Strategy chairman Michael Saylor says his company isn’t interested in acquiring other Bitcoin treasury companies, as doing so is fraught with uncertainty, although he didn’t entirely rule it out.
“Generally, we don’t have any plans to pursue M&A [merger and acquisition] activity, even if it would look to be potentially accretive,” Saylor told investors on Thursday during Strategy’s third-quarter earnings call.
“There’s just a lot of uncertainty, and these things tend to stretch out six to nine months or a year,” he added. “An idea that looks good when you start might not still be a good idea six months later.”
Analysts have suggested that Bitcoin (BTC) treasury companies may need to start buying each other as the number of players in the sector increases and companies compete to differentiate themselves from their rivals.
Strive is the first Bitcoin treasury company to conduct a merger, announcing in late September that it would acquire its rival, Semler Scientific, in an all-stock deal, resulting in the combined firm holding 11,006 BTC.
It would give Strive the 12th-largest Bitcoin holdings among public companies, behind Tesla. Strategy, by comparison, has 640,808 BTC, the largest holdings of any company.
Never say never: Saylor
Saylor didn’t totally rule out an acquisition, however, giving Strategy some wiggle room to change its mind on the topic.
“I don’t think we would ever say ‘we would never, never, never, ever,’ but what we would say is the plan, the strategy, the focus is to sell digital credit, improve the balance sheet, buy Bitcoin and communicate that to the credit and the equity investors,” Saylor said.
Strategy CEO Phong Le added that mergers and acquisitions for software companies, Strategy’s main business, are “very difficult.”
“There’s always something hiding behind what you actually think you purchase,” he said. “I would say the same thing about acquiring Bitcoin treasury companies.”
Strategy’s Bitcoin focus is easier to analyze
Saylor said that Strategy’s multiple Bitcoin purchases over the years have allowed the public to “instantly calculate whether it’s accretive or dilutive,” claiming they were “generally all accretive.”
“Our focus is to do high-speed transparent digital transactions and sell digital credit and buy Bitcoin,” he said. “We think that it’s a big advantage of the company that the business model is so transparent, predictable, and clear because the business model is predictable.”
That model, Saylor argued, makes it easy for equity and credit analysts to make decisions about and assess the quality of the company.
S&P Global Ratings on Monday gave Strategy a “B-” credit rating, placing it in the same speculative, non-investment-grade category as junk bonds, but said the company’s outlook was stable.
Le said Strategy didn’t get any credit for its Bitcoin holdings in the rating, which was deducted from the company’s equity.
He said for the company’s rating to improve, it would be “appropriate at some point in time that Bitcoin be treated differently, and as a capital asset.”