (February 3, 2016)"

"We reported record revenue for both the quarter and the fiscal year, as well as a gross margin of more than 40% for the quarter and 39% for the year — Jim Thorburn, CFO of Twist."

"holistically, this portfolio provides a platform for balanced growth, margin and return improvement...all of which leads to top-tier total shareholder return — PepsiCo Management"

""[We're] having less volatility than refining peers when refining margins flex to the downside, so we get the best of both worlds." — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, March 6, 2025"

""[We're] having less volatility than refining peers when refining margins flex to the downside, so we get the best of both worlds." — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, March 6, 2025"

"We generally assumed operating margins in future years would increase as we continue to integrate and implement our rate base growth strategy. — Essential Utilities 2022 10-K"

"We[re] having less volatility than refining peers when refining margins flex to the downside, so we get the best of both worlds. — Phillips 66 CEO Mark Lashier, March 6, 2025"

"Growth-oriented investors have become increasingly frustrated with the evasive revenue growth reacceleration and the additional pressure on margins. — J.P. Morgan 10/6/2010"

"“…payment processing is a race to the bottom in terms of margins in that business. And Intuit was not the most competitive.” — Former Executive at Intuit, Tegus, 2/18/22"

"I would note that post-closing; we will be redistributing MSCI's corporate allocations across our segments, which may impact our segment margins. — Deal Call (Aug 2021)"

"The sales reported in this Form 4 were made by a broker, without instruction by the Reporting Person, to satisfy a margin call. — SEC Form 4 Explanation of Responses"