Bitcoin, stock split boost Tampa company's shares

LM Funding appears to have had a successful reverse-split of its stock.

On Wednesday, the company was back in Nasdaq compliance and trading at $2.93 at close. On Thursday morning, the stock almost hit $3 in intraday trading.

One big question LM Funding America had when it offered a 1-for-6 reverse stock split of outstanding common stock was, would it work? Would it bring LM Funding back into market compliance after combining shares March 12?

LM Funding's stock had slipped below $1 on Nasdaq. The Tampa-based firm — which mines for bitcoin against a slew of competition —had been automatically afforded a 180-calendar day grace period, until April 8, to regain compliance with rules on share price. Specifically, that its shares had to be $1 or more each.

So LM Funding approved a reverse split. 

But the stock price and market cap, even at $3 and a $7.02 million, respectively, remain an issue for LMFA, even if they won't quite say so in a statement to the Business Observer.

"We can't provide investment advice or say specifically if we're under or overvalued, but would direct you to our recent press release in which we said 'the value of our Bitcoin ... at the end of February was over $10.4 million dollars based on an estimated March 8 BTC price of $68,000, or approximately $4.28 per share," the company says in an email.

LM Funding, originally a company that focused on funding troubled homeowner associations, also owns millions in stock of a medical-device company and about 6,000 valuable bitcoin-mining machines, which can sell for thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the type. The Tampa-based cryptocurrency company mines for bitcoin using those machines based in Kentucky and Texas, where they are powered, cooled and tended to.

LM Funding retains its legacy business too.

Its balance sheet contained, among other things, 95.1 bitcoins on Dec. 31, when bitcoin was trading at about $42,000 per coin. LM Funding confirmed in its email that it now had 153.1 bitcoins at the end of February.

Those assets alone are worth more than $10.2 million as of Thursday, with bitcoin trading price of about $67,000.