Callouts & quotes from 10,384+ activist slides

""And frankly, when you look at the capital situation today, the construction in the retail sector is at a 20-year low. We certainly anticipate it will remain there, and the lack of new supply can only hopefully help the demand side for the existing product." — Rick Sokolov, COO of Simon Property Group, December 4, 2009"

""E.l.f. was born to disrupt, and E.l.f. has a built-in renegade badass spirit in our veins," said Kory Marchisotto, E.l.f CMO — Adweek. "Kory gives Heide and me a ton of headlines, including "Bright, Sassy, Badass" and "Curiosity, Courage, Conviction"— not to mention plenty of "elfisms" and the elf-bombs!" — Glossy.co."

"THE FIRM FAILED TO PROVIDE ADEQUATE TRAINING TO ITS REPRESENTATIVES REGARDING HOW TO COMPLETE DISCLOSURE FORMS THAT WERE REQUIRED WHEN RECOMMENDING A VARIABLE ANNUITY EXCHANGE AND FAILED TO PROVIDE ADEQUATE TRAINING TO SUPERVISORS REGARDING HOW THEY SHOULD VERIFY THE INFORMATION ON THE DISCLOSURE FORMS — FINRA Findings"

"“No recession, I would think [Mailchimp revenue grows] probably 5% to 10%. And I'm really just thinking there about pricing increases. Unless they solve for some reason why more customers are going to start like coming to them again. That's really through pricing increases.” — Former Manager at Mailchimp, Tegus, 2/6/23"

""Insurers are making it even harder. Getting approval for spinal cord stimulation is the hardest it has been. In some local code determinations, they're making doctors send the patient to a neurosurgeon who writes a letter stating the patient is not a candidate for spinal cord stimulation." — KOL, high volume implanter"

"“there was uncertainty around how much we were relying on additional receivable sales, and there was uncertainty about how much we would sell in receivables. That’s the biggest change that is leading to this [updated guidance] and flowing that through speaks to the majority of the change in our GPU line item.” — Garcia"

""The Thailand National Anti-Corruption Commission (NCCC) has investigated the case of the unusual wealth of Mr. Suphot Saplom, the former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Transportation and found that his wife Mrs. Narumol Sublom was given cash by Mr. Anek Jongsathien, used to purchase automobiles" — Isranews.org"

"The liability is initially measured at fair value based on the present value of estimated removal costs... corresponding asset retirement costs are capitalized as part of the carrying amount of the solar energy system and depreciated over the solar energy system’s remaining useful life. — Sunnova (via 202110-K, p. 88)"

""He’s prepping Vivendi almost as a family company to be passed onto the next generation." — Tom Singlehurst, Citi, October 17, 2017; "Vincent Bolloré seems to be managing Vivendi more for his family and inheritance interests than for the benefit of all Vivendi shareholders." — Denis Branche, Phitrust, October 17, 2017"

""[Sino-Forest] can categorically say Sino-Forest is not the ‘near total fraud’ and ‘Ponzi scheme’ as alleged by Muddy Waters...Far from being a ‘near total fraud’ and ‘Ponzi scheme’ as alleged by Muddy Waters, Sino-Forest is a real company, with real assets and real revenue." — Sino-Forest Independent Committee Report"

"If Val-gan can grow organically at a high single-digit rate as Valeant management projects, and management can invest the company’s free cash flow in new acquisition targets at historical rates of return, then we believe management can achieve its goal of 15%-20% annual EPS growth — Valeant Presentation April 22, 2014"

"To Baidu we say, “You’ve announced that you’re going to pay seven percent of your market cap in cash for a business that’s almost entirely fraudulent. The enormous scale of this fraud will be inescapable in due diligence. You say there are real ethics and respect for the law at Baidu? Show us.” — Muddy Waters Research"

"“But the reality is this is nothing special. It’s like any other biotech company that provides antibody engineering or library services. So, there’s not much of a differentiator. They’re really hard to sell, but with that many people [in sales], that’s why they do get business.” — Former Twist employee, director-level"

"Under the new M&A guidelines, the special committee could choose its own separate independent financial advisor to come up with unbiased valuation opinions if the committee is concerned about the independence of the target company's financial advisor — Shinpei Ochi, deputy director of Meti's corporate system division."

""The key word in describing my relationship with Nelson is that it has been constructive. Nelson and I worked best together by being transparent and candid with each other, leveraging his experiences and that of his team as we worked through various challenges." — Joseph A. Sullivan, Chairman and CEO, Legg Mason, Inc."

""Peltz and his founding partners, Peter May and Ed Garden, have a reputation as savvy operators and tend to be seen as a constructive presence in boardrooms, a goal they've managed to achieve in recent years through a combination of public prodding and private suasion." — Kevin Allison, Reporter, Reuters Breakingviews"

""This is very similar," Fischer said of the Alps and Alpine Electronics case. PanaHome was "a successful investment for Oasis. We are glad we achieved a better result for all minority shareholders. It's not as good a result as we had wanted for all minority shareholders, but still we achieved a good result." — Fischer"

"AS A BOARD MEMBER NELSON IS ABOUT THE NUMBERS, ABOUT THE DATA AND HOW TO MAKE OPERATING PERFORMANCE BETTER, FASTER. HE WAS COLLEGIAL AND OPEN MINDED. HE WAS FOCUSED ON THE BEST PATH TO INCREASE LONG TERM VALUE. — Candace Kendle, Former Co-Founder and CEO, Kendle International, and former Director of H.J. Heinz Company"

""The key word in describing my relationship with Nelson is that it has been constructive. Nelson and I worked best together by being transparent and candid with each other, leveraging his experiences and that of his team as we worked through various challenges." — Joseph A. Sullivan, Chairman and CEO, Legg Mason, Inc."

""...we do not view any of these metrics, individually or collectively, as key performance indicators..." — Intuit Response to SEC; "...in future interim and annual filings... we will quantify, where possible, the extent to which each change contributed to the overall change in that line item." — Intuit Response to SEC"

"AS A BOARD MEMBER NELSON IS ABOUT THE NUMBERS, ABOUT THE DATA AND HOW TO MAKE OPERATING PERFORMANCE BETTER, FASTER. HE WAS COLLEGIAL AND OPEN MINDED. HE WAS FOCUSED ON THE BEST PATH TO INCREASE LONG TERM VALUE. — Candace Kendle, Former Co-Founder and CEO, Kendle International, and former Director of H.J. Heinz Company"

""The key word in describing my relationship with Nelson is that it has been constructive. Nelson and I worked best together by being transparent and candid with each other, leveraging his experiences and that of his team as we worked through various challenges." — Joseph A. Sullivan, Chairman and CEO, Legg Mason, Inc."

"“Peltz and his founding partners, Peter May and Ed Garden, have a reputation as savvy operators and tend to be seen as a constructive presence in boardrooms, a goal they've managed to achieve in recent years through a combination of public prodding and private suasion.” — Kevin Allison, Reporter, Reuters Breakingviews"

"to pursue multiyear upfront contracts with enterprise customers to help meet its fiscal year 2023 free cash flow goal. Upfront billings of enterprise customers in fiscal year 2023 substantially exceeded historical levels, helping the company to meet its lowered annual free cash flow target. — Autodesk (quoted in text)"

""The reduction in underlying net (other) sales was due primarily to declines in used barrel sales reflecting lower prices and volumes as a result of weaker demand from blended Scotch industry buyers and pricing pressures due to increased supply of used barrels in the market." — Brown-Forman (10-Q p. 24, filed 12/7/16)"

"Based on the review of our 2004 financial statements following our initial release of unaudited financial statements on March 10, 2004, we announced on May 10, 2004 that we had determined to make adjustments to our 2004 financial statements, including the following: [list of adjustments] — Descartes 2004 Annual Report"

"Essentially, I think what's going to happen is at the end of 2025, they're going to have all these investigations wrapped up, and they're going to put everything down, and they're going to pick winners, and they're going to pick losers. — CEO of a major OPO (Organ Procurement Organization), longtime industry executive"

"We shouldn't use DCF if the company is fast changing and difficult to forecast. We shouldn't use DCF if we're selling the company from one private equity firm to another. In that scenario, an LBO model would be better. And we shouldn't use DCF for certain types of businesses, such as banks. — Financial Modeling Course"

"In April 2021, we admitted a tax equity investor as the Class A member of Sunnova TEP V-A, LLC ("TEPVA"), a subsidiary of Sunnova TEP V-A Manager, LLC, which is the Class B member of TEPVA. The Class A member of TEPVA made a total capital commitment of approximately $25.0 million. — Sunnova disclosure in Q2 2021 10-Q"

"Q: So this company was a subsidiary of ANTA, right? Mr. B: Right, it’s within their system, considered a subsidiary, because, so when I was there they were all… so these 51, so these 51 (customers/distributors) included some of these customers, so these customers were also a subsidiary 分公司 — Anonymous Source (Mr. B)."

"The coal price assumptions are the same assumptions that we use in all of our businesses. But what I can say is they are below the consensus curves. And the adjustment in valuation, not only was our external auditor, E&Y, comfortable with, but our Audit Committee and our board are very comfortable with. — Mr. Alireza"

"We are not satisfied with [RINO's] technology because the desulphurization rate is lower than what we want. — Panzhihua employee. I've heard that the sinter built by RINO in Jinan has stopped running. Their technology has no advantage beside not producing wastewater. — Employee from fabricated client Lai Steel Group."

"Peltz and his founding partners, Peter May and Ed Garden, have a reputation as savvy operators and tend to be seen as a constructive presence in boardrooms, a goal they've managed to achieve in recent years through a combination of public prodding and private suasion.” — Kevin Allison, Reporter, Reuters Breakingviews"

""The proposed acquisition will give Apollo the right to at least two board seats indefinitely (assuming it maintains its equity position above a specified threshold) and, pursuant to standstill and voting obligations, will lock in Apollo's support for the current board of directors and management." — Land & Buildings"

"“Disney has an experienced, diverse, and highly qualified Board that is focused on the long-term performance of the Company, strategic growth initiatives including the ongoing transformation of its businesses, the succession planning process, and increasing shareholder value.” — The Walt Disney Company, December 2023"

""It is very risky for Lightspeed because they are on the hook for paying the customer if the business goes belly up... They own 100% of the risk." — Former Lightspeed Payments Employee; "The $16 billion GTV number is a PR number... there's no way to say there's money backed up behind it." — Former Lightspeed Employee"

"Bristol-Myers Squibb Announces Top-Line Results from CheckMate-026, a Phase 3 Study of Opdivo (nivolumab) in Treatment-Naïve Patients with Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Opdivo did not meet trial primary endpoint of progression-free survival in patients expressing PD-L1 ≥ 5% — Bristol-Myers Squibb Press Release"

"DiRicco, who prepared SOC's 2012 corporate income tax returns, was convicted in 1989 for conspiring to defraud the United States, aiding and abetting in the preparation of false tax returns, and obstruction of justice; and, in 2000, for interference with administration of internal revenue laws — Legal filing excerpt."

"“Future phases may expand into integrating Datavault AI’s proprietary data solutions for digital twin modeling, predictive analytics, inventory logistics and management as well as blockchain-based tools to secure supply chains and authenticate critical components throughout their lifecycle.” — DVLT PR July 22nd, 2025"

"“2019. I think 2020 also...the A150, the pricing is so expensive, around $50 million, and the purchasing price in TSMC is around $50 million...yes, six tools. And they demand it for EPL. It's not for production; it's for EPL.” — Longtime ex-TSMC procurement executive who introduced Lasertec inspection tools into TSMC"

"The key distinction is that 50-cent delta [of Renewal Subscriber Value [per watt] is the reliance on renewals to create the full value. That 50-cent delta [per watt] ... in the back of my head, I just took like a machete to that. No. The additional 50 cents of value creation is pretty suspect. — Former RUN executive"

""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"

""Not very healthy. Tense and transactional... Again, not a lot of collaboration, not a lot of intimacy there, period." — Former Monster Employee; "Monster supply chain is a function of evolution, not a function of intelligent design... So risk assessment... there was none when I got there." — Former Monster Employee"

"There would be scope to reduce or eliminate any residual circular or cross-shareholdings that remain after the merger between Samsung Holdco and Samsung C&T, as part of, for example, a demerger of Samsung Holdco into a Samsung General Holding Company (Samsung GHC) and Samsung Financial Holding Company (Samsung FHC)."

"error rate is a shocking “50% higher” than a standard lab instrument; our staff don’t want to use it — AMGEN employee #1. “very hard” to develop a new process on it; still have to hack it get it to work — AMGEN employee #1. “probably not” worth buying — AMGEN employee #2. “pretty limited number” — AMGEN employee #2."

"it's just not stable...it doesn't work...it just dies — TSMC source. Taiwan is very smart. They always wait for Intel and these guys to go first...they usually do not want to take the risk of being the first...that happened for EUV...were really slow...still used the traditional tools like KLA — Ex-head of TSMC R&D."

"No [advantage], actually, if I have to tell you, I will say that Dlocal is more expensive than the competitors, small amounts, but sometimes it's more expensive. — Source E; I think Dlocal has a stronger, sales team, but they, they don't really look into profitability. You're only looking into TPV growth. — Source A"

"…launching without a liver REMS would certainly be a potential area of differentiation [from sparsentan], and we do think we have a strong scientific rationale to support that for atrasentan… So we'll begin that dialogue. It's likely ultimately to be a review issue. — Chinook Company Conference Presentation, May 10."

"In the current year, the company formalized the sale of the vessel called "607" with deed of sale dated 06/25/2021 no. 5164 repertoire at the notary Orsero with studio in Loano. The purchaser is the company "BT2 Vessel Limited which purchased the vessel for the amount of 6,226,277 euros." — Eurocraft's 2021 accounts"

"Many of the consumer-friendly offerings that helped Carvana rapidly gain share are no longer unique. For example, all of the “Three reasons to sell to Carvana” provided in e-mails to potential customers: firm no-haggle offer, fast payment, and multiple delivery options are now offered by multiple online competitors."

"I think the GLP-1s, if I was going to bet, will probably be more effective than this drug from what I’ve seen about this drug so far, and the limited data I’ve got on the GLP-1s and the GLP-1s are likely to be cheaper — Trial investigator; endocrinologist; one of the most published authorities on PWS and hyperphagia"

"IN THE PAST DECADE, THE SINGLE MOST COMMON CAUSE OF THE WITHDRAWAL or restriction of the use of drugs that have already been marketed has been the prolongation of the QT interval associated with polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, or torsade de pointes (Fig. 1), which can be fatal. — New England Journal of Medicine"

"That wouldn't shock me because of mix. ... That would indicate a problem somewhere in the business. If your take rate was stable and transaction size fell or vice versa, that would indicate something's getting worse in the business. ... I don't know why they would've stopped disclosing it. — Former Remitly Executive"

"Beginning in August 2021, the Company grants RSUs to employees and directors with service-based vesting conditions. The service-based vesting condition for these awards is typically satisfied over four years with a cliff vesting period of one year and continued vesting quarterly thereafter. — Remitly RSU Disclosure"

"“That has surprised me. I would’ve bought more stock if I knew that. Yeah, because back in the day when I was doing that, you couldn’t get that kind of revenue (growth). Well, the only years we had it was where we jumped into the consumer market and it turned around and bit us in the ass.” — MPWR’s Former Executive"

"“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"

"Liu Yishuo explained that YY is a platform which requires money to play, he himself also returned just to 'scam money.' But he called out to those whose daily work involves brushing (sending fake) gifts, telling them if you are making less than 5,000 RMB a month, sending yourself gifts is not worth it. — Liu Yishou"

""What comfort can you give to private sector investors considering investing in the future of the housing finance system when they believe that the government arbitrarily changed the rules of the game mid-stream with the Third Amendment?" — Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania Senator, Senate Banking Committee member, 3/4/2014"

"Disney has an experienced, diverse, and highly qualified Board that is focused on the long-term performance of the Company, strategic growth initiatives including the ongoing transformation of its businesses, the succession planning process, and increasing shareholder value. — The Walt Disney Company, December 2023"

"Q3. Revenue growth guidance for 2017 of 9% was encouraging as the company announced its plans to sell a new product at Lowe’s this year and enter direct distribution in the UK. For a growth story that had stalled, the resumption of revenue growth is clearly an important sign. — Stifel Earnings Analysis - 8 Feb 2017"