Strategy bought 250 BTC last week for about $21.5 million. In the same week, it spent $192.4 million buying back shares of its own preferred stock, nearly nine times as much.
The purchases, made between 5 and 11 October at an average of $86,194 per coin including fees, take Strategy’s holdings to a record 848,250 BTC. It has paid about $64 billion for them in total, an average of $75,444 per coin.
Where the money went
The larger spend went on STRC, Strategy’s variable-rate “Stretch” preferred stock. The company repurchased 1,932,145 shares, at an average of just under $100 each. It still has $354.8 million left under the buyback programme, and it sold no preferred stock during the week.
The Bitcoin was paid for mainly by selling about 125,000 shares of its common stock, MSTR, through its at-the-market programme, which raised about $21 million.
Two weeks, same pattern
This was not a one-off. The week before, Strategy bought $29 million of Bitcoin and spent $176 million buying back STRC.
The company also has room to sell Bitcoin if it chooses. Under its capital framework, it has said it could sell up to $1.25 billion of BTC, and chief executive Phong Le defended selling Bitcoin as the “right trade” in September.
Plenty of cash
Strategy held $5.5 billion in US dollar assets at 11 October. Of that, $4.88 billion sits in a reserve for preferred dividends and debt interest, and $640.5 million is cash available for broader uses, including buying Bitcoin.
It has also proposed that dividends on its preferred stock should accrue every day of the year.
