Callouts & quotes from 10,384+ activist slides

""We have implemented a zero-based budgeting process by brand with a sophisticated ROI analysis looking at every single piece of our marketing mix to ensure we are spending money only where we are getting the best returns." — Tony Hooper, EVP of Global Commercial Operations at Amgen, Amgen 2014 Business Review Meeting, October 28, 2014"

"No. So not, other clients, okay, you know, like a medium size, like a small size, you know, clients, they prefer us to be a DDP, because for the big brands, they always have their own, you know, logistic, you know, key, handle everything. Sometimes I think they even sign the fixed rate contract with the steamboat carrier. — Supplier B"

"I think in 2024 they really started to feel the impact of the competitive landscape... Celsius and Alani and you had GHOST and then you even had these brands that would come and go like Prime Energy that would come in and kind of steal the noise... Celsius has really taken a big dip into the Monster business. — Former Monster Employee"

"“…I feel great about where we are with the studio. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that in the last year, the studio had some real success, not to suggest that we didn’t have some films that were not successful that we were really disappointed in, but we also had some great success too.” — Robert A. Iger, CEO & Director, January 2024"

"I was once previously an agent with WFG. I left and terminated my advisor code with them june or july 2023... I have acquired $600 worth of debt with them because of it. I was also never contacted by WFG to tell me i have debt, I found out 8 months later and it has ruined my credit score. — Excerpt Of FTC Complaint Submitted 4/23/2024"

"Henry Fernandez, our lead independent director, is a director and Chairman of the Board of MSCI. In April 2021, we entered into a cooperation agreement with MSCI, pursuant to which we will assist MSCI in MSCI's construction of life sciences index products in exchange for a share of MSCI's revenues from those products. — Royalty Pharma"

"“I would take it all with a huge grain of salt...the reason their data looks better is because they're paying for it...So all of those metrics are all gonna look better, but not because of anything special about Progeny, It's somewhat of an artifact of their model.” — Endocrinologist at Leading Fertility Clinic, Spruce Point Interview"

""Now the team at Bemis and Amcor have worked together to identify and evaluate the cost synergies related to this combination and on slide 14 we've laid out some of the details related to those synergies. Based on this work together we're confident in being able to generate $180 million in cost synergies." — CEO Ron Delia, Aug 6, 2018"

"As of December 31, 2021, our headquarters and principal executive offices are located at 65 East 55th Street, 17th Floor, New York, New York 10022, consisting of approximately 34,825 square feet, under a lease which expires in June 2030, unless terminated earlier under certain circumstances specified in our leases. — CLEAR SEC Filings"

"“The hair thing is really difficult and same with the edema because you can't control for that. And you can't obviously give a placebo that would potentially make them have increased hair growth. It's difficult with this kind of study because you'll never be able to blind that properly.” — Trial investigator, pediatric endocrinologist"

""Systems. Implementing a system of Salesforce took us four attempts. It was really complicated with all the resellers and all the different ways our different products are sold. And we bought two companies, so how do we integrate licenses for all those things in Salesforce? We spent a ton of money and failed many times." — Dax Dasilva"

"The Board of Directors concluded that none of these candidates possess the relevant board and management experience, expertise and engagement expected of the Company's Outside Directors, and that these candidates would not contribute to the effectiveness of the Board and the enhancement of the corporate value. — Kao Board of Directors"

"“The way that they set it up, it is cheaper for me to ask a TransMedics surgeon to go and recover the liver than sending my own surgeon. I have to pay for two transportations...basically, they are forcing you to do it...if I send my own surgeon, it’s going to cost me more money.” — Transplant surgeon in a leadership role at Vanderbilt"

"We’re honored to be selected for Stage B of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative. With commercial deployments of IonQ quantum systems worldwide – and availability on all three of the major cloud platforms – IonQ is uniquely positioned to contribute practical insights and technical advancements to this initiative. — IonQ CEO de Masi"

"A. 15% is about accurate. Our panel covers about 85% of organisms. Our panel does not cover 100% of bug/antibiotic combinations, so you still need cell culture. It is not easy to cover 100%, because we use FISH probes and they may not be available for some bugs. Because of the FISH method we are somewhat limited. — AXDX Representative"

""although it pains me to say it, it's not about the patient, it's about the doctor and what pays the most. And the bottom line is for office-based procedures [such as MISTs] the doctor earns much more and they're pushed by Medicare and insurance because they cost less." — Spruce Point Interview with Major Hospital Urologist, Nov 2024"

""In the last [few] years, we have really been aligning the whole company very strongly behind our agenda, which is nutrition, health and wellness..." — Paul Bulcke, CEO, Sept 2012; "Big trend, health and wellness – this is no longer a trend or a fad. This is here to stay. Profound changes are underway..." — Indra Nooyi, CEO, Feb 2011"

""I just felt that they are not ethical. So, that's just me personally. My whole working career is always based on trust and if the customer doesn't trust me, I don't really understand how I'm ever going to get anything accomplished. MPS continually violated that trust between the customer and me." — Former MPS Sales Account Executive"

""Although the specific findings and conclusions of the Committee, as advised by its legal and forensic accounting professionals, remain privileged, the Company announced that the Committee has informed it that the Committee is satisfied that the vast majority of the short sellers' claims were baseless." — China Integrated Energy Inc."

""Pure is completely wrong there. Amazon makes a fortune on S3, which is still HDD-based. That's gonna be the case for a while because there's this thing called cold data. Why would I ever put cold data on an all-flash array? I will never do that. I would get fired if I made that recommendation." — Former data storage architect at AWS"

""This error is the result of applying an incorrect standard cost to intercompany K-Cup inventory balances in consolidation. This error resulted in an overstatement of the consolidated inventory and an understatement of the cost of sales." — Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. Announces Restatement of Financials, Nov 19, 2021 and 8-K"

"Overall, a strong culture of fear. The culture and company practices promote individual, rather than team, achievement, motivating selfish choices and combative relationships between coworkers. Public shaming is common practice, and team leadership turns a blind eye to disrespectful behavior between colleagues. — Glassdoor.com review"

"Northeastern [University] has this co-op program where they’ll allow you to work at a company for a few semesters. The hardware team was mostly composed of co-ops... You would think hardware was the lifeblood of XL, but it was them figuring out what the constraints were and then ordering off-the-shelf hardware. — Former XL Employee D"

"“Overstock sells lots of products today where installation and assembly make complete sense from a customer perspective that they should be included,” said Matt Ehrlichman, CEO of Porch.com. Customers expect installation services for everything from furniture to light fixtures, all of which are sold on Overstock’s online marketplace."

"Each inspector was paying probably anywhere from a $1 to $3 per inspection to use that software. So if you knew your average lead was worth $14 - $15 bucks you could easily give that product away, and lower your cost of acquisition. I'm quoting the bigger customers too, the larger the volume the lower the fees — Former Porch Employee"

"Maybe soon there will be talk about decent advertising campaigns modulating across three screens - cross-device[s] - namely via mobile devices, through home screens, but also through public screens. We have established ourselves in this part of the market over a very long period and we are now trying to digitize it further. — C. Sch."

""For the long term, we expect the company to grow sales at 7% and earnings at 12% compounded annually. These performance goals reflect the diversity of our portfolio, attractive returns on growth investments, such as research and development and capital expenditures, plus benefits from ongoing productivity." — DuPont's CEO (12/13/11)"

"“The atmosphere at the company was very much to downplay the adverse effects [...] if you were to follow up with the company, I would really press on what were the hospitalizations of patients in the trials? And to just ignore the causality and just look at what the cause –” — Ex-Soleno employee #1, key role in clinical trial program"

""they [PCS] don't have any standing authority to designate one event versus another unless it's something in their contract says that's the case, but that would be unusual." — Reinsurance expert; "many of the homes [destroyed] are bespoke and high value, so it will take extra effort to understand designs and replacement costs." — BMS"

"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"

"In the Partial Final Award, the ICDR denied the remainder of Napo’s Counterclaims, granted additional injunctive relief in favor of Glenmark, awarded Glenmark its fees and costs in the Arbitration, and reserved for further hearing the reasonableness and quantum of Glenmark’s fees and costs. — Court Filing, Case 2:14-cv-02592-CCC-JBC"

"“had turned out to be the single greatest challenge” — Jagdeep Singh; “those were some dark times” — Jagdeep Singh; “every one of the systems we looked at was dendriting.” — Jagdeep Singh; “personal depression started to lift.” — Jagdeep Singh; “dreaded,” “nightmarish growth” that have long stumped battery researchers — The Mobilist"

"Once something is good enough, then you standardize it, and then you can interoperate. I use the metaphor of screws, once you converge on how many threads per inch and diameters of screws then innovations stops at the screw level and it goes up a level to machines. — Lane Desborough, Chief Engineer and Co-Founder, Bigfoot Biomedical"

""During 2016 we introduced a new model that intends to reshape our go-to-market strategy to scale our company in the coming years, called 50 Squared. The main goal of this new approach is to focus our team in the top 50 high potential accounts that have the capacity to grow exponentially over time." — Globant 20F filed April 7, 2017"

"“The midstream portfolio is made up of high-quality assets – these assets are just not getting the level of attention or capital allocation required to compete against peers. We need a renewed focus on stewarding these assets while exploring the most accretive mechanisms to realize value from the midstream portfolio.” — Michael Heim"

"“You said it's not usable by the average scientist - it just takes too long?” ... “Yeah, I personally don't think so. The technical knowledge that you need to be able to understand why is it different than a standard cell culture experiment... it's technically very challenging to use.” — Leading academic institution/ex-BLI scientist"

"“I was horrified” — Trial investigator #2. “Well, I actually asked the question because I was horrified when I saw it was $400,000. It’s not like it’s gene therapy or a new enzyme that’s being developed. It’s diazoxide, for Christ’s sake, you know. And I’m still waiting for an answer.” — Physician, KOL, and Vykat trial investigator."

"No difference in terms of daytime sleepiness assessed by the Epworth scale (primary endpoint) was demonstrated between the two groups: at the end of the study the mean score had decreased by 2.6 points in the pitolisant group and 2.1 points in the placebo group (p=0.595). — French National Authority for Health (via Google translate)"

"“So, one of the reasons I'm so positive about any medication that's coming to the market, regardless of whatever downsides there may or may not be or whatever limited potential there may or may not be, it's better than nothing. Is it the wonder drug? Absolutely not.” — Neurologist and sleep specialist in Chicago, speaker for Harmony"

"I think the excitement for this is on the wane. The peak excitement was right before we started prescribing it... we were fairly eager and excited, and then quite disappointed by how the burden of prescribing has really interfered with our ability to get people on it. — Physician and professor of neurology at a large academic center"

"Brendan Porter lost his medical license for conducting unsanctioned research studies on NXIVM members. In one study, dubbed the "Fright Study," Porter was alleged to have forced his subjects to watch violent and "horrific" video clips including footage of four women being dismembered with a machete. — Spruce Point Capital Management"

""We are pleased to have Trian as a significant shareholder. Nelson and Ed have an impressive track record as long-term investors, and their prior experience in asset management gives them a deep understanding of the significant growth opportunities of this industry." — G. Richard Wagoner, Chair of the Invesco Ltd. Board of Directors"

"“The discussions are really hard. I started to have them two years ago when I was there—they’re very hard with the customers. They’re really struggling about what to do. I’m not saying that the only reason why they delayed N3 but N3 right now is delayed.” — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group"

"“I do believe that, but it's inflated by two customers and I know they won't tell you, but I know, they acquired a very large gambling contract (one of the biggest in the UK), which, contributed a lot more growth to it, but also, you know, where they are focused at the moment, enabling new gambling regions.” — Former Nuvei Employee"

"You then said you had an investigation conducted by Ernst & Young (EY). This is the same company that prepared the annual financial statements. What did you expect? That they would come forward and say, Oops, sorry, we've made a mistake, we're returning our auditor's licence to practice? This is laughable. — Shareholder at 2016 AGM"

"We will also be very focused on achieving a better return on invested capital for our retail businesses, in effect, getting more from our existing assets. And we will refocus on our automotive business. This Company had its beginnings in that business, our two founders selling tires and servicing cars. — 2009 Annual Report (page 3)"

"And just finally, wrapping up, what makes Boot Barn unique? We are truly a lifestyle brand. I think sometimes we're kind of grouped in with just specialty retail in general, but we are truly a lifestyle brand. We have an extremely loyal customer. The vast majority of our sales go through our B Rewarded loyalty program. — CEO Conroy"

"If Arconic's board is so ‘uniquely positioned’ to steer the company in the right direction, why did it wait until after Elliott raised some of these issues to do something about them? Alcoa seems to have found the time to improve its corporate governance following the split in November. — Brooke Sutherland, Bloomberg, March 6, 2017"

"TI plans to construct the building and infrastructure ahead of market demand, followed by stages of equipment installation as demand increases. This construction method spreads capital investment over a period of years and allows the company to increase production quickly as customers demand more products. — TI Press Release (2003)"

""TurboTax and H&R Block now use AI for tax advice. It’s awful." — Geoffrey A. Fowler, Washington Post. "We have always believed our customers can benefit most from the power of AI, bringing professional grade resources to individuals that need it most around the world, tipping the odds in their favor." — Sasan Goodarzi, Intuit CEO."

""We are pleased to welcome Ferebee Corporation to the Construction Partners family of companies, expanding our geographic footprint into western North Carolina. As a platform acquisition, Ferebee creates another engine for growth driven by a talented and experienced team under the leadership of Chris and David Ferebee." — CEO Smith"

"Over the past seven years, we have focused on international crude oil developments to capitalize on our peak-oil theory [...] The Company has focused on international development and production-related crude oil projects almost to the exclusion of more cyclical, exploration-related activities. — Core Laboratories 2009 Annual Report"

"“The profit arising from license income sales to joint ventures in 2015 represents revenue of £15,310,000 offset by an elimination of unrealised profit of £7,286,000 relating to our retained interest in the Compound Semiconductor Centre Limited joint venture. No such elimination has occurred in 2016.” — IQE Annual Report disclosure"

"The Applicant analyzed the effect of the 20 mg dose compared to placebo and the 40 mg dose compared to placebo in the stable dose period. The relative risk of cataplexy events in the 20 mg dosing group was 0.392 (95% CI [0.270, 0.571]; p < 0.0001) and 0.623 in the 40 mg dosing group (95% CI [0.510, 0.761]; p < 0.0001). — FDA Review"

"Yes, yes. Namely owned by Mr. Peng Qingyun, but in reality its managed by the boss. So how do I know this, it’s because I’m familiar with this companies’ HR manager. We would often go and eat together. And all of the subsidiaries in each part of the country are overseen by him and his team. So I know this company very well. — Mr. C"

"We own wells on certain areas of land in northwest Oklahoma under which TLW Land & Cattle LP ("TLW LC"), an entity in which Mr. Ward has an ownership interest, owns a royalty interest. In 2011, we paid royalties totaling $925,735 to TLW-LC in connection with the production of oil and natural gas from these properties. — 2012 proxy"

"Peter joined Marvell at a critical time for the Company and drove crucial changes that were needed to get the company back on track. His insights and influence as a director have catalyzed the changes that have transformed Marvell into a healthy, well-functioning company with strong financial results. — Matt Murphy, CEO of Marvell"

"In Turkey - as in Germany - we are a clear market leader with our outside advertising with an over 50% market share. In 2015, we earned an operating EBITDA result of €14,000,000 with a cash flow of over €80,000,000 in sales in an admittedly relatively difficult market environment from a geopolitical perspective. — Udo Müller (CEO)"

"From Muddy Waters we have learned that, in the short term, one can only effectively defend oneself to a limited extent against false claims and insinuations. Ultimately, we are firmly convinced that it is the most effective way to rebut Muddy Waters & Co. through continuous business success and concrete action. — Ströer Management"

"“The lead independent director facilitates discussion among independent directors on key issues and concerns outside of full board meetings, including contributing to the oversight of CEO and management succession planning” — BlackRock Investment Stewardship, Proxy voting guidelines for U.S. securities Effective as of January 2024"