Callouts & quotes from 141+ activist slides

""Our analysis of a theoretical model in which 80% of BWLD is franchised along conservative industry standards yields per share valuations significantly higher than BWLD's current share price" — Nick Setyan, Wedbush, 2/8/17; "[D]irectionally the activist plan is a much better plan than the one the current management team is focused on" — Howard Penney, Hedgeye, 8/18/16; "[T]he math [on a transition to a 90% franchised business model] looks intriguing, even when using what we think are conservative assumptions" — David Tarantino, Baird, 10/24/16; "[D]uring its Analyst Day...[Management] failed to address any changes to BWLD's long-term company/franchise store mix (now at 52% company-owned, which we believe should be reduced) by defending ongoing consideration of future franchise purchases (where we would hope for a re-franchising strategy)" — Paul Westra, Stifel, 8/16/16; "We like the potential for additional value-unlocking actions or a more drastic tack in strategy in-line with some of the ideas outlined in a recent 13D filing...Investors may look past downward revisions if the prospect of transformative action is on the table, but if this is called into doubt, fundamentals suggest a lower price for the stock" — John Zolidis, Buckingham, 9/15/16; "[A] falling [ROIC] as a result of higher capex could suggest a greater proportion of units would create more per share value as franchised units (e.g., where the same capex could be deployed for share repurchases)...Investors remain highly focused on the potential opportunity for BWLD to increase its franchise mix" — Karen Holthouse, Goldman Sachs, 8/4/16; "We view refranchising as a realistic alternative path to value creation for shareholders...Investors often forget BWLD was >65% franchised a few years ago. Our conversations with brokers that specialize in restaurant and franchisee transactions lead us to believe the appetite for most of BWLD's markets would be strong, and could command multiples towards the higher end of the 5-6x unit-level EBITDA industry standard"' — Nick Setyan, Wedbush, 9/12/16; "We believe investors would applaud the introduction of multi-year refranchising programs from Buffalo Wild Wings" — Jeff Farmer, Wells Fargo, 7/13/16; "'Logic' supports the premise that a franchise model is better insulated against economic volatility, generating a high margin annuity stream of royalties with limited operating volatility...We expect investors to further encourage (re)franchising / licensing at [BWLD]" — Jeffrey Bernstein, Barclays, 5/17/16"

""We took some money from several money from several places to offer our teachers these raises, which was historic," Hutchinson said. "We didn't have that money sitting around someplace. We had to find it. ... These budget adjustments free up resources for us." — Mike Hutchinson, Oakland Unified Board President; "The reality is, we have no money anywhere. So we're going to have to make some tough choices, and everybody needs to be involved." — Demetrio Gonzalez-Hoy, West Contra Costa Unified School Board President; "We need to transition responsibly, from an era of COVID emergency funds to an era around the corner where the five and a half billion that we have been living off will all disappear," said Carvalho. "If we did not begin the process now, a year from now it will be impossible to do so without incredible pain." — Alberto Carvalho, Los Angeles Unified Superintendent; "I wish there was a way for high-poverty schools like mine to have extended-year funding so our kids could be safe for more months of the year and receive activities they love and want to come to school for all year long." — Stacey Cole, Storm Lake Schools Superintendent; "I never want to be the superintendent that has to reduce staff to get to a number, because I understand that there's a human being behind it, and that human being is connected to a family. It's never easy for me." — Nikolai Vitti, Detroit Public Schools Superintendent; "We're adding 230 new positions, mostly funded by ESSER, that's 230 people on top of the current vacancies, that we will either have to lay off next year or in subsequent years or hope that the city has the extra $100 million to cover their salaries and benefits." — Brendan Cardet-Hernandez, Boston Public Schools School Committee Member; "I would not want to spend ESSER funding knowing we are in a $1.3 million deficit and not knowing what the future looks like, it is really not right to start a program we cannot support until we are in a position where we know we can sustain it." — Dede Galdston, Watertown Public Schools Superintendent; "This week...we've issued some notifications to employees about they're being considered for 'RIF' and displacement so that is happening," said Dr. Brent Jones, SPS superintendent. "We're in that phase right now." — Dr. Brent Jones, Seattle Public Schools Superintendent."

"Other than these efforts, we are also working to strengthen our collaborations with professional agencies in building our talent pool and improving the content offerings. Historically, agencies have a limited role in Momo's live streaming ecosystem. We have noticed, since earlier this year that some quality talent agencies and MCNs are becoming increasingly mature in terms of talent management and content development. As a result, we are adjusting our operational policies to better support the high value-added agencies in traffic and other resources, as well as economic incentive. We believe that such adjustment will give the quality agencies bigger room to develop and does better motivate them to help us in developing talent and driving constant quality and diversity. It will also allow them to grow their business in a bigger way within our ecosystem, which in turn will grow ours. In November, we rolled out a trial plan, whereby the qualified agencies are provided with a different level of additional cash incentives if they reach certain growth targets. Although such incentives will likely cause cost in revenue to continue to fluctuate in the future, we believe it will better motivate the agencies and individual broadcasters to invest and grow their business within our ecosystem, which in turn will grow ours. Moving on to mobile marketing business, the new homepage design of 8.0 has diverted traffic from nearby people to other product modules. At the same time, we have also reduced the number of ad units in the nearby posts from 3 to 1. As nearby people and nearby posts are the two major carriers of the ad impressions. The 8.0-related changes have led to a significant decline in the ad inventory supply resulting in a sequential decrease in mobile marketing revenues during the third quarter. On the product side, one of the key hurdles that we had in improving the long-term user retention was the fact that our core use case, which was pretty much based on nearby people and instant messaging was kind of limited. In the past two years' time, we have made a lot of progresses in expanding the social use cases. — Tang Yan Q3 '17 Earnings Call"

""But with the engine -- the new engines ramping up and the high level of technical sophistication, there's a lot of increased product introduction costs for qualification of the component. And at the same time, the legacy engine spares and replacements remain strong. So here, we have a different situation. We have very, very strong demand. At the same time, the ramp-up is accelerating, and we're going through the near-term teething issues here of the aero engine industry." — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, Alcoa Q3 Earnings Call, October 11, 2016; "So, the aero engine side, typically, in the past have always shown that there are these ramp up issues with the supply chain. In this case, we are seeing them again and we are seeing them probably a little bit more than in normal environment, very much driven by the level of technical sophistication and combined with the relatively long supply chain." — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, Arconic Roadshow, October 28, 2016; "Our isothermal and hot-die forge presses operated at or near record levels during the third quarter in support of growing next-generation engine builds. But on the forgings side both the hot-die and the isothermal, I mean, we're really very good at making those parts, quite frankly... we're good at it and our customers know that and where others might be stumbling a little bit as they maybe start to ramp up, we're there to support the customer...." — Richard J. Harshman, CEO of Allegheny Technologies, ATI Q3 Earnings Call, October 25, 2016; "The 2016 results were in line with what we last told you, however disappointing. Overall, we got it wrong on the non-aero side and our outlook substantially reduced for this market. On the aero side we are delayed but we will get there. We could have executed better and we recognize it and we own it and we are working diligently to improve the performance of this important asset." — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, January 31, 2017"

""First, we're excited about the prospect of operating a smaller group of stores at the corporate level, but also excited about our franchisees growing sales and growing the performance of these stores they've acquired from us as well as the new store counts that will result with these refranchised units" — Sonic Q2'17 Earnings Call, 3/28/17; "Over the long term the financial resources and capabilities brought by our expanded network of developmental licensees create opportunities for accelerated expansion and innovation" — McDonald's Analyst Day, 3/1/17; "The material financial benefits [of refranchising] to highlight [are that it] will reduce volatility, will increase free cash flow, will accelerate its growth off a higher base, and return excess capital to shareholders. We're upping our franchise mix target, now to at least 98% from at least 96%" — YUM! Analyst Day, 10/11/16; "[R]efranchising [is] intended to mitigate the trough associated with transformation and fund investments and initiatives that improve the guest experience and create opportunities for growth" — Panera Q1'16 Earnings Call, 4/27/16; "And what we found is that by refranchising, we were able to put restaurants back in the hands of some of the best operators in the system. We were able to accelerate a remodeling initiative that we thought was very strategically critical to us. And it allowed us to refocus...on developing the brand around the world, and supporting our franchisees, not trying to run 1,200 restaurants all over the world" — Burger King Worldwide at Piper Jaffray Conference, 6/10/14"

""We recognize that the discrepancy where the market value of held shares exceeds the company's total market capitalization is a significant challenge. We evaluated this proposal as one that contributes to addressing this issue. Additionally, we believe it could serve as an opportunity for the company to reconsider its capital policy" — Nikko Asset Management. "The Company has determined that considering the option of selling the shares, taking into account the formulation of its capital allocation policy, would contribute to improving its corporate value in the medium to long term" — Daiwa Asset Management. "...the Company has not been transparent regarding its plan to further reduce its ownership in OLC and how it plans to use those proceeds to grow corporate value. As such, we believe support for the shareholder proposal is warranted and that its implementation would both increase transparency of the Company's capital management strategy and improve the Company's capital efficiency and sustainable growth as these proceeds can be used to either reinvest for growth opportunities or be redistributed to shareholders." — Neuberger Berman. "We believe that this proposal will remove an accounting 'overhang'... forcing management to be more disciplined in its capital allocation decisions and accountable for the performance of Keisei's operating businesses" — ISS. "The board does not appear to substantively address the rationale for why a partial sale of Keisei's interest in OLC would be inimical to the Company's stability and sustainability" — Glass Lewis."

""The company did find interesting opportunities to invest within its own portfolio by providing senior and subordinated capital to existing portfolio companies. The availability of senior debt capital from traditional sources, such as banks, continues to be scarce, and the company had several opportunities to purchase senior or subordinated notes at a discount from lending institutions looking to liquidate or reduce middle market portfolios." — Allied Capital April 23, 2002 earnings press release. "There’s been a couple of portfolios where people have chosen to go out of the business and as we’ve said repeatedly, our business is that of mezzanine investments with a long term illiquid asset class and when people need to engage in a fire sale of assets, those are typically traded at a discount and last quarter we purchased some sub-debt at a discount. And that was simply because of the fire sale phenomenon. It had nothing to do with the credit quality of the companies whose debt we were buying. In fact, it was a huge opportunity for us and very good for the shareholders. Now in cases where we were buying down senior debt where we have a subordinated debt investment, we recapitalize the business and write down the subordinated debt appropriately to reflect the overall value of the business. So it’s not a question of us buying down senior debt at a discount and leaving the sub-debt in place at its previous structure and value. That simply does not happen." — Mr. Walton, May 16th conference call."

"“There are also a couple of companies that have gone in the other direction. Instead of adding functionality, they reduced down the assays to make them a little bit more manageable. Sphere Fluidics is one example of that. They're almost like a FACS instrument. You encapsulate your individual cells into these bubbles, along with reagents and whatever antibody you're trying to evaluate. Obviously, the readout is a fluorescent signal, just the same you do in Beacon.” — Leading academic institution/ex-BLI scientist. “The last company which is not a direct competitor, but you could certainly use the instrumentation to do antibody screening is IsoPlexis. Right now, they're well-known for cytokine panels, where they're looking at the secretion of different cytokines in different immune contexts. The idea is that you have single T cells; for example, you're looking at what they're secreting. Obviously, you could do the same thing with B cells to look at antibodies. And you basically use their panels to figure out which single cells are secreting what. They're still a little bit early, but it looks to me, based on some of my evaluation of the instrument, that they could take it in that direction. Again, it's a much less expensive instrument. It retains just enough of the functionality of Beacon to make it useful in similar applications. It's on the order of $250,000 as well or $350,000.” — Leading academic institution/ex-BLI scientist."

"Your letter characterized our NOP program as a means to reduce access to the OCS technology and increase prices and profitability. This is not correct. Contrary to the Your letter accused TransMedics of pressuring hospitals to utilize our more expensive logistics. This couldn’t be further from the truth. TransMedics presents the logistics quotation to transplant centers using our NOP service. The transplant centers then have the final say on whether they want to use our services or not. We are confident, given the above efficient way of operating our fleet, and our cost-sharing model with transplant centers that our quotes are lower than competitors who use the outdated brokerage model. Your letter painted an inaccurate picture of the charter flight logistics for organ transplants in the US and accused TransMedics of creating a logistical network with newer aircrafts to unjustly increase cost on our clinical users. Again, this is not correct. Here are the facts. Transplant centers had the option to either use NOP or continue to operate the OCS on their own by sending their own teams. Over the past 24 months, more and more centers elected to transition to NOP due to its more efficient cost profile, better clinical outcomes, and the ability to increase their transplant volumes without surgical fatigue of their staff. — TransMedics CEO Waleed Hassanein"

"Can they solve dendrites at scale? Can they solve it to be cost-effective? One of the solutions was to make the separator thicker, and that typically reduces the performance of the cell, and it quickly negates a lot of the advantages that solid-state gives because now you've got a separator that's super-thick, and all the cell is occupied by separator and all the advantages of energy density and everything go out the window. If they say they can make a separator that works, but they won't tell us how thick it is or how it performs or how long it performs—they still haven't done anything in a multi-layer pouch, which I would say is super-concerning to me from a timeliness perspective. Not having anything in a multi-layer cell is a real concern for me. — Former employee; The key thing that you need to understand about the dendrites is this separator that they have in that photo, it's thinner than a strand of hair. If you're not careful and a dendrite does form and creates a spike in the battery, you're just going to shatter that. It's thinner than a piece of paper, and it's got the solidity. They're trying to find out what's the good balance of whether it should be hard, whether it should be soft, what type of materials that they should be looking at. — Another former employee"

""We are repositioning our Verifi process control technology business. Market adoption has been below our expectations, and the business is not producing the returns we want. As a result, we have decided to operate Verifi as a more targeted niche offering, and have reduced our investment in growing the business." — Hudson La Force, CFO, W.R. Grace (7/23/14); "Verify is a new marketplace...We have a head start in this market. It's a relatively small business today but growing at very nice mid double-digit rates and we're investing in this business in terms of both its stickiness and its ability to drive performance with the Ready Mix customers" — Greg Poling, Fmr CEO, GCP (5/17/16); "Our capital investments could be slightly higher in 2018 than our target of 5% of sales due to investments required for our new VERIFI contracts." — Dean Freeman, Fmr CFO (2/27/18); "With an estimated addressable market of approximately $1 billion, VERIFI is a key source of growth for GCP and remains a top investment priority." — Narasimhan Srinivasan, VP Strategy & Corp Dev, GCP (8/7/18); "We've committed to having sales generated through the VERIFI program of $50 million to $75 million by the end of 2021." — Randall Dearth, CEO, GCP (2/26/20)"

"And then, at the beginning Mr. Ding Shizhong was working as a sub-contractor [OEM] for international brands, and then after he was able to accumulate his original [capital]: he could then lend money to these distributors and partners to support these dealers/distributors to expand their business. By developing personnel and building the channels, these distributors very successfully established a foothold in local markets and expanded the business. So this history cannot be separated from these connections, so this kind of connection and control between the brand and the distributors is very strong, and later when they went public, at the time, Li Ning also was going public. The Jinjiang companies came up with a strategy to separate out these semi-subsidiaries from the ListCo, so they would be outside of the ListCo, and let the companies' profits look more attractive. For example, when they ship product they can book revenue, in this way they could more quickly generate more revenue, at the same time the distributors' costs would not have to be inside the ListCo's system. So, they reduced expense and accelerated income, so their financials were all much better looking. — Mr. D (former ANTA senior executive)"

"We also launched BlackRock's first self-indexed ETFs... This illustrates one of the ways we are using our scale and technology to reduce manufacturing costs and pass along greater savings to our clients. — Larry Fink, CEO, July 2017; We seeded or co-invested $1.1 billion into products as we built new and innovative investment capabilities, including alternative, ESG-related, and self-indexed offerings. — April 2018 Proxy Statement; Now on the self-indexing part of your question, look, self-indexing certainly has some advantages, and the advantages are cost and flexibility. So we're exploring constantly self-indexing in areas where there aren't well-defined indices... And currently, we have 6 self-indexed ETFs. — Robert Kapito, President & Director, January 2021; We are also continuing to invest in scale efficiencies. We get this obviously through Aladdin, but we're also diversifying our ETF servicers, diversifying index providers, and expanding our own capabilities around self-indexing, custom indexing, and proprietary data and analytics, especially in fast-growing areas like ESG. — Salim Ramji, Senior Managing Director & Global Head of iShares & Index Investments, Investor Day, June 2021"

""We've got to bring more milk into the platform. Right now, if I look at the WCB platform, we're running close to 97%, 98% capacity utilization. On the MG side, we're running somewhere around maybe 58% capacity utilization. So one of the easiest ways to drive synergies and drive profitability is getting more milk through the plant, but of course, it's got to go into profitable products that we can sell either domestically or internationally?" — CEO on Australia (August 2018). "But our projections in terms of the respectable levels of profitability for the combined Australian platform, we believe that we will be there within year 3." — CEO on Australia (August 2018). "Leanne, it just seems that Australia has been problematic for a number of years now because of the inadequate supply of milk coming off the farm..." — BMO Analyst (June 2022). "And I believe that there is a way with the amount of milk that we're processing or we expect to process, this still drives very healthy profitability... So it doesn't mean that we have to reduce our expectation for EBITDA generation because we have less milk." — CEO on Australia (June 2022)."

""the adoption of coal occurred over roughly five decades, and the shift from coal to oil took more than three decades. To limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, we must ramp up renewables and other low-carbon solutions at warp speed. These energy sources must match the maximum shares held by coal (55%) and oil (41%) roughly three times as fast as those commodities did and ultimately should account for most primary energy by 2050-up to 70% in IEA's Net Zero Emissions scenario. This rapid transition remains a massive challenge and appears increasingly unlikely" — BCG, A blueprint for the energy transition (September 2023). "despite the progress in recent years, national commitments to reduce emissions collectively fall short of what is required by 2030 to bring global emissions down to a level in line with achieving net zero emissions by 2050. In addition, the various commitments are not yet underpinned by sufficiently strong and comprehensive policies to give confidence that they will be successfully delivered" — IEA, Net-Zero Roadmap - A global pathway to keep the 1.5° C goal in reach (September 2023)."

""The purchase price for this acquisition totaled $92,678. The remaining amount consists of a contingent consideration of $3,004 which is contingent upon meeting certain performance metrics. Since the initial purchase price allocation was estimated, contingent consideration has been reduced by $4,000 and trade and other payables have increased by $650 and those adjustments have been reflected as an adjustment of $3,350 to goodwill." — Nuvei Q3'21 Financials, p.9; "For the nine months ended September 30, 2021, other expenses increased by $8.5 million compared to the nine months ended September 30, 2020 primarily due to an increase in information technology and D&O insurance expenses in 2021 as well as a $2.1 million favorable adjustment to contingent consideration in the comparative period." — Nuvei Q3'21 MD&A, p.21; "change in deferred purchase consideration for previously acquired businesses, which was nil for the three months and the nine months ended September 30, 2021 (nil for the three months ended September 30, 2020 and a gain of $1.3 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2020" — Nuvei Q3'21 MD&A, p.9"

""I would guess that it's the exome stuff that globally is at least half if probably not 75% of all the target enrichment that's used. So, there's a threat that it's a commodity and given economies of scale, even if they're not as good with custom." — Major Twist customer, one of largest genomics centers in Europe; "Yeah, they're improving all the time. Also, there are other companies starting to make synthetic DNA with lots of different other technologies such as enzymatic methods and true microchip printing that claim that they can get longer oligos than Twist, claim to be cheaper and do it in a more highly parallel fashion to reduce the process. It's becoming quite a crowded market." — Major Twist customer, one of largest genomics centers in Europe; "When we buy single genes, sometimes we buy Twist, and sometimes we use some other people like GenScript, but that's totally - we haven't done a lot of research to try to figure out who's the best people. I've worked with GenScript before and always found their stuff pretty good." — Current Twist customer, professor with a protein therapeutics lab at a major university"

"On the conservatism in the FY '24 guide comment that was made in the shareholder letter and the prepared remarks. Really, what I am saying is if you go back to like FY '23, we initially guided 30% to 32% revenue growth and we ultimately finished that 52% growth. So that entailed beats of 8%, 7%, 9%, 9% in Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4, what we are seeing for FY '24 is we are starting the guidance at 28% to 30%. We will not have those same level of beats in FY '24. So, it is less conservative than that initial FY '23 guide. There is a lot of obviously macro uncertainty. If we see a lot of those headwinds, we won't need to reduce our guidance, that is why we call it de-risked, we do not think we will go below 20% to 30%. If we don't see those headwinds, we will have the opportunity to move that guidance up throughout the year, similar to what we did in FY '23 but we do not expect the same magnitude of beats. And so that's really the point that I was trying to drive home, more in that kind of low to mid single-digit revenue beats on a quarterly basis if we do not see any sort of macro uncertainty. — Samsara CFO Phillips"

""I think fundamentally, if the goal is to reduce obesity and obesity-related disease, which is why hyperphagia is the primary focus of all these programs, even though it is a really multifactorial disease that affects a multitude of symptoms. The main side effects for this drug are hypertrichosis, peripheral edema, and hyperglycemia. If you're creating hyperglycemia by giving the drug then, really, what is the benefit if the long-term goal of reducing obesity is to prevent obesity complications like diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. But if you're causing hyperglycemia, to me, that is the salient point. I do think if there are patients with extreme hyperphagia, there may be physicians who are willing to take that risk and put them on this drug. But I think there's so much variability within hyperphagia itself that, unless a patient has an extreme level of hyperphagia that is not under control through any other means, yeah, I think the value is minimal compared to what you're risking." — Ex-Soleno employee #2, key role in clinical trial program"

""So the benefits to this are immense. We can generate the same throughput at one-third of the operating expense with much more flexibility and we expect through time that we will be able to reduce the cost per gram of our proteins by some 60% or more and that enables us to achieve hundreds of millions of dollars of savings versus conventional technology." — Bob Bradway, Chairman & CEO, October 2014; "In the G&A area, we're setting up a series of shared service activities for non-core areas and we've created what we call a Global Business Services group, which is serving then as a centralized point to serve the Company." — David Meline, Amgen EVP and CFO, November 2014; "Things like rationalizing our process development organizations between manufacturing and research and development. That is a significant decision that we've made, a decisive decision that we've made that we think favors cycle time improvement and also favors reducing the capital that we have to invest in new molecules." — Bob Bradway, Chairman & CEO, October 2014"

"During 2017, sales and operating profit performance for Garden Fresh Gourmet... were well below expectations, and we lowered our outlook for the second half of 2017 due to customer losses and failure to meet product distribution goals. Based upon the business performance in 2017, our reduced near-term outlook, and reduced expectations for sales, operating margins and discounted cash flows, we performed an interim impairment assessment in the second quarter, which resulted in a $64 million impairment charge. — Campbell Soup (FY18 10-K); In 2018, sales and operating performance were well below expectations due in part to competitive pressure and reduced margins. In the fourth quarter of 2018, as part of a strategic review initiated by a new leadership team and based on recent performance, we lowered our long-term outlook for future sales. In the fourth quarter of 2018, as part of our annual review of intangible assets, we recognized an impairment charge of $54 million. — Campbell Soup (FY18 10-K)"

"“We see these estimates (Marcato’s) as ambitious but plausible in the context of international opportunities, potential in other categories helped by improved segmentation (to begin Spring '18), and revenue recapture from closed stores… …Cost savings initiatives over this period are more aggressive than those of management but, in our view, a fair directional assessment of opportunity. We are in directional agreement with Marcato on opportunities for financial engineering given the durable cash flow of the business (which could be helped by net working capital benefits from retail closures). While cash balances are principally overseas, the company could both borrow against these cash balances and use foreign cash to support foreign working capital needs. A revolving line of credit or the combination of revolver and term-loan could both accommodate working capital demands and be used to reduce the share count with accretive results.” — Stifel 10/19/17"

""This new alignment is the result of a very thoughtful and thorough process to de-layer our management structure, speed decision-making, simplify communications and reduce costs." — Ann Moore, Publishing's Chairman & CEO; "Too many layers make you very averse to risk. You've got to be able to make fast decisions. We were like middle-aged people. We needed to slim down." — Ann Moore, Publishing's Chairman & CEO; "We are reallocating our workload and assets in order to invest in areas of higher growth, including online and new launches." — Ann Moore, Publishing's Chairman & CEO; "We are big, and we need big bets. I think that as we have become more layered, the culture here has become risk-averse." — Ann Moore, Publishing's Chairman & CEO; "The current round of cuts is largely because of reallocation of resources as the company increases its online presence and consolidates some of its business functions." — TWX spokesperson."

""L'Oréal is proud to announce the development of the very first paper-based cosmetic tube... We plan to improve the environmental or social impact of 100% of our new products by 2020." — L'Oréal (Bioplastics News, October 18, 2019); "PepsiCo, Inc. today announced a new target to reduce 35% of virgin plastic content across its beverage portfolio by 2025" — PepsiCo (September 13, 2019); "Halve its use of virgin plastic, by reducing its absolute use of plastic packaging by more than 100,000 tonnes and accelerating its use of recycled plastic" — Unilever (July 10, 2019); "Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, two major sellers of plastic bottles, have made sweeping sustainability commitments. Now they are stepping away from a plastics lobbying group." — CNN (August 5, 2019); "Company Aims to Make 100% of its Packaging Recyclable, Reusable or Compostable by 2025; Increase Usage of Recycled Materials." — Kraft Heinz (July 31, 2018)"

""APA's stock performance has significantly lagged its peer average and the S&P 500 since the Egyptian revolution. We are more pessimistic about Egypt's future than in any time in the last two years and are reducing our PT to $95 from $105. We think APA would be better off exiting Egypt by selling its operations and using the proceeds to buy back shares, reduce debt and boost investments elsewhere." — Oppenheimer (February 28, 2013); "Since early-2011, Egypt has been a persistent overhang for APA. While in simple terms the region accounts for...23% of our NAV, this understates the importance of the asset for the portfolio.... While a complete lifting of the Egypt overhang is unlikely, the market is discounting a very bearish outcome for an asset that has suffered no visible economic impact from the deteriorating political & fiscal situation over the past 2 years." — Deutsche Bank (March 7, 2013)"

""Despite a reduced investment outlook, we remain concerned with the pace of SG&A spend to support growth of owned retail doors, which could still generate lower marginal returns than anticipated leaving earnings growth challenged longer-term. Total SG&A intensity is up 600bp over the last three years." — 1/30/15 Credit Suisse. "...it looks like if you take out that $7 million of cost savings you're talking about in 4Q, you're still looking at almost 10% SG&A growth in fourth quarter against the minus 5% top line." — Research Analyst, 2/2/17 Earnings Call. "Some of it is some additional marketing around our E-Commerce business. And another item is there are some increased incentive comp this year relative to year ago, and that's really related to -- incentive comp related to lower levels of management relative to a year ago." — Thomas George (CFO), 2/2/17 Earnings Call."

""As the industry leader, Sunrun has enjoyed capital cost advantages. By joining arms with Vivint Solar, we expect to further our advantages in 2 ways. First, we'll be even more regular issuers of debt securities, which should drive down our capital costs. And second, with our combined size, we will more easily appeal to investors with enormous minimum check sizes, such as pension funds, who often enjoy a lower cost of capital. Over time, these advantages will benefit our customers and shareholders, while allowing us to accelerate the adoption of affordable, renewable energy." — Founder & Chairman Sunrun; "I'm excited by the magnitude of synergies we can realize through this acquisition, which will allow the combined company to operate more efficiently and reduce the cost to the consumer of going solar." — CFO Sunrun"

"“No, I don't remember. $500 million—between $300 to 500 million and that basically translates to the POs that they had from Intel but the POs are at a significantly reduced price. They don't have a lot of margin on those tools, very low margins on those tools.” — Former KLA executive in a leadership role in their EUV mask inspection group. “I think that $300 to $500 million is a little high in my estimation. I'm sure they've invested some significant money in Lasertec, and they do have a significant say in the direction of Lasertec, and Lasertec views them as sort of their core customer or founding customer per se...they've also obviously ordered and prepaid for some stuff...” — Longtime semiconductor consultant recently working for Lasertec; close to KLA management"

""The drug channels, front of store performance has been declining for a long period of time. So they're running downhill, trying to catch up with this declining business and reduce inventory to keep up with lower sales. So that's hitting us." — Ronald Lombardi, Q2 2020 Call, October 31, 2019; "Our we haven't seen any meaningful changes in the factors that are causing the retailers to take these actions. So at this point, we would anticipate the level to be fairly similar next year to what we've realized this year." — Ronald Lombardi, Q3 2020 Call, February 6, 2020; "So far, in Q1, we've seen a pretty steady level of dollars of inventory for the retailers, so it's hard to predict what they'll do going forward." — Ronald Lombardi, Q4 2020 Call, May 7, 2020"

"“Because remote cardiac monitoring technology, including the Zio System, is rapidly evolving, there is a continuing risk that relative value units assigned, and reimbursement rates set, by CMS may not adequately reflect the value and expense of this technology and associated monitoring services, and CMS may reduce these rates in the future, which would adversely affect the Company's financial results.” — iRhythm 2024 10-K. “[the] MCT category is going to be slightly flat over time. I think that there continues to be a nice healthy market there, but we know that price has been under a bit of pressure from CMS for the last 2 years. I suspect that will continue to be the case...” — iRhythm CEO Blackford on Q1 2025 Earnings Call, 5/1/25"

"In November, we rolled out a trial plan, whereby the qualified agencies are provided with a different level of additional cash incentives if they reach certain growth targets. Although such incentives will likely cause cost in revenue to continue to fluctuate in the future, we believe it will better motivate the agencies and individual broadcasters to invest and grow their business within our ecosystem, which in turn will grow ours. — CFO Johnathan Zhang Q4 2017 Earnings Call; We scaled back the revenue oriented operating efforts around the quarterly competition event. Therefore, cost on bonus or rewards offered to broadcasters during the tournament, was significantly reduced. — Momo CFO Jonathan Zhang on Q1 2018 Earnings Call"

"“Due to staffing shortages and other logistics challenges at IDTFs, results reporting can take many days, weeks, or even more than a month before physicians receive patient results. Diagnostic delays, patient data breaches and fragmented care are often the undesired effects of outsourcing ECG services. Thanks to recent innovations in automated ECG analysis algorithm technology, providers can now bring long-term ECG patch data analysis and draft reporting entirely in-house, streamlining the process and reducing overall time to patient diagnosis. ‘Insourcing’ rather than outsourcing ECG services can also reduce operational costs and maximize reimbursement for providers.” — Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology (DAIC) Blog"

""Buffalo Wild Wings senior management is taking the company down a path of no return. They recently “compressed” 50 home office and field employees in an effort to reduce costs…The firing of four dozen key employees may have slightly improved the bottom line for one quarter but did nothing to address the real issues still in play: Lack of menu innovation which has driven customers elsewhere. Inferior POS support which has cost Franchisees and corporate operators hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. No technology innovation in a changing climate where competition is cutting edge. No plan to effectively market to millennials" — Comment submitted to www.winningatwildwings.com, 4/17/17"

"“So, they would take back the A150 and then they would give us an A300 at a reduced price from the retail price.” — Senior employee at Marvell Technology; “If they haven't taken any reserves or impairments against their total balance sheet, then with the cost of their inventory - we've seen it before, where the valuation that they place is not what it actually is, and they defer out when they're going to do that impairment because they don't want to record a hit on their gross margin. This is a common thing, unfortunately, that I've seen across multiple companies in the space. That's what I've actively seen to be done to try to manipulate earnings.” — Senior employee at Marvell Technology"

""We have transformed before, adding things like WiFi, larger bins and in-seat power, and we will continue to adapt as needed." — CEO Bob Jordan, April 2024; "...We’re not convinced [these] drive share shift when Southwest fails to offer a pricing advantage vs. a nonstop competitor." — J.P. Morgan, April 2023; "In-seat power, larger overhead bins and Wi-Fi are table stakes..." — Cowen, April 2024; "...Management reduced [their guidance] to $1.0 to $1.5B (vs $1.5B) of pre-tax profit improvements from network optimization and other initiatives. However, on our revised outlook, we’re now modeling $0 benefit in 2024... Network optimization so far has been inadequate..." — Seaport, April 2024"

"[I]t is unusual for an executive chairman to be compensated at a significantly higher level than the company's CEO and the proxy does not provide a compelling reason for this arrangement... The proxy does not adequately explain why investors should bear the costs for him to remain the most highly compensated NEO even when his apparent role and responsibilities within the company are reduced. — Institutional Shareholder Services – 2021 Disney Report; [W]hile we acknowledge the need to retain critical leadership in anticipation of such a significant merger, the magnitude of the special equity grant ($100 million) is excessive. — Institutional Shareholder Services – 2018 Disney Report"

"We have transformed before, adding things like WiFi, larger bins and in-seat power, and we will continue to adapt as needed. — CEO Bob Jordan, April 2024; ... We’re not convinced [these] drive share shift when Southwest fails to offer a pricing advantage vs. a nonstop competitor. — J.P. Morgan, April 2023; In-seat power, larger overhead bins and Wi-Fi are table stakes... — Cowen, April 2024; ...Management reduced [their guidance] to $1.0 to $1.5B (vs $1.5B) of pre-tax profit improvements from network optimization and other initiatives. However, on our revised outlook, we’re now modeling $0 benefit in 2024... Network optimization so far has been inadequate... — Seaport, April 2024"

"We have transformed before, adding things like WiFi, larger bins and in-seat power, and we will continue to adapt as needed. — CEO Bob Jordan, April 2024; ...We’re not convinced [these] drive share shift when Southwest fails to offer a pricing advantage vs. a nonstop competitor. — J.P. Morgan, April 2023; In-seat power, larger overhead bins and Wi-Fi are table stakes... — Cowen, April 2024; ...Management reduced [their guidance] to $1.0 to $1.5B (vs $1.5B) of pre-tax profit improvements from network optimization and other initiatives. However, on our revised outlook, we're now modeling $0 benefit in 2024... Network optimization so far has been inadequate... — Seaport, April 2024"

"We have transformed before, adding things like WiFi, larger bins and in-seat power, and we will continue to adapt as needed. — CEO Bob Jordan, April 2024; ...We’re not convinced [these] drive share shift when Southwest fails to offer a pricing advantage vs. a nonstop competitor. — J.P. Morgan, April 2023; In-seat power, larger overhead bins and Wi-Fi are table stakes... — Cowen, April 2024; ...Management reduced [their guidance] to $1.0 to $1.5B (vs $1.5B) of pre-tax profit improvements from network optimization and other initiatives. However, on our revised outlook, we're now modeling $0 benefit in 2024... Network optimization so far has been inadequate... — Seaport, April 2024"

"We have transformed before, adding things like WiFi, larger bins and in-seat power, and we will continue to adapt as needed. — CEO Bob Jordan, April 2024; We’re not convinced [these] drive share shift when Southwest fails to offer a pricing advantage vs. a nonstop competitor. — J.P. Morgan, April 2023; In-seat power, larger overhead bins and Wi-Fi are table stakes... — Cowen, April 2024; ...Management reduced [their guidance] to $1.0 to $1.5B (vs $1.5B) of pre-tax profit improvements from network optimization and other initiatives. However, on our revised outlook, we’re now modeling $0 benefit in 2024... Network optimization so far has been inadequate... — Seaport, April 2024"

"I would like to touch on the management fee reduction we announced in December. First of all, the Erie Indemnity Company Board of Directors sees the management fee as a tool to balance the interest of the shareholders, of the Erie Indemnity Company with the policyholders of the exchange. Keep in mind the exchange assumes 94.5% of the total underwriting risk and is the only corporate customer of the Erie Indemnity Company. Given the strong revenues and earnings growth of the Erie Indemnity Company and the underwriting loses we are experiencing at the exchange, the Board opted this past December to reduce the management fee from 25 to 24. — Jeffrey Ludrof, Former President"

"“With your stock price near an all-time low, with interest rates near all-time lows...you could basically buy back 25% of the company and still be within your [target leverage] range. Have you thought about that?” — Investor at 2010 Investor Day; “You’ve got a rather miniscule dividend. With lack of big acquisition opportunities, no need to reduce debt, why not establish a really significant payout ratio? You’re a slow growth company.” — Investor at 2010 Investor Day; “On the dividend strategy...it’s basically $50MM. Your business throws off $300MM of cash, just seems like a very small amount given the growth nature of the business.” — Investor at 2010 Investor Day"

"“Campbell Soup Co. has been one of the worst performing food companies over the past two years. If a quick way out is available, the family members who control the firm should give it serious consideration... [An attempted turnaround] will be a long and drawn-out process with uncertain prospects for success. Campbell's ability to invest for growth will also be constrained by the imperative to reduce its debt overhang... Against that backdrop, an outright sale starts to look more appealing... John Dorrance invented the formula for Campbell's condensed soup over 120 years ago. For his descendants, it may finally be time to move on.” — The Wall Street Journal"

""We've seen ARPU continue to grow historically double digits a year. That was true through Q4 as well. As we look into Q1, there's kind of two competing things overall. We do have some customers on reduced subscription plans. And offsetting that, we've got increased module uptake of things like delivery and e-commerce and so on as well, that's helping to offset that." — CFO Nussey, Q4 2020 Conf Call, May 21, 2020; "Absolutely. And I think also here what we saw is a lot of customers who have removed some of the modules, went back to buying more modules from Lightspeed because of the reopening." — JP Chauvet, President, Q1 2022 Conf Call, Aug 5, 2021"

"‘moving towards eSET as the primary transfer paradigm during IVF will likely not succeed in reducing the elevated risk of preterm delivery seen in IVF singletons’ — Fechner et al., 2015, Goisis et al., 2019; "while single - as opposed to multiple - embryo transfer does indeed reduce multiple pregnancies, these findings suggest that, in order to decrease preterm births, it is advisable to limit rather than broaden the indication for IVF, as the proactive fertility management model proposes." — van de Weil (2022); "Progyny’s contracts also include potential service level agreement refunds related to outcome-based service metrics." — PGNY 2021 10-K"

""I’m desperately in need of a strategy." — Richard Parsons, CEO of Time Warner Inc., April 2002; "First, we took out management layers. Layers hide weaknesses. Layers mask mediocrity..." — Jack Welch, Former Chairman and CEO of The General Electric Company, October 1989; "If you don’t know how to execute, the whole of your effort as a leader will always be less than the sum of its parts." — Larry Bossidy, Former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell International Inc., June 2002; "The restructuring process was intended to 'delayer' the company’s management structure and reduce costs." — Ann Moore, Chairman and CEO of Time Inc., December 2005."

"During fiscal 2022, we spent approximately $56 million to comply with existing environmental laws and regulations and improve plant efficiencies to reduce noise and air emissions and wastewater discharge, to update or remove underground storage tanks, to address contamination issues, and to improve wastewater treatment systems at a number of our facilities, and we spent less than $450,000 in costs associated with obligations related to closed facilities. For fiscal 2023, we estimate that similar types of expenditures will be incurred, representing approximately $64 million and less than $250,000. — Saputo Latest Disclosure"

"Our goal at ______ is really to transform healthcare, as I said, and to reduce administrative cost and to increase clinical efficiency. We believe, we are well positioned with leadership in each of our divisions. Today ______ is the leading provider of integrated claims management services to payers and revenue cycle management services to providers. We are also at ______ the leading provider of practice management and now electronic health record software and services for the provider community. And at ______ we are the leader in providing consumers and providers with healthcare information and education."

"Our goal at WebMD is really to transform healthcare, as I said, and to reduce administrative cost and to increase clinical efficiency. We believe, we are well positioned with leadership in each of our divisions. Today WebMD is the leading provider of integrated claims management services to payers and revenue cycle management services to providers. We are also at WebMD the leading provider of practice management and now electronic health record software and services for the provider community. And at WebMD we are the leader in providing consumers and providers with healthcare information and education."

"Disruption in supplies of coal produced by third parties could impair our ability to fill customers' orders, increase our costs or reduce revenues earned through our Trading and Logistics business. Furthermore, we purchase a substantial portion of this coal from one source. Disruption in our supply of purchased coal could impair our ability to fill our customers' orders or require us to pay higher prices to obtain the required coal from other sources. Any increase in the prices we pay for purchased coal could increase our costs and therefore lower our earning — Pre-IPO S-1 Filing, May 2017"

""UCSF received the Lightning, which was our more R&D-focused, smaller, less automated platform, which had been designed specifically for academic labs. They were one of our earlier adopters, and the plan was to have projects and get publications and data out. The platform didn't really get used a lot. It was used quite a lot in the first couple of months but as soon as we reduced the amount of support that we were giving, they never really became let's say autonomous. We didn't really produce the amount of data that we hoped was going to be enough for publication." — Former BLI scientist"

"“As stakeholders in Solvay we demand that the Board of Directors publicly states that the Company commits to bring its Rosignano plant fully in line with the strictest requirements of the UN Sustainable development goals (SDGs), with reference to SDG 14 (“Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”) and SDG 14 Target 14.1 (“By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, particularly from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution”)” — UN PRI Collaboration Platform Petition"

""It is necessary to have a number of measures supporting smaller ESG rating providers to enable them to continue their activities, or to enter the market after the date of application of this Regulation." — Council Mandate. "Competition among ESG rating providers and an environment in which small ESG rating providers can enter the market are key, as concentration among providers can result in higher prices, barriers to entry, lower competition, reduced innovation, less geographical diversity in providers and poor coverage of smaller issuers." — European Parliament Proposal."

"The intense competition we face in the sales of our products and services and general economic and business conditions could put pressure on us to change our prices. If our competitors offer deep discounts on certain products or services or develop products that the marketplace considers more valuable, we may need to lower prices, introduce pricing models and offerings that are less favorable to us, or offer other favorable terms in order to compete successfully. Any such changes could reduce revenues and margins and adversely affect our operating results. — DV 2022 10-K"

"“This reduction in financial strength would eventually cause rating agencies to lower credit ratings of these life insurers, which in turn would trigger a reduction in confidence of investors, customers and agents of the life insurer. This could ultimately result in reductions in sales, increases in customers terminating their contracts, increase pressure on the liquidity of the company and reduce ability to raise capital; This cascading sequence of events ultimately has the potential to cause the insurer to become insolvent . . .” — Expert Report of Leslie P. Rehbeli"

"Energy Efficiency Solutions. The Company provides customized solutions to help building owners achieve energy goals, secure funding, reduce operating costs, and maintain energy-efficient facilities. By enhancing visibility into facility and asset performance, the Company delivers significant energy savings. The Company’s tailored approach includes sourcing funding through energy rebates and incentives, energy engineer-led facility assessments and benchmarking, energy-efficient equipment upgrades, and optimizing and maintaining building systems. — Limbach 2024 10-K"

""We heard investors and reducing our leverage ratio is a priority for us. Our aim is to bring the business down to below 4x total net debt to adjusted EBITDA as soon as possible." — Mr. Proud, Q1 2024 earnings call; "We are committed to driving our leverage ratio below 4x net debt to adjusted EBITDA, including the converts as quickly as possible." — Mr. Proud, Q2 2024 earnings call; "We understand the importance of reducing our leverage, and we have set a clear target to reduce it below 4x total net debt to adjusted EBITDA." — Mr. Proud, Q3 2024 earnings call"

""Under the turnaround Helly Hansen overhauled its management and cut its product lines by a quarter. Working capital fell to a third from more than a half of its sales as it reduced inventories and cut capital spending." — Financial Times (FT); "We focused on the basics of getting cash in as quickly as we could... Quite frankly the first three to four months weren't particularly pleasant... We've taken the business from being a sales-driven company in the last 10 years to a more consumer-focused one" — Paul Stoneham, CEO Helly Hansen"

"As stakeholders in Solvay we demand that the Board of Directors publicly states that the Company commits to bring its Rosignano plant fully in line with the strictest requirements of the UN Sustainable development goals (SDGs), with reference to SDG 14 (“Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”) and SDG 14 Target 14.1 (“By 2025, prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, particularly from land-based activities, including marine debris and nutrient pollution”)"

"This reduction in financial strength would eventually cause rating agencies to lower credit ratings of these life insurers, which in turn would trigger a reduction in confidence of investors, customers and agents of the life insurer. This could ultimately result in reductions in sales, increases in customers terminating their contracts, increase pressure on the liquidity of the company and reduce ability to raise capital; This cascading sequence of events ultimately has the potential to cause the insurer to become insolvent..."