In Michael Saylor’s world, economics appear to be upside down.
He’s turned MicroStrategy, originally a relatively unknown software business into corporate America’s largest bitcoin (BTC) bull, amassing a gigantic stockpile of the cryptocurrency.
On Wednesday, his company announced it would issue and then sell $21 billion of its own stock — a move that, for most any other publicly traded company — would prove disastrous for current shareholders. That’s because MicroStrategy’s market capitalization was about $50 billion when the plan was announced, meaning the ownership stake represented by that existing equity will be diluted by roughly one-third. A 33% plunge or so in its stock price wouldn’t be much of a surprise.
But MicroStrategy — and the fervent fanbase around it — isn’t like most stocks. Its shares rose about 1% on Thursday after more than tripling so far this year, driving its market cap above Coinbase (COIN), which had been the largest crypto stock and slumped after the crypto exchange’s disappointing third-quarter results. MicroStrategy, whose value tracks bitcoin’s price given the significant size of the company’s holdings, even climbed as BTC’s price fell.
MicroStrategy’s rally “is a testament to investor confidence in the firm’s accretive dilution strategy for bitcoin — wherein MicroStrategy leverages capital markets to buy bitcoin, diluting shares by issuing more, but accreting shareholder value via its bitcoin purchases,” said Joe Consorti, head of growth at Theya.
The stock sale is what’s known as an at-the-market equity offering — a type of deal that lets companies sell shares directly at prevailing prices, often providing a more flexible and less onerous way to raise capital compared with a conventional secondary offering.
It’s, in fact, the largest such offering ever — by a factor of four, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The fact that MicroStrategy shareholders are accepting such dilution at prices prevailing before the plan was announced — rather than demanding a steep discount — suggests the strength of their belief in Saylor’s corporate strategy.
“MicroStrategy shareholders are a unique cohort. Typically, when shareholders get diluted, this is a bad thing,” said James Van Straten, senior analyst at CoinDesk. “However, as a MicroStrategy shareholder, I celebrate being diluted as I know MicroStrategy are going out and buying bitcoin, which increases the bitcoin per share as a company which is accretive for shareholder value.”
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