The New York Times started the speculation that Pandora was in talks with Morgan Stanley to shop the company around. Now, Forbes takes the story to the next level and ponders, in an article written by Bobby Owsinski, who might actually purchase the company. And he says Pandora, which has yet to consistently turn a profit, could fetch up to $2 billion in a sale.
Despite the rumors pushed out by respected publications like Forbes and the New York Times, there was no mention of a possible sale on the latest Pandora earnings call. And the company actually detailed how it planned to grow into a $4 billion revenue-generating company (from $1 billion) over the next several years.
Owsinski writes in Forbes that a sale looks a lot more like fantasy than reality for Pandora. Mostly, he says, because there’s no real match right now for Pandora. “There are only a handful of deep-pocket companies that might take an even cursory glance at a Pandora acquisition, but most are not a good fit. For instance, Google’s name is frequently mentioned as a possible Pandora suitor, mostly because of the synergy with its ad network, since most of Pandora’s revenue comes from ads. That said, there’s really nothing about Pandora that Google doesn’t either already have, or can’t get for less money
Owsinski says Apple is another company that doesn’t really need Pandora. “It already has the same infrastructure for its iTunes Radio, and chances are that most of Pandora’s subscribers are already iTunes users.” He even mentions iHeartMedia but says the company’s debt would make it too hard to swing that purchase. Others he mentions are Samsung and Amazon.
Read the full Forbes article HERE
