Strategy lifts STRC buyback cap to $3 billion after $193 million week

Strategy raised the ceiling on its preferred stock buyback program to $3 billion from $2 billion after spending $193.1 million repurchasing STRC shares in the week to Oct. 18. The company, the largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder, also bought 267 bitcoin for $22.1 million during the same period, according to Cointelegraph, which cited the company's Monday SEC filing.

The bitcoin purchase averaged $82,900 per coin, fees included. Strategy now holds 848,517 BTC, acquired for a combined $64.02 billion at an average of $75,446 per coin, Unchained reported. The company bought 250 BTC for $21.5 million the week before at an average of $86,194.

The board approved a $1 billion increase to what Strategy calls its digital credit securities repurchase program. The new $3 billion limit counts every repurchase already made under the program, leaving $1.16 billion available as of Oct. 18, according to Unchained. A week earlier, the old $2 billion limit had $354.8 million left. The board had already doubled the preferred authorization to $2 billion from $1 billion before this week's increase. A separate program for MSTR common stock still has $1 billion available, and Strategy repurchased no MSTR shares during the week.

STRC, formally the Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, pays a variable dividend and has a $100 stated value. Strategy has said it intends to repurchase the shares when they trade below that level to help support the price, Cointelegraph reported. The company bought back 1,938,780 STRC shares in the latest week. The prior week's repurchases totaled $192.4 million.

The bitcoin purchase was funded mostly with common stock sales. Strategy raised $22.0 million by selling 140,872 MSTR shares through its at-the-market program and used about $0.1 million of cash, Decrypt reported. It sold no preferred stock during the week, months after it stopped selling new STRC shares through the at-the-market program.

The STRC buyback came from the company's USD Cash account, which fell to $447.3 million from $640.5 million a week earlier. Strategy also drew $45.5 million from its separate USD Reserve to pay preferred dividends. That reserve, meant to cover preferred dividends and debt interest, stood at $4.83 billion, down from $4.88 billion, Unchained reported.

Executive Chairman Michael Saylor put the company's total dollar holdings at $5.3 billion in a post on X. The filing gives a narrower figure for the two accounts it tracks separately: $4.83 billion in the USD Reserve and $447.3 million in USD Cash.

The buybacks have outpaced bitcoin purchases throughout the fourth quarter. Strategy has spent $459.2 million repurchasing STRC shares since the quarter began, compared with $72.3 million spent on 851 bitcoin over the same period, Cointelegraph reported. The company spent $192.4 million on STRC buybacks in the prior week and $176 million the week before that, while buying $29 million and $21.5 million of bitcoin, respectively. In the last week of September, it repurchased $151.7 million of STRC as holdings reached 847,666 BTC, Decrypt reported.

Saylor said Saturday that he expects the bitcoin market to improve. "We're moving back into a bull market," he said during a discussion at ParaFi Investor Day, pointing to bitcoin trading back above its 200-day simple moving average. He listed restrictive trade, foreign and monetary policies as headwinds and pointed to bank adoption and tokenization of traditional financial assets as potential drivers, Cointelegraph reported.

The company's common stockholders are scheduled to vote Oct. 28 on whether STRC and three other preferred issues should pay dividends daily, Unchained reported.

Strategy's shares closed Friday at $138.83, down about 9.6%. STRC gained about 0.8% in premarket trading Monday to $98.45 after falling 1.8% on Friday, Cointelegraph reported.

The filing does not specify a timetable for further repurchases. It leaves $1.16 billion available under the preferred stock program as of Oct. 18.