I agree generally, Crescent. It’s a very creative method of both raising money at a higher price and also screwing the shorts.
GameStop tried something similar but it didn’t work because the prime brokers and the DTTC essentially thwarted the effect. The problem is there is no way to identify and track the shorts who owe the share dividend. But this one with SAVA happened during a marked uptrend. So I think it may end differently.
I won’t comment on the ethics of it, which is questionable at best, although I see it as being technically legal. Whomever thought this up deserves a bonus. And this will become a model strategy in the future to a certain extent, imo. I see a good chance of a squeeze coming there at some point. It’ll be interesting to see how the shorts (read: mm’s and hedgies) try to deal with this and what happens.
Disclaimer: small position, strictly for a trade. I don’t particularly like SAVA. I know you disagree.