Music streamer Pandora reportedly hires Morgan Stanley to seek buyers

Speaking on a conference call to discus Pandora’s reults, Chief Executive Brian McAndrews said the company is “confidently making moves to invest” in new areas, and Chief Financial Officer Will Herring said that largely due to music-royalty matters, Pandora’s content costs would increase this year by about $160 million over the $610 million it spent in 2015.

The publication opined that now is a “curious” time for Pandora to sell itself as its stock imply a market capitalization of just $1.8 billion, down from the almost $7 billion the company was valued at two years ago.

McAndrews answered with the expected non-denial, saying that the company wasn’t commenting on what he called rumor and speculation. Users are down as well, and the company adjusted its full-year earnings down in the third quarter, estimating earnings of $51 to $56 million, compared to the $75 to $85 million it had predicted in the previous quarter.

Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) had its price objective trimmed by Goldman Sachs from $25.00 to $16.00 in a research note published on Monday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Talks are said to be in a preliminary stage and may not lead to a sale, the Times’ unidentified sources said. Before the report, which caused roughly 9 percent spike, Pandora shares had lost about 67 percent of their value over the last 12 months.

Like Twitter, Pandora’s biggest problem is growth. Pandora’s advertising revenue climbed 22% year over year, to $269 million, while subscription and “other” revenue combined to increase 19%, to $57 million. Spotify has recently raised $500 million and Apple and Google both have massive financial warchests to build up their online-music efforts.

Pandora was introduced in 2005 and uses its own “music genome” technology to analyze its customers’ musical tastes and feed them a radiolike stream tailored to what they like. “It could be some investor somewhere to create a floor beneath a battered stock – which Pandora certainly has been lately”, says Jeff Reeves, analyst and executive editor at InvestorPlace.com. TicketFly generated $10 million in revenue during the last quarter of 2015. Pandora Media has a 52 week low of $7.37 and a 52 week high of $22.60.