(Bloomberg) — Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin accumulation firm Strategy Inc. has survived yet another crypto market meltdown with some fresh financial engineering.
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The outlook could hardly have looked more dire. Back on Feb. 5, the cryptocurrency had lost half its value and Strategy’s common shares used to fund most of its token purchases had tumbled by an even greater amount. That was all before the firm disclosed a $12.4 billion loss later that afternoon.
Exactly three months later, Strategy reported a $12.5 billion loss for the first quarter to write down the value of its roughly $67 billion horde. But few investors seem to care. Bitcoin has clawed its way up from its recent lows to $80,000 and the shares have jumped. Saylor is once again the talk of the digital-asset market and beyond; however, the underlying risks remain the same.
The recovery is largely thanks to hybrid securities known as perpetual preferred shares that Strategy began selling last year. The dividend-paying shares have been used to finance the current Bitcoin buying spree by Saylor, the co-founder and executive chairman of the one-time enterprise-software maker formerly known as MicroStrategy. Market observers have credited Strategy — which bought more than $4 billion of Bitcoin in April — as underpinning demand for the coin amid the general market uncertainty caused by the military conflict in the Middle East.
The niche securities have been used by banks, utility companies and real estate firms to meet regulatory capital requirements and were typically sold to institutional investors. Strategy has been marketing what they call Stretch preferred to retail buyers over platforms including Robinhood and Charles Schwab, touting the junk-bond-level yielding securities as an alternative to money market funds.
“They have found an audience,” said Michael Youngworth, head of global convertibles and preferred strategy at Bank of America. “It’s people who trust ‘Bank of MicroStrategy’ here. You have to be comfortable with the risk, but if you are, then I understand the appeal for a retail investor. That’s probably why he can keep selling.”
Prior to last year’s almost 50% collapse in Strategy’s common stock, Saylor had been able to leverage the premium between the share price and Bitcoin to raise capital from equity sales without much dilution during crypto bull markets. As that gap nearly evaporated, skeptics such as the well-known short seller Jim Chanos shorted the shares, saying the strategy was unsustainable.
