Strategy’s deployable cash falls 45% as buybacks outpace Bitcoin purchases

Strategy‘s deployable USD Cash fell 45.3% during the week ended Nov. 1, from $242 million to $133 million, as preferred-stock buybacks exceeded its Bitcoin purchases.

That balance is available for broader treasury uses. Strategy also held a separate $4.79 billion USD Reserve intended for preferred-stock dividends and debt interest.

The company bought 811 Bitcoin between Oct. 26 and Nov. 1 while setting another record for STRC preferred-stock buybacks.

The company spent approximately $66 million acquiring the cryptocurrency at an average price of $80,846 between Oct. 26 and Nov. 1, according to its Nov. 2 regulatory filing.

The purchase increased Strategy's holdings to 849,327 BTC, acquired for an aggregate $64 billion at an average price of $75,451 per coin.

The acquisition marked a return to larger Bitcoin purchases after Michael Saylor's firm suspended buying for a week while concentrating its spending on preferred-stock repurchases.

Strategy had acquired just 334 BTC, 250 BTC and 267 BTC in the first three reporting weeks of October, respectively. Its latest purchase was the largest since Sept. 28, when the company disclosed acquiring 1,665 BTC for approximately $143 million.

Strategy sold approximately 1,178,552 shares of its MSTR common stock through its at-the-market offering program, generating $164 million in net proceeds.

However, only $66 million, or about 40%, went toward purchasing Bitcoin. The remaining $99 million was allocated to the company's deployable USD Cash balance, which has come under pressure from its increasingly aggressive preferred-stock repurchase program.

The company did not issue any new preferred shares during the reporting period, leaving common-stock sales as its only source of fresh equity capital.

Record STRC buybacks drain Strategy's cash

While Strategy resumed accumulating Bitcoin, its spending on STRC continued to accelerate.

The company repurchased approximately 2,092,035 STRC shares for $208 million, surpassing the previous weekly record of $205 million established in late October.

The latest transaction means Strategy spent more than three times as much repurchasing preferred shares as it did acquiring Bitcoin.

It also paid an average of approximately $99.52 per STRC share, bringing the transaction price within 0.5% of the security's $100 stated value. That compares with an average purchase price of approximately $99.06 the previous week.

STRC is a variable-rate perpetual preferred security carrying a 12% annualized dividend rate. Strategy has been purchasing the shares to support their trading price near $100 while reducing the amount of preferred capital outstanding.

Strategy entered the reporting period with approximately $242 million in USD Cash. Despite allocating another $99 million from common-stock sales to that balance, it finished the week with just $133 million after spending $208 million on STRC repurchases.

That represents a $110 million, or 45.3%, weekly decline in deployable cash.

The separate USD Reserve declined from approximately $4.83 billion to $4.79 billion after the company used $43 million to pay preferred-stock dividends during the reporting week. The reserve remains substantially larger than its flexible cash balance but serves a different purpose under the company's capital management framework.

Strategy has spent more than $2 billion on preferred-stock repurchases since it launched the program in July.

The company has about $749 million in remaining authorization under its expanded $3 billion digital credit securities repurchase program, along with an unused $1 billion authorization to repurchase MSTR common shares.