Michael Saylor’s Strategy paused its bitcoin accumulation last week, instead spending nearly $205 million repurchasing its preferred shares as the company continues to reshape its capital structure.
Key Takeaways
- Strategy paused bitcoin purchases last week, keeping its holdings unchanged at 848,517 BTC.
- The company repurchased 2.07 million STRC shares for $204.9 million, bringing its two-week buyback total to approximately $398 million.
- Strategy retains $956.8 million in preferred stock buyback authorization, alongside $4.83 billion in USD reserves and $242.4 million in available cash.
Strategy Stockpiles More STRC
Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), the world’s largest publicly traded corporate holder of bitcoin, disclosed Monday that it repurchased 2,068,459 shares of its variable-rate Stretch preferred stock (STRC) for approximately $204.9 million between Oct. 19 and Oct. 25.
The company did not purchase or sell any bitcoin during the period, nor did it issue shares through its at-the-market (ATM) offering program, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The move marks a temporary departure from Strategy’s longstanding practice of raising capital to expand its bitcoin treasury, with the company instead directing its available cash toward repurchasing its own securities.
Strategy’s bitcoin holdings remained unchanged at 848,517 BTC, acquired for approximately $64.02 billion at an average price of $75,446 per coin, including fees and expenses. Those holdings were recently valued above $67 billion at a recent bitcoin price near $79,600.
The latest STRC repurchases follow a similar move the previous week, when Strategy bought back 1,938,780 STRC shares for $193.1 million while also purchasing 267 BTC for $22.1 million, as previously reported by Bitcoin.com News.
That earlier bitcoin acquisition, completed between Oct. 12 and Oct. 18, was financed primarily through the sale of 140,872 MSTR common shares, which generated approximately $22 million in proceeds.
Strategy also announced last Monday that it had expanded its digital credit securities repurchase authorization from $2 billion to $3 billion, signaling a growing emphasis on managing its preferred stock obligations alongside its bitcoin accumulation strategy.
STRC Returns Close to $100
Across the two reporting periods, Strategy has now repurchased approximately 4.01 million STRC shares for a combined $398 million, compared with just $22.1 million spent acquiring bitcoin.
STRC hasn’t traded at or above its $100 par price since May, falling below $75 in June as the price of both bitcoin and MSTR shares declined. However, it has traded much closer to that par level in recent weeks, coming as close as $99.90 earlier this month and finishing the trading day last Friday at $99.36.
According to Monday’s filing, approximately $956.8 million remains available under the company’s preferred stock repurchase program, while another $1 billion remains authorized for repurchases of its MSTR common stock.
Strategy funded last week’s STRC buybacks using $204.9 million of what it calls “USD Cash”—funds available for bitcoin acquisitions, capital management, and other corporate purposes. As of Oct. 25, the company reported $242.4 million in USD Cash, down from $447.3 million the previous week. Its separate U.S. dollar reserve remained unchanged at $4.83 billion.
That reserve is intended to support dividend payments on Strategy’s preferred shares and interest payments on outstanding debt, providing a financial cushion as the company balances its bitcoin-focused business model with its obligations to investors.