Callouts & quotes from 59+ activist slides

"Yeah, a suspension is always going to be better. And I didn't appreciate it was going to be so expensive. [...] I think even if, say, they were on the same oral suspension and you were worried about peak levels or whatever, you still wouldn't really need to give it two to three times daily, I don't think, because it's a different. — Trial investigator, pediatric endocrinologist; I don't really know why a drug that's targeted at children would ever be a tablet because it's a nightmare. [...] I don't know why they've picked a tablet over a suspension. And I guess they say it's because you need to give the suspension two to three times daily. But again, I think they're referring to what we do in hyperinsulinism, which is a very different condition. And we're giving that medicine because we want the sugars to be kept within a certain range, whereas in Prader-Willi Syndrome, managing the hyperphagia, it doesn't need to be done in that similar way. — Trial investigator, pediatric endocrinologist; ...it does last. I know it's got a long half-life, although we routinely prescribe it 2-3 times a day, I know as a child is older — the babies need more but as a child is older, once a day and even when they come off it, it takes a week or even two weeks before you see the kind of effects of diazoxide wearing off. I know it's got a long half-life. Could we just use diazoxide instead of this very expensive Vykat? That's probably true. My management will ask, "Well, fine. You have no other drug? Okay. We can use it. — Trial investigator, key opinion leader for PWS"

""When I was at Ginkgo, Jason's biggest fear was always Zymergen. And so, he would try to corner the market by buying all the equipment so Zymergen couldn't buy any." — Former Ginkgo executive; "Ginkgo was quickly in defensive mode [after Zymergen's stock collapsed] because they didn't want people to make that comparison, and so they announced all these deals to try to be able to show that they're different. Maybe Ginkgo will be successful at some point, but when the rubber meets the road, you look at what products are out there. Who has been successful using your technology that has led to a meaningful product? And the answer is there isn't any." — Former Ginkgo executive; "I think that in certain ways, they're very similar. They competed on a number of very large-dollar number projects...I would say where Ginkgo and Zymergen diverged was a few years ago, Zymergen started to specialize in a few application areas: materials, ag, pharma, a few other one-offs. Whereas Ginkgo said, we're not going to specialize. We want to be able to engineer everything. And so, the types of projects that the company took on varied from cannabis projects to materials to biodefense." — Former Ginkgo employee, longtime direct report to CEO Jason Kelly"

""not going to be helpful at all to the families who don't have the ability to control the environment." — Trial investigator #5; "probably put on 50 pounds during the 13-week C-601 [pivotal phase 3] trial and then rolled over [to open label] and continued to put on weight...the family withdrew her in order to hospitalize her" — Trial investigator #5; "she got hairy...so I was pretty sure she on real drug..."; "there certainly was potential for unblinding...no question." — Trial investigator #5; "I'll probably be quite cautious in the population that's already got blood glucose intolerance." — Trial investigator #5; "in order to get in the study, you had to be able to demonstrate that you could swallow a pill" — "some folks couldn't swallow that big a pill, so we had to use the 75 mg for them instead...so yeah, the 150 mg is a big pill." — Trial investigator #5; "no, I don't think you're missing anything...just out of the goodness of my heat, maybe I'll end up prescribing plain old diazoxide...I guess we'll see in a little while, because there'll be plenty of people who will be doing it"; "everybody can take that, whereas not everybody can swallow a pill." — Trial investigator #5"

"The problem with these trials and all trials of patients with rare conditions, and I suppose the Prader-Willi patient is the same when I've tried to recruit patients for other trials for Prader-Willi Syndrome, the ones who I think may benefit because they have got issues with weight gain and so on, are often the ones who are reluctant to participate in clinical trials. Whereas the ones who are already motivated are often keen to participate in trials. So, you have a kind of inherent selection bias. You've got patients who are motivated, who want to participate in trials, and because they're motivated, they're also motivated in managing their underlying condition. And as we've already mentioned, it's not just about a drug here for Prader-Willi Syndrome. There's lots of lifestyle, food security, etc., so your trial population is already biased to a certain degree. So, you've not got the maybe the most severe patients. I suppose that's where going back to my patient cohort, the 10 to 15 or so patients I have that may benefit from it probably weren't suitable for the trial. — Trial investigator, endocrinologist, key opinion leader for PWS"

"“One of the big benefits of Twist is the lower entry point if you’ve got a custom panel. You can get a custom panel from Twist for around $2,000. With the likes of Agilent, the minimum is something like $10,000 to $20,000... IDT, their minimum level of synthesis is like 1,000 times higher, and you will pay $10 per oligo, whereas, with Twist, you’re getting millions of oligos for $1,000. Each oligo costs way less.” — Major Twist customer, one of largest genomics centers in Europe; “Customization is sort of an inherent aspect of the DNA synthesis industry... To your question about why are they so unprofitable? DNA synthesis is extremely low margins, and the reason is there are so many competitors out there.” — Former Twist manager in a manufacturing role; “It’s like going to the supermarket and buying a pack of 1,000 eggs. Twist will sell you six eggs; Agilent will sell you 1000 eggs.” — Major Twist customer, one of largest genomics centers in Europe"

"“The other thing I've never seen for that molecule is, well, is speciation. The reason we could move very, very fast is that we had the human cloned receptor. So, we could screen our compounds against the human receptor, whereas all the work done prior to that—and Abbott was quick to do this as well because they had actually cloned a receptor that mistakenly characterized it as a cholinergic receptor, not a histamine receptor [...] But when Jean-Charles Schwartz did this, it was old-school pharmacology with, I guess, it was rodent tissue strips or something. Or it was in some sort of tissue. So, they used rats. So, all their compounds that they found initially were good for rats. And then they kept advancing the compound, but, of course, they hadn't got access to the human clone, so they didn't know how good it was against the human receptor.” — Longtime senior scientist at Johnson & Johnson, with global leadership roles in neuroscience"

""The comparison to companies is good. And obviously, we are a commodity company. And in the commodity space, I mean, we like it to be dependent on aluminum. We love aluminum. But unfortunately, aluminum is not gold. But fortunately, aluminum also isn't plastic, right? So we are at a good spot here. But if you want to compare our performance, we believe you've really got it compared against the peers. And the peers that you see here are really our competitors. Those are the aluminum and alumina companies that exist around the world. So when you look at that, you actually do see that Alcoa has gained 9.6% on the total shareholder returns. Whereas our peers, the real peers have lost 7.5%. That I think is an important way to look at it, and I think it's the only way to look at it in a fair, fair fashion." — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, May 6, 2011"

"If you listen to the kinds of comments that I had, then I’m pretty sure many employees who I think are reasonable people would agree with my comments. In other words, I would imagine that they have some concerns. I can speak about myself. One of the main concerns is that the CEO of the company doesn’t understand quantum, and he is driving the company in some strange direction, and he says strange things, and he overpromises. Simultaneously with that, the technical leaders who are Jungsang Kim and Chris Monroe, they have their professor tenures at Duke University that is located in Durham, North Carolina, whereas IonQ is located in Maryland. So, it’s an hour’s flight away. The intellectual leadership is not even in the same location as the company. — Former employee, senior member of technical staff"

"“four of us that trained at CHOP and diazoxide.” — Pediatric endocrinologist at a Delaware academic center with eight endocrinologists and ~50 PWS patients; “It wasn't me; it was one of my colleagues. I think she was waiting to hear back on what happened. A couple of my patients are young, and they don't have hyperphagia. I've been following them since they were two months old for growth hormone. Whereas her patients are a little bit older...she just spoke up and shared because we know how this goes, sometimes, when newer things come out, everybody's excited about it. But then if there's a lot of hurdles for insurance and things like that, then people become less enthusiastic.” — Pediatric endocrinologist at a Delaware academic center with eight endocrinologists and ~50 PWS patients"

"‘One of the CCTs…recalled that the ‘Zio AT has only a single lead, meaning you only get a very narrow view of the heart,’ whereas many fellow iRhythm CCTs with previous experience ‘found that… a regular Holter monitor [has] six leads and gives a much better read of cardiac activity.’ One of these former CCTs ‘found missed arrythmias that were not reported to cardiologists in 100% of final reports they analyzed, which they blamed on the technical limitations of the Zio AT and iRhythm’s processes for classifying arrhythmias.’… Thus, the ‘initial reports could be inaccurate and require massaging before being submitted to cardiologists.’ This CCT stated, ‘I found the reports to be inaccurate and alarming as a technician.’” — Glazing v iRhythm Second Amended Complaint"

"“No, that's their income. So then you're looking at now our retail sales, because the single biggest opportunity for those supervisors is their 50% off list discount. That's the biggest component of their income. They get a small piece on their royalties, because they really haven't started building a sales organization yet to get rewards down below. Whereas someone up in the very top, they're $2+ million, they're probably working on very little retail margin, because they're not really retailers.” — Rich Goudis, CFO; “They're recruiters.” — Michael Johnson, CEO, Chairman; “They're building their sales organization, so more of their compensation or income is based on the commission structuring in their multiple level marketing.” — Rich Goudis, CFO"

""Maybe in five or maybe 10 years, there won't be much money to be made on remittance per se... I think that space is highly competitive" — Expert: Competitor Responsible For All Digital Partnerships. "It's going to be very, very difficult because some of these players are selling under cost just to get numbers." — Expert: Competitor Responsible For All Digital Partnerships. "You think Remitly is only the disruptor. I think, in my book, Remitly is a good company, but they only do one thing, and that's remittances, whereas some of these other players have a competitive advantage which takes ages to create." — Expert: Competitor Responsible For All Digital Partnerships."

""Cryptocurrency and blockchain is here to stay. The market need for it is going to grow, and over time it will become quite large. It is very clear that new currencies will come to market, and it's very clear that the GPU is just fantastic at cryptography." — Jensen Huang. "It's an incredible job by Pete and his team to create this, the world's most advanced computer designed specifically for autonomous operation. And as a rough sort of [indiscernible] whereas the current NVIDIA's hardware can do 200 frames a second, this is able to do over 2,000 frames a second and with full redundancy and fail-over." — Elon Musk."

"“I don’t really know why a drug that’s targeted at children would ever be a tablet because it’s a nightmare...I don’t know they’ve picked a tablet over a suspension...they say it’s because you need to give the suspension two to three times...they’re referring to what we do in hyperinsulinism which is a very different condition...because we want the sugars to be kept within a certain range, whereas in Prader-Willi Syndrome, managing the hyperphagia, it doesn’t need to be done in that similar way...so I don’t know why they picked that tablet.” — Trial investigator, pediatric endocrinologist"

""So you've just seen the acquisition of PCC that's underway by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway. And he paid for a business that is having $10 billion of revenue, whereas $6 billion of those $10 billion are having a full overlap with us." — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, October 8, 2015; "So, I mean, the most natural competitor when you go to aerospace is PCC right? And the aerospace business, I mean, pretty much we are catering in all of these businesses that PCC also caters to, right?" — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, September 8, 2015"

"Although dd-cfDNA is an interesting and promising marker of solid transplant organ health, much work still needs to be done before clinical implementation...In conclusion, whereas observational studies published so far point to dd-cfDNA as a promising marker in the transplantation field, randomized control studies are mandatory comparing a dd-cfDNA-based monitoring strategy with the standard post-transplantation monitoring in terms of graft and patient survival. — American Journal of Transplantation"

""Progyny's biggest con is that it only focuses on infertility. It is unclear how it will fare with companies that want an integrated family benefit." — Benefits Consultant, Willis Towers Watson, Spruce Point Interview, 11/21/22; "...Progyny has really honed in on IVF...whereas the other guys are more diversified and it's more of a family planning kind of service and not just like a fertility benefit." — Benefits Lead at Technology Company, Tegus, 11/17/22"

"“Rather than say that it's the volume, it's always better to move forward with a better product mix in terms of the profitability.” — Nagamori (Q1 2012 call). “I believe that the capacity question was in regard to spindle motors and in terms of excess capacity there, whereas there are three factories in Thailand currently, the idea is to reduce by one factory.” — Nagamori (Q2 2012 call)."

"Spruce Point believes that the ongoing proliferation of third-party 3D printing labs in the clear aligner space will only incentivize further R&D directed at clear aligner development: whereas Align was, until recently, the only major player in the clear aligner space, materials producers now face a broad and rapidly-growing number of potential customers for clear aligner plastics."

"It's just been very frustrating watching them not just take... like look at Wise and look at Remitly. They both started at the same place. 50% of Wise customers use more than one product and the velocity with which they put out new features, and they're just evolving very rapidly. Whereas Remitly keeps incrementally changing the things that are working."

""So you've just seen the acquisition of PCC that's underway by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. And he paid for a business that is having $10 billion of revenue, whereas $6 billion of those $10 billion are having a full overlap with us, $37 billion. So you get a feel for the value that's possible there." — Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, October 8, 2015"

"In addition to paying out a higher percentage of Retail Sales than Avon, Herbalife's commission structure varies from Avon's in two critical ways: (i) Herbalife's royalties are "flat," whereas Avon's are "descending;" and (ii) Herbalife has a Production Bonus ("infinity bonus"), Avon only pays Recruiting Rewards three levels deep"

""...[for] the others, like MultiPlan, it’s just a business. They neglected the member side of it, and the member sensitivity, whereas Naviguard is very engaged with the member about the explanation of benefits. It’s not just they get the bill and there’s some black box." — Senior Executive at a Top-Five National Health Plan"

"What’s worth noting is that IIPR’s purchase was actually in the form of a quitclaim deed which typically only transfers the grantor’s interest in a piece of real estate, whereas 3G Management’s purchase was in the form of a warranty deed which guarantees the transfer of legal title and rights to the real estate."

"ADT attrition represents RMR attrition, whereas satellite and wireless attrition represents subscriber attrition. Cable companies have not publicly disclosed attrition and gross adds for a number of years, but are commonly thought to have ~1.7-2.0% levels of monthly subscriber attrition (or ~20-24% annually)."

"Spruce Point has evaluated some of the language used by management about its relative market share. Whereas in the past management talked about growing relative market share, the tone shifted in 2023 to things it was worried about and then to referencing “enhanced” relative market share vs. outright growth."

"There is more clear evidence of inaccurate restructuring accounts. We observe that Avery can no longer accurately account for restructuring charges among its segments. Whereas total restructuring charges, net of reversals, used to match segment restructuring charges in prior years, now they do not."

"Axon has magically boosted its TAM by increasing both user and price assumptions. The pricing assumption for its AI TAM cannot even be justified by its current pricing. Bundle assumptions show it gets $50/month, whereas Axon leads investors to believe that it should be valued at $100/month."

"I would have to go through at least five layers [at Bristol-Myers], whereas I would have to go through three layers at a different company to do the same thing. This would result in the same process taking 4-6 months at Bristol versus 1-2 months at [peers]. — Former Bristol-Myers Executive"

"Saputo has exhibited the largest increase in Days Inventory Outstanding (DIO) among its global set of dairy industry peers. Whereas its DIOs were below average, now they are above industry average. In fact, over the past 4 years, Saputo's DIO have increased by nearly 20 days."

"Notice how ABML issued a press release that announced a $4.5m DOE grant, whereas days later American Lithium issued the same press release but clarified their role along with another partner. We believe this illustrates how ABML tries to glorify its position in the industry."

"COVID-19 has accelerated the movement from physical to virtual store locations and ecommerce. Whereas LSPD started primarily with POS solutions for brick and mortar retail and hospitality, it has had to acquire its way into providing ecommerce solutions (SEOShop and Ecwid)."

"LSPD has a focus on SMBs but its DSOs at 15 are significantly lower than comparable sized peers at 70+ and actually improved during peak COVID-19 whereas peer DSOs worsened. How is this possible? On the next slide, we show that allowance for bad debts was even increasing."

"We calculate that 35-50% of Adjusted Operating Income (EBIT) has gone to IRBT’s executive management in the past two years, whereas it was only 15% in 2011. We view this as a warning sign of executive compensation becoming disconnected from operating performance."

"HGV is trading at a material discount to its closest peer, Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corp. (NYSE: VAC) ("VAC"), based on 2022 EBITDA, whereas HGV historically traded at a comparable multiple to VAC. — HGV's Response to 4.20.21 Land & Buildings statement"

"The financial strain from Generac's warranty accounts can also be seen from recent social media advertising on Facebook where Generac is offering a free 10 year extended warranty, whereas a year ago it was only 7 months.."

"Whereas the nameplate capacity of the facility exceeds the generator's grid connection, to account for degradation in panel efficiency over time (for modern panel 0.3-0.5% per year), "overplanting" should be neutral."

"Warning: Oatly's 2018 U.S. sales can't be reconciled and vary by 100%. Both Nielsen and a Swedish magazine reported $6m of sales in 2018, whereas Oatly just disclosed $12m of sales in its new investor presentation."

"Despite a significantly better customer experience, streaming video services like Netflix are priced at ~$15 per month or less whereas traditional Pay TV packages cost greater than $80 per month in the U.S."

"Whereas Stryker management has long preached about cost optimization, according to a former employee it is really a sales driven organization, and problems of too much inventory were present pre COVID-19."

"Since its IPO, it's evident that LSPD's business has become more competitive by analyzing hardware margins. Whereas before, it could make money on the POS systems, now they are sustaining losses."

"AMR’s portrayal of its “Non-GAAP Cost of Coal Sales” is highly liberal when compared with peers. We see observe it is making five beneficial adjustments, whereas most peers make two or three."

"BIO gives clear guidance that it only capitalizes costs up to implementation, whereas Mettler has not, and continues to aggressively capitalize costs into software within PP&E."

"Disney appears to have paid 26.5x 2018A EBITDA for Fox’s traditional media assets (excl. Hulu) whereas comparable media transactions were completed at 11.9x LTM EBITDA(1)"

"Whereas on the surface, WSP's 2023 operating cash flow growth was 21%, but adjusted for the interest expense misclassification, it was less spectacular at 7.4%."

"One prominent EP with whom we spoke likened 3D contact maps to a high-definition picture whereas the Acutus map was like “watching a video clip in 4K or 8K.”"

"The investigator indicated the generic liquid formulation is naturally more sensical – "everybody can take that, whereas not everybody can swallow a pill.""

"In addition, Herbalife's products are typically sold at a 50% discount to SRP, whereas many of its competitors sell their products at a 30–40% discount"

"This scenario of strong Peiyou offline growth results in 36.8% small-class ASP growth, whereas TAL disclosed that small-class ASPs declined by 9.9%."

"The bulls talk multiple expansion, whereas the bears talk hard data points showing that Avery has had no organic EBIT growth absent cost cutting."

"Between 2017-2019, AVY portrays Free Cash Flow as having grown by approximately $91m, whereas Spruce Point believes it has declined by $118m."

"Whereas Pioneer gets valued at $20 billion for its undrilled acreage, CONSOL's stock implies negative value for its undrilled acreage."

"Mergers are combinations of equals or near-equals. Whereas Acquisitions are more like the acquirers absorbing the targets."

"Interest in Dropbox, as measured by Google Trends, is declining whereas interest in its peers is stable and growing."

"Peabody correctly separates discontinued operations from continuing operations for investors whereas AMR does not."

"Discount stores primarily appeal to women bargain hunters whereas BOOT's core customer has skewed to 65% men."

"Peers have been successful at developing and commercializing GLP-1s whereas Pfizer has not."

"Peers have been successful at developing and commercializing GLP-1s whereas Pfizer has not."

"Dropbox is not a default option, whereas OneDrive or Google Drive are...."