Strategy spent $188.3 million buying back its own STRC preferred stock in the week ended Nov. 8, more than twice the $81.9 million it put into bitcoin, the company disclosed in a Form 8-K on Monday.
Both came out of sales of its Class A common stock. Through its at-the-market (ATM) program, which lets it issue shares straight into the market, Strategy sold 2,051,348 MSTR shares for $283.8 million after commissions. About two-thirds of that money, or 66%, went to repurchasing STRC, the variable-rate perpetual preferred stock the company calls Stretch. The last $13.6 million was added to USD Cash, the pool management keeps for general purposes.
A week earlier, none of the MSTR proceeds went to STRC, which Strategy bought back with $208.2 million of USD Cash. Strategy’s Nov. 2 filing showed $65.5 million of them going to bitcoin and $98.5 million to USD Cash.
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Stretch nears $100
The buybacks came with STRC trading just under $100, the price Strategy designed it to hold. The preferred touched exactly $100.00 intraday on Nov. 4, its first time at that level since mid-May, but closed at $99.98 and ended every session of the filing week below $100, according to Yahoo Finance daily data. Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said in a September presentation that Strategy aims to keep STRC between $99 and $100, selling new shares when the price rises above $100 and buying them back when it falls below.
Strategy sold no STRC during the week, leaving its $17.51 billion of STRC ATM capacity untouched. It paid an average of about $99.76 for each of the 1,887,464 STRC shares it repurchased, by Unchained’s calculation. Strategy hasn’t sold STRC since mid-May, its weekly 8-Ks show; the stock then slid well below $100, falling as low as $71.25 in June.
1,036 more bitcoin
The bitcoin share of the money bought 1,036 BTC at an average of $79,012 per coin after fees, above the $75,456 average across everything Strategy holds. The company’s stack now stands at 850,364 BTC, acquired for a combined $64.16 billion.
Buyback room shrinks
The STRC repurchases leave $560.3 million under Strategy’s preferred buyback program, down from $748.6 million a week earlier; the board raised the program’s cap to $3 billion in October. Across its last two weekly filings, Strategy has spent $396.5 million on STRC repurchases and $147.4 million on bitcoin, by Unchained’s count.
The company sold none of its four preferred stocks, Strife (STRF), Stretch (STRC), Strike (STRK) and Stride (STRD), during the week.
Dividend payments drew $21.1 million from the USD Reserve, Strategy’s fund for covering preferred payouts and debt interest, leaving it at $4.77 billion. USD Cash ended the week at $146.2 million. Strategy left its $1.0 billion MSTR buyback authorization untouched.
Related Listen: Why Matt Cole Believes Last Week’s STRC Crash Was a Leverage Liquidation
