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Strategy made no bitcoin purchases last week and instead spent $204.9 million buying back shares of one of its preferred stocks, according to a securities filing released Monday. The update leaves its bitcoin holdings unchanged at approximately 848,517 coins.
The company said it neither bought nor sold bitcoin during October 19-25 and did not sell shares through its at-the-market offering program in that period. Its accumulated bitcoin cost $64.02 billion, including fees and expenses, at an average of approximately $75,446 per coin.
Cash goes toward preferred shares
Strategy repurchased 2,068,459 shares of STRC, its variable-rate Series A perpetual preferred stock, for $204.9 million. It reported no repurchases of its other listed preferred stocks or its Class A common stock during the week.
Preferred stock is a different investment from owning bitcoin or ordinary company shares. It carries its own dividend terms and risks. In this case, the company used cash to retire part of an outstanding security rather than add more bitcoin to its treasury. The filing does not announce a permanent end to bitcoin buying.
Following the repurchases, Strategy said $956.8 million remained available under its preferred-stock repurchase program. Another $1 billion remained available for repurchases of its common stock. These are authorizations for potential purchases, not amounts the company says it has already spent.
Two separate cash balances
Strategy reported a $4.83 billion U.S. dollar reserve as of October 25. It describes that reserve as intended to support preferred-stock dividends and interest on outstanding debt.
Separately, the company held $242.4 million of what it calls USD Cash, which management may deploy for bitcoin purchases, additions to the reserve and other capital-management purposes. The $204.9 million used for the STRC repurchases came from that separate cash balance.
For investors, the distinction matters: cash set aside to support payments on securities is not the same as cash management may choose to put into additional bitcoin. Nor is the company’s historical average bitcoin purchase price a current market quote or a guarantee of what its holdings could be sold for.
The weekly filing records a change in where Strategy deployed cash. It does not by itself establish why bitcoin’s market price moved, and the company made no bitcoin-price forecast in the update.
JBizNews Desk | Tysons Corner, Va.
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