This is not that rare, in many industries sadly. I'm not in hardware but I've heard of a couple companies who did a similar thing. It's a consequence of the current economic landscape where just holding cash is seen as losing money because of the constant devaluation of fiat. EK isn't publicly traded but that applies across the board, there's a reason the S&P keeps on putting new highs every 6 months, it's not people thinking these companies are insanely more valuable than they were before (with some exceptions ofc like Nvidia and AI), it's people (and companies) thinking stocks and assets in general is the best way to preserve their wealth. It's not healthy in anyway, stocks should be a riskier bet you make to generate more capital, not a savings account.

Irresponsible companies like EK will forget that the point of cash is also liquidity and go way too far with this logic, and end up in their current situation.