Strategy Buys $22M in Bitcoin, Repurchases $193M in STRC

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holder, bought $22.1 million of the crypto last week while spending nearly nine times as much repurchasing its STRC preferred stock.

Strategy bought 267 Bitcoin at an average price of $82,900 between Oct. 12 and Oct. 16, bringing its holdings to 848,517 BTC, worth $64.02 billion at purchase cost, according to a Monday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Strategy also bought back 1.94 million shares of its Stretch (STRC) preferred stock for $193.1 million. The latest purchase follows Strategy’s acquisition of 250 Bitcoin for $21.5 million during the week ending Oct. 9, when it also spent $192.4 million repurchasing STRC shares.

The company said its board increased the authorization for its digital credit securities repurchase program to $3 billion from $2 billion, leaving $1.16 billion available as of Sunday.

The company funded its BTC purchases primarily through $22 million in proceeds from selling 140,872 shares of its common stock, MSTR. It used existing cash to fund the STRC repurchases. Strategy reported a $4.83 billion US dollar reserve dedicated to preferred stock dividends and debt interest payments, alongside $447.3 million in separate cash holdings.

Ahead of Monday’s Nasdaq open, MSTR shares were trading more than 2.5% higher in premarket activity. The shares closed Friday down about 9.6%, at $138.83 apiece.

Related: Strategy conditionally declares daily dividends as STRC hovers below $100