It is possible that they may be used for a partnership deal of some sort.
I would urge everyone to not get too far ahead of things with speculation. Just because they want to have the preferred shares available does not necessarily mean that there is any kind of deal in the works right now. I would love for that to be the case, and it is absolutely a possibility, but it's not even close to definite at this point.
They tried to get a yes vote on preferred shares a couple years ago. Based on that it might indicate that they just want to have the shares "in their back pocket" when the opportunity arises to partner.
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