Strategy skips BTC purchase again, pays $139M to buyback its own STRC shares

Strategy has now gone three straight weeks since its last Bitcoin purchase, per the company’s 8-K filing. Instead, the bought $139.3 million of its own STRC preferred stock, per the document sent to the SEC on September 14, covering the week before. 

Strategy’s Bitcoin stash remains unchanged at 845,050 BTC since it disclosed a 4,603 Bitcoin purchase for nearly $370 million on August 31. Before that, the firm had gone 10 consecutive weeks without buying any BTC. 

Strategy is buying its own shares, not Bitcoins

The Michael Saylor-led world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder continues to steer cash toward bringing its STRC preferred shares back to par at $100. The September 14 SEC filing covering the period between September 8 and 13, Strategy bought back 1,420,467 STRC shares. 

Google Finance had the STRC stock at $98.64 at the last close, below the $100 target the firm considers as par. Management treats purchases below the $100 mark as accretive, since retiring the shares at a discount cancels future dividend payments the company would otherwise owe. 

STRC ranks senior to MSTR common stock and is pitched as short-duration “digital credit” backed by the company’s cash and Bitcoin, though without any direct claim on the coins themselves.

Notably, the firm did not sell any Bitcoins or anything under its at-the-market equity program either. It is now back-to-back weeks that Strategy has not touched its MSTR common stock.

Bitcoin Treasuries estimates Strategy’s Bitcoin stash, which cost about $63.73 billion to acquire at an average price of about $75,412 per token, at about $66 billion. 

The latest STRC purchase was covered from Strategy’s USD Cash pool, the more flexible of its two dollar reserves. As of September 13: 

• USD Reserve, which is set aside for preferred dividends and debt interest, is at $5.10 billion 
• $1.30 billion in USD Cash

The buybacks are becoming a pattern

As Cryptopolitan reported last week, Strategy spent $176.3 million on 1,810,885 STRC followed with an announcement that the board had approved doubling the ceiling on its Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program to $2 billion. 

After the latest round, the filing says $1.05 billion remains available for preferred buybacks and $1.0 billion for MSTR common stock.

On the company’s credit dashboard, Saylor posted on September 14 that STRC’s “BTC Credit” stood at 57 basis points and its USD duration at 3.9 years, using assumptions of 10% annualized bitcoin return, 40% volatility and a Bitcoin price of $77,266.

MSTR last closed at $130.97, per Google Finance. Strategy still tops Bitcoin Treasuries’ ranking of 197 public companies running some form of bitcoin accumulation, ahead of Twenty One Capital, Metaplanet and MARA Holdings.

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