Contrarian Corpus
Phrase library

Callouts & quotes from 10,384+ activist slides

Every emphasised callout and every pulled quote, extracted slide-by-slide. Search by keyword, filter by slide type or by source.

Showing 3961–4020 of 10,384
quote ceo quote

"“…from a P&L point of view, what is a traditional product sale on day 1 by year 3 or year 4 transitions to a full as-a-service subscription recognition…the benefit we have is we don’t have to go and replace our installed base. In our model, we don’t have that replacement sale, right? …we are able to keep that original array, modernize it. Well, if” — CEO Giancarlo"

Pure Storage, Inc. · PSTG Kerrisdale Capital · p. 28
quote ceo quote

""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"

Zebra Technologies Corp. · ZBRA Spruce Point Capital · p. 65
quote ceo quote

"A lot of contractors out there, you have a lot of architect firms, you have a lot of vendors that are doing fixtures, a lot of them are very aggressive right now and doing deals. So if you're going to grow and open up stores, there's an opportunity to really drive down your build-out costs there. — John Smith, SVP of Development, Collective Brands, October 6, 2009"

quote ceo quote

"“... nearly 50% of our order volume is now being fulfilled out of our Ohio pharmacy and fulfillment center...I'm excited to share by year-end 2022, we believe nearly 100% of our services and treatments will be filled via our verticalized infrastructure, further unlocking efficiencies and capabilities consumers are looking for.” — CEO Dudum on Q2 2021 Earnings Call"

Hims & Hers Health, Inc. · HIMS Spruce Point Capital · p. 56
quote peer gap

"Considering our products have a large freight component, being close to the actual installation helps significantly bring value to our retailer customers. In addition, our products are decorative in nature. By being closer to the end consumer, MSI can enable customers to see and touch the materials at our locations before making a final decision. — Co-CEO Raj Shah"

Floor & Decor Holdings, Inc. · FND Spruce Point Capital · p. 72
quote villain critique

""We can't promise everything on your grocery list, but do offer a unique, daily treasure hunt of value and low prices for some on a tight budget and those who love to find a great deal. Our product availability is random because we purchase from many different outlets across the United States of overstocked, repackaged, seasonal and close dated items." — About Esh"

Saputo Inc. · TSX:SAP Spruce Point Capital · p. 80
quote ceo quote

"So on the U.S. retail cheese, we were launching in March, 6 SKUs under the Vitalite brand, and we have 1,000 points of distribution that has been secured. So the marketing campaigns are going to begin in conjunction with our retail launch. So exciting times to come on the retail side of the plant-based cheese for our U.S. platform. — Saputo CEO (Q3 2022 Conf Call)"

Saputo Inc. · TSX:SAP Spruce Point Capital · p. 126
quote ceo quote

""Disney has overcome one of the most challenging periods in its history and a new era of building is well underway..." — Disney Letter to Shareholders, 02/01/24; "[T]he attempts by the Trian Group... are likely to derail Disney's progress..." — Disney Letter to Shareholders, 02/01/24; "Mr. Peltz brings no media experience" — Disney Letter to Shareholders, 02/01/24"

The Walt Disney Company · DIS Trian Partners · p. 122
quote ceo quote

""On the technology side a bit of a risk in my mind, which is Stryker is still very immature when it comes to its technology infrastructure... it's definitely taken a lot longer than what was initially projected... there's no way the company can survive otherwise because they're operating off of 40 different ERP platforms" — Former Stryker Supply Chain Professional"

Stryker Corp. · SYK Spruce Point Capital · p. 61
quote villain critique

""I asked Ushio what was wrong with their source, and they wouldn't say...if your source is not stable, then the intensity of light coming in through it fluctuates...so you have a stability issue...they gave us the data, and we had about six to seven different models of Ushio data...the bottom line is that there is something wrong." — Leading EUV lithography expert"

Lasertec Corporation · 6920 Scorpion Capital · p. 13
quote other

"Pursuant to this Agreement, the Company is pleased to announce that it has now signed the Implementation and Assignment Agreement and Definitive Gas Supply contract with RoG for a cumulative quantity of 0.75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas for this phase of the Project for a period of 25 years at a competitive fixed price. — Olam International Ltd. announcement"

quote ceo quote

"ATTR-ACT Showed that Tafamidis Significantly Reduced the Combination of All-cause Mortality and Cardiovascular-related Hospitalizations Data Showed a 30% Reduction in the Risk of Mortality and 32% Reduction in the Rate of Cardiovascular-related Hospitalizations with Tafamidis in People with Transthyretin Amyloid Cardiomyopathy versus Placebo — Pfizer Press Release"

Pfizer Inc. · PFE Starboard Value · p. 28
quote villain critique

""Central Transport International Selects Manhattan Associates' Carrier Management Solution; Carrier to Gain Savings and Efficiencies" "We looked at similar products, but chose Manhattan Associates' solution because it is the only solution geared toward the LTL marketplace," said Phillip Van Trump, director of business continuity. — Business Wire (October 17, 2005)"

Danimer Scientific, Inc. · DNMR Spruce Point Capital · p. 23
quote villain critique

"“I often leave, and I’m like, ‘There’s no way they’re going to be able to use that organ’...I feel like they just keep going and going, keep trying and trying and trying...it’s going to be in an operating room with a recipient hours and hours later when the heart function is off.” — Organ procurement technician at a high-volume Northwest academic transplant center"

TransMedics Group Inc · TMDX Scorpion Capital · p. 205
quote villain critique

""I haven't gotten approved...we have filled out the form...oh yeah, it's taking time." — PWS nephrologist #11; "there were a few patients that were already on Vykat that were referred for edema and proteinuria"; "we weren't sure if it was a side effect of the drug, but that was the presumed mechanism"; "yes...for sure." — PWS nephrologist #11 regarding unblinding."

Soleno Therapeutics · SLNO Scorpion Capital · p. 101
quote villain critique

"I was in tears from the level of overstimulation; over two years straight, brutal as hell; terrified to turn it back on; feels like someone hit my legs with a baseball bat; legs and back burn so bad like a blowtorch; I was crying wondering if I made the right decision to have the implant; nobody will admit to it — Patient testimonials from Facebook support groups."

Nevro Corp. · NVRO Scorpion Capital · p. 34
quote ceo quote

""...we announced ACTIS with High-NA, and in September, we also announced an EUV light source developed in-house with future needs in mind..." — Lasertec CEO, Jan 31, 2024 Q&A; "As for URASHIMA, we developed it in-house and leave the manufacturing to our partner companies as much as possible, just as we do with our other equipment." — Lasertec CEO, Oct 31, 2023 Q&A"

Lasertec Corporation · 6920 Scorpion Capital · p. 144
quote peer gap

"The increase reflects solid performance in the first quarter of 2021, continued strong user activation due to the effectiveness of our marketing spend, well-executed launches of mobile sports betting and iGaming in Michigan and mobile sports betting in Virginia, and a modest contribution from our recently completed acquisitions. — DraftKings Q1 2021 press release"

Genius Sports Limited · GENI Spruce Point Capital · p. 28
quote ceo quote

"Simply put we lost focus. We lost focus strategically. We had too many initiatives that made the company unnecessarily complex... We lost focus within our products and brands... Lastly we lost focus in process and execution... And finally we didn't have a culture of accountability which led to poor execution. — Campbell Board member & interim CEO Keith McLoughlin"

Campbell Soup Company · CPB Third Point · p. 13
quote ceo quote

"Generac Grid Services has been making excellent progress in expanding its sales pipeline, including meaningful opportunities beyond traditional software-as-a-service contracts. The fourth quarter saw significant progress in new deals closed and in the final stages of negotiation, increasing our top line visibility for 2022. — Generac CEO (Q4 2021 Conference Call)"

Generac Holdings, Inc. · GNRC Spruce Point Capital · p. 94
quote other

"“Managing forests, wood processing, the production of wood products and wood chemical products, and establishing a production facility with an annual production capacity of 50,000 m³ of Micro Density Fiber Board (MDF), managing a base of 120,000 mu (8,000 ha) of which the forest annual utilization would be 8,000 m³.” — Leizhou WFOE Amended Articles of Association"

quote villain critique

"“I would not put him very high on that list. But he's Taiwanese. He's a Taiwanese entrepreneur... he doesn't really care much about corporate governance per se.” — MPWR's Early Executive; “Michael (CEO) doesn't like people asking questions he doesn't like. And Alan was doing his job as audit chairman and sort of rocked the boat too much.” — MPWR's Early Executive"

Monolithic Power Systems · MPWR Spruce Point Capital · p. 79
quote appendix data

"[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."

quote ceo quote

""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"

Canadian Tire Corporation · CTC.A Spruce Point Capital · p. 45
quote ceo quote

""In our home market of Sweden, Oatly products had a 53% market share of sales in the total alternative dairy products non-milk based category as of 2020, according to Nielsen. The success achieved in our home market, in terms of brand awareness and new product development, has become a clear "north star" for future international expansion." — Oatly IPO prospectus"

Oatly Group AB · OTLY Spruce Point Capital · p. 14
quote ceo quote

""In our home market of Sweden, Oatly products had a 53% market share of sales in the total alternative dairy products non-milk based category as of 2020, according to Nielsen. The success achieved in our home market, in terms of brand awareness and new product development, has become a clear "north star" for future international expansion." — Oatly IPO prospectus"

Oatly Group AB · OTLY Spruce Point Capital · p. 87
quote peer gap

"“Our competitors mainly are Chinese companies. You look at GENEWIZ and GenScript, and their founders are Chinese, and they have a lot of business in China. In that sense, they are very competitive in terms of pricing. Twist built a lab in the Bay area. You have to pay the Bay area salary and so on. That's why the competition is very great...” — Ex-Twist executive"

Twist Bioscience · TWST Scorpion Capital · p. 201
quote ceo quote

"“I expect our team to gain traction on expense reduction and drive step-change productivity improvements across the property… …I believe this franchise has more to deliver. I’m not satisfied with our operating ratio [2006 target was ~75% OR], and I’m raising the bar on Execution Excellence as a vehicle to drive accelerated improvements.” — Fred Green, Analyst Day"

Canadian Pacific Railway · CP Pershing Square · p. 59
quote ceo quote

"Quite honestly, I think they need to come down on price, and they need to invest in offering differentiated functionality. Right, and that goes to ownership of the firm, right? Like I would be very surprised, I could be wrong, if a private equity firm was going to invest the same way that Oracle invests in its technology. — Former Strategy Executive, DoubleVerify"

DoubleVerify Holdings, Inc. · DV Spruce Point Capital · p. 37
quote ceo quote

""We are very excited about the potential Centrella has to accelerate the med surg bed replacement cycle" — John Groetelaars, President & CEO, Hill-Rom. "Hospitals are generally willing to put off bed purchases if needed... It's not going to accelerate the purchasing cycle over the long-term - this is probably more of a one-time blip." — Former Employee, Hill-Rom."

Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. · HRC Spruce Point Capital · p. 38
quote ceo quote

"「そうです。しかし、二つ目の装置については、レーザーテックがアクティニック検査装置を実用化する以前も、極端紫外線マスクを検査するためには別の方法が必要でした。二つ目にはKLA製の深紫外線の光学装置、同社の『Teron』という製品を使いました。ところが、Teronは193ナノメートルの光源を使うので、検出できる欠陥に限界があります。極小の欠陥を明確に検出できません。そのような欠陥の疑いがある場合、座標を記録し、座標を電子ビーム検査装置に移し、欠陥があるとの疑いのある位置を見てみます。欠陥があるとすれば、マスクに転写された回路の画像にあるでしょうか。要はマスクを検査するために、光学の深紫外線と電子ビームを組み合わせる必要があるのです」 — 半導体製造装置企業の上席幹部として長年の経験を持ち、レーザーテックのCEOに親しい人物"

Lasertec Corporation · 6920 Scorpion Capital · p. 288
quote ceo quote

"The number of hits that it can spit out is somewhat underwhelming. The issue has to do mostly with the fact that we can only export binders at this moment, yet it would be much better if we could screen not only binders but also the function of those antibodies so that we can quickly identify the right antibodies with the right function. — Pfizer senior scientist"

Berkeley Lights · BLI Scorpion Capital · p. 65
quote villain critique

""The reporting wasn't excellent. We did learn of cases where multiple embryos were implanted, that didn't make me very happy. I don't know that it resulted in neonatal ICU cost, but it was not exactly what I had been sold...I felt that Progyny's ability to report interesting, useful data was pretty lacking." — Vice President Global Benefits at Activision Blizzard"

Progyny, Inc. · PGNY Spruce Point Capital · p. 57
quote appendix disclosure

"The Compensation Committee, with the assistance of Ferguson Partners, determined that "adjusted funds from operations," or "AFFO" would be the most appropriate metric to gauge management's effective operation of the Company's business as a REIT. As a result, for 2023, the Annual Incentive Plan allocation to the Company's AFFO per diluted share was 50%. — CTO 10-K"

CTO Realty Growth, Inc. · CTO Wolfpack Research · p. 27
quote villain critique

"“The core issue is that the cells which we have are not in the dimension which will be used in vehicles... This is basically just nice slides because these are just assumptions.” — VW employee; “It’s gambling, as far as how those questions will turn out.” — VW employee; “More layers, bigger size, in a module or a pack, how is the performance then?” — VW employee"

QuantumScape · QS Scorpion Capital · p. 48
quote villain critique

""The Company leases certain equipment from various third parties, through equipment finance leases. These leases either include a bargain purchase option, a full transfer of ownership at the completion of the lease term, or the terms of the leases are at least 75 percent of the useful lives of the assets and are therefore classified as finance leases." — Dropbox"

Dropbox, Inc. · DBX Spruce Point Capital · p. 41
quote villain critique

""Camera Uploads making duplicates (iOS)." — Reddit User; "I'm having trouble viewing previews in Win10 on some computers that use Dropbox Smart Sync" — Reddit User; "Dropbox support an utter disappointment with 88.4.172 issues -- they've just closed my case because of my OS" — Reddit User; "88.4.172 Wreaking Havoc (Sync Issues) and Dropbox Support" — Reddit User"

Dropbox, Inc. · DBX Spruce Point Capital · p. 34
quote villain critique

"“When Twist entered the market when I joined, they were targeting about 10 cents a base pair. Competitors at IDT and GenScript were at about 20 cents per base pair. What I've seen is that it has actually driven GenScript and IDT to drop their prices in response.” — Former Twist manager in a manufacturing role, previously and currently employed by key competitors"

Twist Bioscience · TWST Scorpion Capital · p. 61
quote appendix disclosure

"We note your disclosure that your “principal executive officer and principal financial officer concluded that your disclosure controls and procedures are effective in recording, processing, summarizing and reporting, on a timely basis, information required to be disclosed by the Company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act.” — SEC Staff"

quote other

"As one media consultant said, “It’s rather sad that AOL Time Warner couldn’t keep one of its most valuable brands in television like Comedy Central” — Media Consultant. “Companies like AOL are having to sell their best and most profitable assets in order to make a dent on the debt on their balance sheets. Nobody’s focusing on shareholder value.” — Bond Investor."

Time Warner Inc. · TWX Carl Icahn · p. 206
quote villain critique

"“How did you know about the 1200 [audits performed for the ten customer rule]?” “I asked.” “Who did you ask?” “Julie Delaney... She works for Jenny [Heinrich]... She’s director or senior director. She’s been in the refunds and repurchase area, and I think she might have responsibility for the audits.” — Deposition of Jacqueline Miller in Herbalife v. Ford (2009)"

Herbalife Ltd. · HLF Pershing Square · p. 128
quote ceo quote

"To achieve that, you need to have a lot of underlying information about those securities. You have to know everything about their ESG profile, their climate profile, their thematic profile, their factor profile. So MSCI is turning into a giant equity research shop to try to understand the characteristics of securities so we can organize them that way. — MSCI CEO"

MSCI Inc. · MSCI Spruce Point Capital · p. 32
quote ceo quote

"“Those -- the businesses that we have been winding down -- we're out of the third-party rental business, we'll be out of third-party services business by the end of this year. So the $40 million or so of revenue that we had in this year's results for those businesses that we're getting out of will basically be nothing next year.” — Steven Strobel – CFO, Hill-Rom"

Hill-Rom Holdings, Inc. · HRC Spruce Point Capital · p. 58
quote villain critique

"Huishan claims at the end of the 1H17 interim report p. 64 that “currently, the global milk industry is recovering, [and] the domestic raw milk prices started to rebound” and points to new contracts signed with “several large scale dairy product enterprises” at a higher price as evidence of that. — Huishan 2015/16 Annual Results Announcement, June 2016, slide 15"

quote ceo quote

""Certain of our customer contracts, primarily within our Uniform Direct Sales business, include pricing terms and conditions that include components of variable consideration... Specifically, some contracts contain discounts or rebates that the customer can earn through the achievement of specified volume levels." — Cintas 10-Q First Reference Filed October 2018"

Cintas Corp. · CTAS Spruce Point Capital · p. 30
quote ceo quote

""So I think lessons learned for me. I would say I have a more full appreciation for the value and not trying to do an integration of that size on a shoestring, but to have it well planned out and to bring in a third-party to manage the process because that allowed us not to take our eye off the ball on our core business." — Keith Myers, Chairman & CEO, LHC Group"

LHC Group, Inc. · LHCG Spruce Point Capital · p. 20
quote section divider

"「KLAの人間は発表が近いような話しぶりでした。1年とか、それくらいでしょう。KLAはこの開発に一生懸命取り組んでいます」 — Samsung former executive. "レーザーテックは危険だと思います。同社には完成品の在庫が滞留していますが、KLAは各社に向けて次のように予告しています。『発注を2025年の中旬まで待っていただけるなら、新しいシステムを商業的に提供できます』" — GlobalFoundries former executive. "TSMCの生産ラインにおいては、生産性に関しても経済性に関してもKLA製のほうがレーザーテック製より性能がいい。だから、TSMCにおけるこの関連の商売の約3分の2がすでにレーザーテックからKLAに移行している" — TSMC former executive."

Lasertec Corporation · 6920 Scorpion Capital · p. 48
quote villain critique

"“it's not like we have a slew of organs in California, Oregon, Hawaii that are getting transplanted here, for sure” — Transplant hepatologist and director of a Midwest academic center. “for practical purposes, it's pretty unusual I would get an organ from that far away.” — Transplant surgeon and transplant program director at a leading Northeast academic center."

TransMedics Group Inc · TMDX Scorpion Capital · p. 160
quote ceo quote

""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)"

quote ceo quote

"“...were you aware you would lose a number of tenants in the fourth quarter or want to kick them out?” — Analyst; “Yes. So I think I might have mentioned that in the last earnings call that when we put under contract Carolina Pavilion and by the time we closed, we had 3 tenants basically go bankrupt and close their stores, which is highly unusual” — CEO Albright"

CTO Realty Growth, Inc. · CTO Wolfpack Research · p. 19
quote villain critique

"“Yes, a lab tool. Yes, not a production tool. Because you have a lot of limitations for productivity...even today, TSMC still has a weekly meeting with Lasertec. My colleagues in procurement and from the fab told me they have a weekly meeting to push Lasertec to improve.” — Longtime ex-TSMC procurement executive who introduced Lasertec inspection tools into TSMC"

Lasertec Corporation · 6920 Scorpion Capital · p. 283
quote executive summary

""Digital Garage has a great payment service provider business, and yet, they have not done enough to capture the shift toward cashless payments in Japan. As shareholders, we can no longer sit idly by and allow this great company to miss this opportunity. This is a call to action for DG's management." — Seth Fischer, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Oasis"

Digital Garage Inc. · 4819 JT Oasis Management · p. 2
quote ceo quote

""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"

Allergan, Inc. · AGN Pershing Square · p. 44
quote other

""This s**t is magic (...) It's so healing, nourishing, and moisturizing." — MakeupAlley (Curél, USA); "This product is so innovative." — Try&Review (Freeplus, Singapore); "Would eat it if I could. Gorgeous! A lovely treat to use." — Cult Beauty (Molton Brown, UK); "I love this sunscreen! This is the first sunscreen that I wear everyday." — Kokoro (Bioré, Japan)"

Kao Corporation · 4452.JP Oasis Management · p. 11
quote appendix data

"The 70% Rule: In any given month, a Distributor must sell to retail customers and/or sell at wholesale to downline Distributors, at least 70% of the total value of Herbalife products they hold for resale, in order to qualify for TAB Team and to earn and receive Royalty Overrides and Production Bonus for that month's business. — Herbalife Sales & Marketing Plan."

Herbalife Ltd. · HLF Pershing Square · p. 124
quote ceo quote

""Lightspeed's customer base showed a quick rebound from April lows induced by the pandemic." — Press Release, 8/6/20; "Lightspeed Payments continued its rapid growth trajectory in the quarter..." — Conf Call, 8/6/20; "So I'd say the way I look at it is last 2 weeks of March, April, extremely low set of installs. Everything is shut down." — PAR Conf Call, 8/7/20"

Lightspeed Commerce, Inc. · LSPD Spruce Point Capital · p. 29
quote villain critique

"Taubman Centers Inc. is effectively waving a white flag in its four-year retail battle with Simon Properties...Both shopping centers opened within weeks of each other, leaving many analysts and experts puzzled over why Taubman, which had yet to tinker with outlet malls, would try to compete with the more prominent Simon — St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 27, 2018"

Taubman Centers, Inc. · TCO Land & Buildings · p. 7
quote villain critique

"The Company contributed $5.0 million in cash and certain intellectual property to Cooksonia in exchange for a 70% equity interest in Cooksonia (“Class A Units”). Cooksonia received $20.0 million in cash from another investor, who is a related party of the Company, for a 20% equity interest in Cooksonia (“Class B Units”). — Excerpt from Prospectus, Sept 17, 2021"

Ginkgo Bioworks · DNA Scorpion Capital · p. 38
quote villain critique

"“Upon information and belief, 60% of all spam telephone calls in the United States are delivered to consumers’ phones using Onvoy’s network. Upon information and belief and investigation by counsel, approximately 60% of all robocalls placed in the United States are delivered by the Onvoy network to US consumers’ telephones.” — 2022 Class Action Lawsuit Excerpt."

Sinch AB · SINCH Grizzly Research · p. 11
quote villain critique

"“Herbalife’s entire business model appears to incentivize primarily the payment of compensation that is ‘facially unrelated to the sale of product to the ultimate users’ because it is paid based on the suggested retail price of the amount ordered [from Herbalife], rather than based on actual sales to consumers.” — Federal Court in California (Herbalife v. Ford)"

Herbalife, Ltd. · HLF Pershing Square · p. 10