Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) shares are falling today, but they climbed more than 4% on Monday after a website suggested that the streaming radio provider could be a buyout target. Deal Reporter said potential suitors could be Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:SIRI). The website did not cite a source for the information, reports Bloomberg.
Pandora Media signs record label deal
Last week, Pandora signed its very first direct deal with record labels. To do that, the company united with Merlin, a music rights agency that assists independent artists with reaching more listeners and getting more royalties. Pandora Media also said it is thinking about expanding its program to other formats beyond music, like news, talk radio and sports.
Deal Reporter did say that Pandora Chief Financial Officer Michael Herring said that the company doesn’t spend any time wondering if it will become a potential takeover target.
Pandora Media insiders sell shares
Regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that Timothy Westergen, founder and a director of Pandora Media, sold 75,000 shares of the streaming radio provider on Thursday. He sold them for an average price of around $25.49 per share, raking in nearly $7.3 billion in the process.
Other insiders have also been selling off Pandora Media shares. Regulatory filings also show that director Robert Kavner sold some shares of the company, while Chief Revenue Officer John Trimble exercised some options and then unloaded some shares of the company earlier this month.
The consensus among analysts is to rate the company as a Buy, with 17 giving the company a Buy rating. Singular Research has a Sell rating and $17 per share price target on the company. JPMorgan Chase analysts have an Overweight rating and $42 per share price target on the company. Goldman Sachs analysts bumped up their price target to $36 per share late last month.
