Strategy buys back $176M of STRC, doubles credit repurchase cap to $2B, leaves Bitcoin untouched

Michael Saylor’s world-leading corporate treasury company, Strategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) disclosed in its latest SEC filing that it spent $176.3 million repurchasing its STRC preferred shares.

During the same week, it also doubled the size of its digital credit repurchase program to $2 billion, while it did not remove or add any Bitcoin to its $63.73 billion, 845,050 BTC stack. Strategy did not sell any new stocks either.

The stay on Strategy’s Bitcoin follows the firm’s first Bitcoin purchase in two months, which came in late August after a 10-week no-purchase streak.

What does it mean when Strategy does not buy Bitcoin?

After relentlessly buying Bitcoin through different market scenarios, analysts now watch Strategy’s treasury management moves across Bitcoin, common stock, preferred shares and cash stack for signals.

The 8-K filing for the period that ran between August 31 and September 7 disclosed that the firm did not buy or sell any Bitcoin. It did not sell shares under its at-the-market program either.

As of this report, Strategy’s BTC stash stood unchanged from the last Cryptopolitan report of roughly 845,050 BTC, which the firm paid about $63.73 billion to build, at an average per coin price of $75,412.

At Bitcoin’s current price, the BTC stockpile is worth around $66.1 billion, representing roughly $2.4 billion in paper gains.

What did Strategy buy?

Strategy did not buy Bitcoin, but it repurchased 1,810,885 shares of its own variable-rate Stretch preferred stock (STRC), for $176.3 million. It now has about $1.19 billion available as of September 7.

The funds for the buyback came out of the firm’s USD Cash account.

Balances on the firm’s other reserves came in as:

• $5.10 billion in USD Reserve, earmarked for preferred dividends and debt interest.
• $1.44 billion in USD Cash, the more flexible pool for buybacks, dividends or fresh coin purchases.

The board also doubled the authorized total for the Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program to $2 billion from $1 billion.

STRC has traded under its $100 par value for much of the summer. STRC changed hands at $97.75 on September 8, per Google Finance, still short of par but well above its 52-week low of $71.25.

How is Strategy doing now?

CEO Phong Le has defended selling Bitcoin on four occasions over the summer, unloading roughly $544 million worth to meet its obligations.

Le said last week that selling about 7,000 BTC at $60,000 to $65,000 was “the right trade at the time” to fund preferred dividends, and that the company had cut net debt from roughly $7 billion to zero while building about $7 billion in cash.

Strategy then bought 4,603 BTC for about $369.7 million between August 24 and 30 at an average of $80,318 per coin, Cryptopolitan previously reported, its first purchase in two months.

MSTR closed Friday at $142.80, up 6.6% for the week and trading down 7.6% year-to-date after a recovery, though still off 56.7% over the past year. The stock slipped about 2.8% in pre-market trading on September 8 to $138.79, per Google Finance.

On its credit dashboard, Strategy said STRC’s BTC Credit had tightened by one basis point to 53 bps, assuming 10% BTC annualized return, 40% volatility and a Bitcoin price of $79,809.

By Bitcoin Treasuries’ count, 197 public companies now run some form of Bitcoin acquisition model, with Twenty One Capital, Metaplanet, MARA Holdings and Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company rounding out the top five behind Strategy.