Sequans Communications - Earnings Call - Q3 2025
November 4, 2025
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Welcome to the third quarter 2025 Sequans Earnings conference call. My name is Jonathan, and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star one one again. As a reminder, today's program is being recorded. I would now like to turn the program over to David Hanover, Investor Relations. David, you may begin.
David Hanover (Head of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you to everyone participating in today's call. Joining me on the call from Sequans Communications are Georges Karam, CEO and Chairman, and Deborah Choate, CFO. Before turning the call over to Georges, I would like to remind our participants of the following important information on behalf of Sequans. First, Sequans issued an earnings press release this morning, and you'll find a copy of the release on the company's website at www.sequans.com under the newsroom section. Second, this conference call contains projections and other forward-looking statements regarding future events or our future financial performance and potential financing sources.
All statements other than present historical facts and conditions contained in this release, including any statements regarding our business strategy, cost optimization, strategic plans, the ability to enter into new strategic agreements, expectations for sales, our ability to convert our pipeline to revenue, and our objectives for future operations, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1999, Section 27A in the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements are only predictions and reflect our current beliefs and expectations with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risk and uncertainties and subject to change at any time. We operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time.
Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not rely on or place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Actual events and results may differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements. More information on factors that could affect our business and financial results are included in our public filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I would like to hand the call over to Georges Karam. Please go ahead, Georges.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Thank you, David. Good morning to everyone. We announced this morning that Sequans has taken a proactive approach to reduce its debt by 50%. Through its strategic asset reallocation of its Bitcoin treasury. We remain fully committed to our Bitcoin treasury strategy, which we continue to believe will deliver meaningful long-term value for our shareholders. This is why we executed our major financing deal in July as the starting foundation of our Bitcoin strategy. As you know, the financing deal included both equity and convertible debt components that introduced approximately 50% leverage into our treasury structure. Initially, we thought the shares would appreciate following the deal announcement, and the debt would convert due to share price appreciation. While there is no urgency for us.
As we are not paying interest on the debt for the first 12 months, we have chosen to act proactively given current digital asset treasury market conditions. With many of our peers currently trading significantly below an MNAV of one, we find ourselves constrained by the lack of available options to meaningfully advance our treasury strategy at this time. Thus, we have opted to move forward and negotiate with our debt holder to reduce our debt exposure and provide us with greater flexibility moving forward. As a result, we announced today that we are reducing by half our convertible debt via a tactical sale of a portion of our Bitcoin holdings. We undertook this action for the following reasons. First, it has lowered our debt-to-NAV ratio closer to the 35% range, a more appropriate level while still maintaining decent leverage on the remaining portion of the convertible debt.
This put us in a better position for issuing preferred shares in the future. Second, we have reduced some of the debt covenant constraints, increasing our ability to use all of the treasury tools at our disposal, including buying back ADS and executing on the ATM based on market conditions. With respect to our ADS buyback program. Factoring in the current valuation, selling Bitcoin on a tactical basis makes sense in this environment to fund the repurchase of our ADS, which are trading at a significant discount to our Bitcoin net value plus our net cash. Note that our current valuation does not reflect the value-creating opportunities we believe are available to us through our IoT business, which I will discuss shortly. Lastly, we have freed up some of the Bitcoin we hold, enabling us to generate some yield with minimum risk. Such yield can be deployed to buy Bitcoin.
To summarize this move, this move was undertaken to unlock shareholder value and put us in a better position to execute on our treasury strategy. We intend to continue to follow a disciplined and opportunistic approach to Bitcoin accumulation. We'll be patient with market conditions, but we remain proactive. Ongoing Bitcoin purchases could be funded by issuance of debt, equity, or preferred, as well as IoT business monetization and operating cash flow. We have the tools or option in place to execute the strategy. An ATM, which provides us with the option that when our share price is much higher than where it is today, we will be able to execute opportunistically on our Bitcoin accumulation strategy in an accurate manner. We have also an ADS buyback program in place, which has been approved by the board.
Given the current share price, we will execute on this as soon as we are able to. We have reduced our debt exposure, which affords us the option to consider other new instruments like preferred shares in the future. Returning to my earlier point about the large valuation discrepancy in our shares, I wanted to stress that our current net equivalent cash position that includes equivalent cash of Bitcoin net asset value minus debt is above $170 million. This is approximately $12 per outstanding ADS. You can see the deep discount our shares are trading on this basis alone. This ignores any IoT business value we are creating and expect to create in the future. It also ignores the leverage we can create with our Bitcoin treasury strategy.
While Bitcoin treasury companies as a whole may be in a transition phase that has affected current equity valuations, we continue to be fully committed to the Bitcoin treasury strategy we have initiated and are exploring all opportunities to unlock shareholder value through our Bitcoin treasury alongside our IoT operations. Our goal remains to create long-term value to our shareholders. As for our IoT business itself, it is moving in the right direction. Our pipeline remains healthy, representing about $550 million in potential three-year product revenue across our 4G and RF product lines. In Q3, we won six new projects, and I am pleased to announce that around $300 million of this pipeline are design win projects, a 20% increase versus our last reported figure.
Some of the design win projects are in mass production phase, currently generating revenue, and others are under development by our customers with revenue potential in 2026 and beyond. Our execution remains focused on increasing the design win pipeline, but more importantly, on helping our customers with projects not yet in production, finishing the development and certification of their products, and turning them to revenue-generating design wins. In Q3, three design win projects transitioned to production. In Q4, we expect to add five more, positioning us to enter 2026 with over 45% of our design win projects in production and generating revenue. This aligns with the target we set at the beginning of 2025 and represents a more than 2X improvement of this key business metric. We anticipate this positive trend to continue into the first half of 2026, supporting our revenue growth in the second half of 2026.
Our design win projects span multiple verticals. Tracking, fleet management, and smart metering remain the strongest verticals for us, with good presence and security in health and medical. Looking at smart metering, we are now shipping product for three projects of Honeywell and two of Itron, and should have two new metering customers ramping early 2026. In fleet management, Geotab is ramping, and we will have another customer ramping in early 2026. We continue to have strong business with Asiatel, a channel partner addressing auto tracking and other vertical applications. Now, I will briefly review the third quarter business and discuss our fourth quarter outlook. Let me start by highlighting that Q3 was the first quarter without any remaining revenue recognition tailwind from the Qualcomm deal closed last year. While this has an optical impact on the licensing and services revenue component, it does not affect cash flow.
Q3 product revenue was impacted by minor delays as some customer projects shifted their ramp-up schedule to Q4. While this has postponed our expected Q3 revenue growth, we remain confident that the ramp will materialize in Q4 as planned. In addition, we faced some late production challenges with our OSAT partner, and revenue fell short of our target due to substrate availability issues. The impact was around $1 million in Q3. Substrate lead times became extended last quarter due to industry demand from AI leaders. We mitigated this by working with suppliers and anticipating orders. However, our execution timing was right on the edge of the quarter end. This ended up delaying some of our shipments by a couple of weeks. However, this issue is now under control for our fourth quarter shipments.
Given our Q4 visibility, our current Q4 view is that product revenue will exceed $6 million, with around $1 million incremental revenue of services and IP licensing. We aim to finish Q4 with revenue above $7 million by adding the two components. On the product development front, we launched our 4G Cat-1 bis Worldwide SKU module and have made very good progress on our 5G IoT. In this regard, I'm pleased to announce that we have just taped out our 5G eRedCap test chip as planned. This is a major milestone in our 5G IoT project. This program will enable us to sample our third generation of IoT chips supporting 5G eRedCap late 2026. This is an extremely advanced technology that we believe has significant value.
In summary, our 4G IoT business will grow and generate positive cash flow in 2026, becoming a profitable business line for us with the potential to grow farther into 2027 by around 50% year-over-year. This business is helping to fund our ongoing investment in 5G R&D, which can start generating product revenue in 2027 and licensing revenue in 2026. We expect the IP created with this 5G investment could result in strategic deals with significant near-term value creation, as we have successfully demonstrated in the past with 4G. More generally, we have launched a new IP initiative and announced a portfolio of IP that we are willing to license. We have done a few licensing deals in the past. Here we are shifting from an opportunistic approach to a proactive go-to-market strategy, maximizing our customer reach and accelerating the monetization of our IP portfolio, all without additional investment.
Currently, we have several opportunities under discussion, and we hope to conclude a few of them in the coming quarters. We believe services and IP licensing should contribute high-margin revenue in 2026. We further expect longer-term product revenue strength based on current design wins and order backlog of 4G chips and modules and radio transceivers. Considering the $300 million product design win pipeline we currently have in hand, and factoring that we will enter 2026 with 45% of the design win projects generating revenue, this could generate $45 million average annual product revenue over the coming three years. This does not include the growing number of projects that are expected to enter into production in 2026, the new projects we are working on to win, or IP licensing and services contribution.
On the operating expense front, our goal is to limit cash burn in 2026 in order to reach break-even in Q4. To support this, we are implementing a 20% cost reduction program across functions, while safeguarding core innovation. This approach provides downside protection and preserves flexibility to scale up if upside revenue opportunities materialize. I will now take a moment to discuss some of the IoT-related strategic alternatives we are currently evaluating. Since launching our Bitcoin treasury, we have been actively reassessing how best to position our IoT business to ensure shareholders benefit from its full value potential. Our board is currently evaluating a range of strategic alternatives we have. While several options are being explored, I can share that we are in serious discussions regarding a few strategic partnership opportunities for our IoT business.
The objective is to accelerate the path to break-even, enhance the business overall value, and strengthen its cash flow generating capability. I will now turn the call over to Deborah to review the third quarter 2025 preliminary financial results in greater detail.
Deborah Choate (CFO)
Thank you, Georges, and good morning, everyone. I'll cover our third quarter financial results and then speak more about our Bitcoin holdings. Total revenues in Q3 2025 were $4.3 million, a decrease of 47.3% compared to the second quarter of 2025, as the last licensed revenues from Qualcomm finished in Q2 2025. Gross margin was 40.9% compared to 64.4% in Q2, again reflecting much lower high-margin license revenue in the mix in Q3. Operating expenses in Q3 2025, excluding the unrealized loss on the mark-to-market of the Bitcoin treasury asset, were $14 million, stable compared with Q2 2025.
Both quarters included a number of non-recurring expenses related to various legal and advisory fees related to our strategic transactions. Operating expenses in Q3 included nearly $800,000 in non-cash stock compensation expense and $1.6 million in amortization and depreciation expense. As Georges mentioned, we are putting in place cost reduction measures to reduce cash operating expenses, meaning excluding stock comp and depreciation expense, to be below $10 million per quarter in 2026. Operating loss was $20.4 million in Q3 compared to an operating loss of $8.7 million in the second quarter of 2025. The operating loss in the third quarter of 2025 included an $8.2 million unrealized loss on impairment of the value of our Bitcoin asset, which was marked to market.
For the third quarter of 2025, our net loss was $6.7 million, or $0.48 per diluted ADS, compared to a net loss of $9.1 million, or a loss of $3.59 per diluted ADS in Q2 2025. Net loss in the third quarter of 2025 included a non-cash $20.6 million gain on the change in value of the embedded derivatives related to the convertible debt issued in July, and included net interest expense of $6.9 million that was also primarily non-cash and related to the IFRS accounting for the convertible debt issued in July. Our non-IFRS loss in Q3 2025 was $11 million, compared to a non-IFRS net loss of $8.1 million in Q2 2025. Cash and cash equivalents at September 30, 2025, totaled $13.4 million, compared to $41.6 million at June 30th, 2025.
The September 30 balance does not include the $10 million final payment from the 2024 Qualcomm transaction that was released from escrow in October 2025, giving us a pro forma ending cash of $23.4 million. At September 30th, 2025, the company held 3,234 Bitcoin with a market value of $365.6 million, all of which was pledged as security for the $189 million of convertible debt issued in July. Following the recently announced amendment of the debt agreement, 1,617 Bitcoin are being released from the pledge, and the company has sold 970 Bitcoin in order to reimburse half of the debt. The remaining 647 unpledged Bitcoin remain in our treasury but are available for the previously announced ADS repurchase program if needed. I'd also like to refer you to our Bitcoin dashboard on our website at sequans.com/Bitcoin-Treasury, where investors can find our Bitcoin-related statistics in one location.
We now have many tools in place to pursue our Bitcoin treasury strategy and strategic options for our IoT business. We will use these to maximize shareholder value based on our own specific circumstances. I will turn the call back to Georges before we begin Q&A.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Thank you, Deborah. To conclude this call before the Q&A, I would like to stress the two points on the Bitcoin. We continue to be committed to the Bitcoin treasury strategy we've launched. Given the current digital asset treasury market condition, we decided to adjust our treasury structure and redeem half of the debt in order to be in a better shape to execute on our Bitcoin treasury strategy. With this move, we have now a more appropriate debt-to-NAV ratio while still maintaining decent leverage.
Also, we put ourselves in a stronger position to execute on the ADS buyback program, as well as other financial instruments. On the IoT business, our design win pipeline is growing well, and we remain on track to have, by the end of this year, more than 45% of the customer projects moving to mass production and generating revenue. In parallel, we are taking all action needed to control our OpEx and limit cash burn with the target to reach break-even in Q4 2026. Finally, we are seriously considering a few strategic alternatives to ensure shareholders benefit from the full value potential of our IoT business. With that, let's now begin the Q&A session. Operator.
Operator (participant)
Certainly. As a reminder, if you do have a question at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. Our next question comes from our first question comes from the line of Scott Searle from ROTH . Your question, please.
Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. Hey. Deborah, maybe just to dive in quickly. In the third quarter, were there any licensing or service revenues a part of the $4.3 million? Trying to understand if there was a sequential uptick in the product revenues. Also, I just want to clarify the timing on the OpEx going below $10 million. Georges, from a high level, kind of looking at where the net asset value of the company is relative to the current stock price, how aggressive will you be on the buyback? If you've got another 600 Bitcoin available to pursue that strategy, given the stock is trading at $7 versus net asset value around $12, it would seem like it's a pretty good arbitration move to do that. How quickly and how aggressively do you plan to tackle that?
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah. I mean, Scott, hi, first of all. Just to take your last point, as aggressive as needed and as the rationale makes sense, right? I mean, our Bitcoin value, the Bitcoin got acquired with a share at $14. Technically, if the share is at $7, you will be making a 50% gain by selling a Bitcoin that you purchased at $14, and you recover the price you paid for it at $7, right? I mean, which is your share. We have all in place. Board resolution is there.
We were not able to execute on it in this period because, as you know, we were on the window. I mean, we were restricted, and we could not act on this. Anyway, I do not know, Deborah, in one or two days, we'll be free and we'll be moving on this. Obviously, consider depending where the stock is, but it makes full sense for shareholders today to buy back the shares of the company if it's trading low. For the people staying with the company, we'll get the value of the NAV we have there. We are completely committed to be aggressive on this if needed.
Deborah Choate (CFO)
Scott, on the revenue side, we are about two-thirds product, one-third licensing and services in Q3. In terms of the OpEx reduction, this is being put in place now. We expect it will be mostly realized in Q1, and we're looking at fully in place by Q2, but with an overall for the year being below $10 million a quarter. That includes the new costs of managing the Bitcoin treasury.
Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Very helpful. Then, George, maybe to follow up in terms of the pipeline building for the IoT business, it's a lot of momentum in one quarter where you're going about 20% in terms of your design wins. I guess you'll kind of enter 2026 at almost double-digit revenues, right? Somewhere in that $10 million-$11 million, I guess, is the run rate off of that 45% that go into production. I think in the past, you talked about what you might be exiting 2026. Is there a figure that you're thinking about right now? Because it sounds like that gets you to break even, particularly given the OpEx reductions that you have ongoing, so we should see that by the fourth quarter of 2026.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
I mean, Scott, the business, the IoT business, as you know, is many, many projects, and each project is not huge. That makes, if you want, like at the beginning when you're ramping, it's a little bit slow and frustrating to some extent. Once the products are in shipment, our customers shipping, it's there for seven years on average. If you take meters, sometimes even more than this, and give us very good visibility for the future. I'm very happy as we are exiting this year close to our range of 50%.
This will continue because, as you know, the design win project, I don't qualify them like 100% secured, but we could have the risk on what we have a win in hand is very, very minimal, more than 90%. Based on the history of the project continue, I mean, except really some small projects or small companies that you could have over executional projects, some surprises. We are dealing with Tier 1 players. They are there when you decide to launch a project, they are in. It may take them longer than what we thought to be ready for production, but they get it there. I believe 2026 will continue ramping, and we should be because the pipeline will continue. I could not say what we have in hand today, maybe close to 90%+ will be in production. Obviously, in the meantime, we'll be adding new projects.
When we exit, the pipeline should be more than 300 exit 2026, and obviously, the percentage will be less than 90%. But this is what will be funding the growth we'll have in 2027, which I predict to be at minimum 40%-50% year-over-year, thanks to this.
Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Gotcha.
Deborah Choate (CFO)
And Scott, you said.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Okay.
Deborah Choate (CFO)
That's one point on Q1. We did tend to have a little bit of seasonality in the.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
I mean, in any case, it's the average your number, you're right. I mean, just to talk about the digital, I'm giving you the $45 million three years average, right? I mean, all this is ramping. You imagine the shape because a new project starting today is not going to yield that full revenue in the first quarter. It takes like two quarters or three quarters to go to the full revenue. There is a ramp-up phase, obviously, with every project.
Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Adding up. And a couple of follow-ups, if I could then. Congrats on getting the tape out on the RedCap front. I know that's a big milestone for the company. I think you've talked about licensing opportunities for RedCap. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that in terms of what might be in the pipeline, kind of frame it in terms of size and opportunities. And Iris has been ramping up as well, I think, in terms of the potential opportunities. I'm wondering where that fits into the overall design win pipeline that you've talked about, the magnitude of those opportunities, particularly ramping into 2026.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah. I mean, obviously, in IP licensing, we have some piece of this which is established even in our revenue next year. We have already in the backlog revenue of royalty that we are collecting from a couple of customers to whom we did licensing with them. And we'll have, in other words, all design win with licensing. And now we're collecting royalty in 2026. We collect even with one a little bit this year as well. Since we launched this IP strategy, we realized at least we had more than a dozen of leads talking with us. It doesn't mean that they need the full eRedCap or RedCap solution from us. As you know, we have a very advanced radio transceiver technology. We have layer two, layer three protocol that no one has it. And obviously, we have a lot of IP in the modem. As well, we have the full solution.
You could have customers where they're looking for a full solution of modem, mainly to adapt to move from a cellular to something else, if you want, like to satellite or defense application, other radio environment. Some other, they want just only a piece of the technology that we have. We're talking about a licensing deal that could be, I would say, $3 million-$5 million license. I'm not talking about royalty, like upfront. Up to these, they could be equal to $15 million-$20 million. All those under discussion. We have really nice numbers in discussion. For sure, next year, we'll have something converging and helping to feed our IP licensing revenue next year.
Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Gotcha. Lastly, if I could, Georges, just to follow up on the strategic comments, could you frame that a little bit more? Are you talking about more partnerships? Are you talking about potential outright sale of the IoT business at the current time? Thanks.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah. I mean, Scott, I don't want to comment much on this. Obviously, the question takes the problem like this. The company has a serious IoT business, which is extremely valuable, in my opinion. It has as well a nice Bitcoin holding, which is extremely valuable as well. From there, we're moving as a company to hopefully succeed on both fronts, building more Bitcoin and building the treasury and buying more, accumulating more Bitcoin. On the other side, scale the revenue and the IP potential of the IoT. For the time being, they are not conflicting to each other. They are manageable. If you project down the road, you could say maybe for shareholders, you can give more value by separating the two, by doing something different, I would say that.
Obviously, this takes the factor as well discussing with other partners on the business front to do some strategic partnership and maybe more together. I cannot say more, Scott. Allow me, but we have serious discussion there. Hopefully, when things will be close to sign or signed, we'll be able to announce it to market.
Scott Searle (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Thanks so much.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Grondahl from Northland. Your question, please.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equities)
Hey, thank you, Georges and Deborah. Georges, talk a little bit about your confidence in $7 million of revenue in Q4 and this $45 million kind of annual run rate you're striving to.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah. Hi, Mike. Obviously, for Q4, you never say I'm 100% sure, right? We're giving a number that we believe is in the backlog, if you want, and secure. Out of, I would say, extraordinary accident, we are very confident about it. If we talk about the annual revenue, I want just again to stress the math I did, is I took 45% of the $300 million, which will be in production, divided by three, give you 45% over three years. This is the average. Obviously, this doesn't mean necessarily that it's flat first year, flat second year, flat third year. It's the reverse.
It will start lower, and it will go up over three years because you have the ramp of those products. Obviously, I'm quite comfortable with the number. Even if the projection here, you're talking about a longer program, you need to know that in our design win today, when I look, for example, to product shipping, I spoke, for example, about Honeywell. I can name even a smaller guy like. We think, like Coyote, like customers like this, that.
They are smaller but very steady because they ship since more than one year. So we have history about their ramp. We know how much they do, and we have extreme confidence in their future projection, forecast, and so on. Obviously, we take our. I would say, optimization there. We maybe cut 10% for the risk things, but we are very confident. When you have a new project coming in, like even a tier-one customer saying, "Okay, now my product is shipping, and I plan to ship per year, let's say, to do 500,000 units," obviously, you are going to compute the ramp. First year, maybe 200,000, the second, 350,000, and then we ramp up to 500,000. There is still some risk not factored in, which is related to the fact if this customer, we have, if you want, experience about. His previous shipment, previous forecast, and so on. So.
In other words, in this number, already more than half of those 45% are already in production. I am extremely confident about them. The other half are ramping now, like Q3 and Q4. There will be a little bit of risk, but. Measurable risk. That's why we are presenting this mic.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equities)
Got it. In the cost reduction efforts, have you started those, or do those start later this year?
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
We started many things. And again, cost reduction, we have a lot of stuff. Even I can tell you, for example, our offices, we shave. We had the chance to renegotiate pieces of the OpEx, third party, and so on. And obviously, some reduction here and there when it's needed. We started a little bit, and some of it, not everything is implemented, but some is defined.
As I'm speaking, I know what we are going to do, if you want, in Q4 and Q1. And all this is set without impacting, if you want, our innovation and investment into the 5G R&D. A lot of this as well, like our 4G, if you want, product line is becoming fully. I would say, mature because we were still working on some development during the year. We finished it. So we have even some reduction of effort there. And more general, I would say, on the GNA and so on, controlling this money.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equities)
Got it. Got it. And then have you disclosed what price you got per Bitcoin for the 970 you sold?
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
We didn't. It will be on our. It will be showing up on our website, but I can give it to you. It will be. $108,600. $108,600. Unfortunately, we didn't have the best period to sell. Started selling at $115,000 and ended by selling at $106,000.
Mike Grondahl (Head of Equities)
Got it. Okay. Hey, thank you and good luck.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Thank you, Mike.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Fedor Shabalin from B. Riley Securities. Your question, please.
Fedor Shabalin (Senior Research Associate)
Thank you very much, operator, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. Georges and Deborah, I completely understand the rationale behind the Bitcoin sale. You mentioned that this transaction enables our company to pursue a wider set of strategic initiatives to develop and grow the treasury. Could you provide more details on what additional initiatives you're considering beyond the ATM program and share buybacks? Any color on your strategic priorities here would be helpful. Thank you.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Thank you. Hi, Fedor. Thanks for the question. I mean, essentially, and again, I want to stress one point. The company, one of the issues, if you want, our destruction of the debt, it was not the risk. Even some people, I don't know if people were because the collateral was fixed. We didn't have to readjust the price of the Bitcoin. It was just only the collateral is all the Bitcoin that we have, and they are sitting there. We cannot do anything with them. If you cannot do anything with your Bitcoin, obviously, the original plan was the debt will convert, at least over the first six months and so. Then by definition, some of those Bitcoin will be free, and from there, we can use them.
We took this initiative really not under the pressure because we have interest rate to pay or because we are afraid about having the Bitcoin at $100 and have to face any issue. The company will not face any issue even if we stay on this Bitcoin longer. However, the company was stuck. In other words, I could not do anything. I cannot buy Bitcoin. I cannot generate yield on the Bitcoin. I cannot be aggressive on buyback because you can do a buyback, but at the end of the day, I have cash, but this cash needs as well to serve the operational business and the GNA, even to manage the treasury. From this situation, we felt like even if it's not, I would say, maybe we are the first treasury doing this, and we took the decision to act, to be proactive.
Maybe some people, they don't like it because no one sells Bitcoin in principle in the treasury. I mean, this is our aim as well. We felt it makes absolute sense now to change the ratio of debt. This open, obviously, preferred other structure of debt, which is today, I mean, it's not an urgent topic for the company. Now they are possible because if your debt is around 30%, it's easy to have 10% preferred next to it. If you reduce the debt further, you can do more. This is one option. If we have free Bitcoin, those can be generating yield depending on the risk you want to take there. If you want to take very low risk, you can generate like 4% yield, and this will be nice cash that you can use to buy Bitcoin or to fund the GNA of serving the treasury.
Obviously, the buyback that gives us, that boosts the program because we do not need to sacrifice anything on the operation. If really the share stays low, the rationale means sell Bitcoin and buy shares and support the shareholders staying with us. That is the whole logic around it. This is really all the topic that we have. I know that there are other topics, if maybe you are raising for this, which is like consolidating and something with other treasury. I know that one happened in the market today, and everybody saw this. I do not believe there is urgency on this. For me, honestly, there is not a clear idea currently what is the issue of the treasury strategy in general, why all this is trading below unnav, which is not logical at the level where it is. This is not for us, for all our peers.
We are trying to unlock it from where we are by putting ourselves in a position where we are much stronger. From there, we will see how things will develop in the coming six months or so.
Fedor Shabalin (Senior Research Associate)
Thank you, Georges. This is helpful. You already partially answered my follow-up question on debt-to-NAV ratio. I just want to understand what will be different in the treasury approach going forward. I heard you plan to issue preferred, but if you can just throw some timeline on this, it would be helpful. Thank you.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah. I mean, Fedor, obviously, the first priority now is really the buyback program. This is what I have on my table, if you want, to execute on this and see how things will develop there. Obviously, the second one will be the preferred and the yield on the Bitcoin. These are the three options. No timeline.Honestly, the option is there, but I do not want to give more timeline when we will do something like this because it depends on negotiation and so on.
Fedor Shabalin (Senior Research Associate)
Thank you very much. This is helpful. Georges and team, continue and best of luck.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Thank you.
Deborah Choate (CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. This does conclude the question-and-answer session of today's program. I would like to hand the program back to Georges Karam for any further remarks.
Georges Karam (CEO and Chairman)
Thank you, Jonathan, for helping us with this. Thank you, everybody, for staying on the call and for all your questions. Looking forward to see you in the next opportunity. Thank you very much.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.