Scalper1 News
Music streaming service Pandora Media ( P ) saw its stock soar after the company appointed a new member to its board and fresh buyout rumors bubbled up. Pandora stock jumped 11% in the stock market today , to 10.93. Pandora stock had slumped to a three-year low of 7.10 in mid-February over concerns about competition from Apple ( AAPL ) Music and other Internet music services, as well as the company’s slowing user growth and engagement. In the near term, Pandora will see higher content acquisition expenses, say analysts, following a ruling in December from the Copyright Royalty Board — the panel that determines the rate to be paid to music labels and artists each time one of their songs is played on the Internet, under a statutory license for the period stretching from Jan. 1, 2016, to Dec. 31, 2020. On Wednesday, Pandora said it was expanding the size of its board from nine seats to 10, with the addition of Anthony Vinciquerra, Since 2011, Vinciquerra has been a senior advisor to Texas Pacific Group, in its Technology, Media and Telecom group. According to Dealreporter, Pandora is attracting buyout interest from such companies as Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Alphabet ( GOOGL )-unit Google and Yahoo ( YHOO ). The New York Times reported in February that Pandora was “working with Morgan Stanley to meet potential buyers,” and has held talks about putting itself up for sale. Besides Apple Music and Spotify, Pandora rivals include Amazon.com’s Prime Music and Google Play Music. Apple and Alphabet shares both fell a fraction Thursday, but Amazon stock rose 2.3%. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News