MoviePass's parent company, Helios and Matheson, revealed Tuesday that it has increased its share count by 9,423% in just the last two weeks.

The massive dilution comes just weeks after the company executed a 250-1 reverse stock split to soak up excess shares and boost its stock price.

Helios and Matheson has a history of issuing gobs of shares to raise cash to fund its money-losing MoviePass service.



Shareholders of the parent company of MoviePass just found out their stakes are worth about 1% of what they previously thought — at least in terms of the portion of the company they thought they owned.

In its quarterly report it filed on Tuesday, Helios and Matheson revealed that between July 31 and August 13, it increased its share count by an incredible 9,423%. Its total outstanding shares went from 6.7 million to 636.9 million over that period.

The company now has more shares in circulation than it did before it reverse split its stock by a ratio of 250-1 last month.

Between June 30 and August 9, MoviePass' parent company issued and sold 232.4 million shares on the public markets, raising $50.2 million. It also swapped convertible notes it issued in November and January for another 266 million shares of stock over that time period, raising some $31.4 million in the process. The company didn't reconcile those figures to the total share count or the increase just since the end of last month.

Ever since Helios and Matheson acquired a majority stake in MoviePass and instituted its $10-a-month unlimited movie ticket subscription service, it's been losing gobs of money. It blew through $219 million in cash in the first half of the year.

Helios has a history of massive dilution

To replenish its coffers, its repeatedly issued new shares. From August of last year to July this year, for example, its share count swelled by 3,429%.

All those new shares weighed heavily on its stock. With its shares trading at less than a $1 a share, Helios and Matheson received a warning in June from the Nasdaq that its stock didn't meet the market's standards and was in danger of being delisted.

To prop up its stock, the company did its reverse split last month, temporarily boosting its stock to more than $20 a share. But within days, the company had resumed its diluting ways.

Near the end of July, the company had to take out an emergency loan from a creditor to stay in business. It repaid the loan days later. It did so, apparently, by issuing new shares; from the time right before to right after the crisis, its share count increased by nearly 300%.

Helios and Matheson's share price fell almost in tandem with the dilution. Within a week of the reverse split, it was again trading below $1 a share. It closed regular trading Tuesday at 5 cents a share.

With the news of the latest round of extreme dilution, it looks set to fall even farther. In after-hours trading Tuesday, Helios and Matheson's shares were down about 2 cents, or 30%, to 3.6 cents a share.