The sell-off follows an abysmal financial disclosure on Thursday by Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews, one that includes losses of $85.9 million in the past three months alone. It also follows an extremely questionable $450 million acquisition of Ticketfly, not to mention a $90 million royalty hit for pre-1972 oldies recordings.
The oldies decision left a $57.9 million crater in the recent quarter, though cash and investment reserves certainly remain substantive at roughly $440 million. Still, analysts are pointing to faster-than-expected burn-down and investors are battering shares accordingly. Then, there’s Apple, which just announced the presence of 6.5 million paying subscribers on Apple Music after just three months and could be dragging Pandora’s total listener levels.
More as the meltdown proceeds…
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Just curious. What was the average selling price for Westergren’s stock? And does he in fact own zero stock in Pandora currently?
I don’t know what the big deal is. Iheartmedia has been losing money like this for years and they show few signs of slowing down. Just pretend everything is great. Believe it and the money will come.
Well, this is what happens when you run a service for 10 years and never really change much besides adding a subscription option. Due to the fact that they don’t license complete catalogs,but rather just “hit” songs.. They probably can’t create an API like Spotify has.
Now don’t get me wrong.. I know that Apple Music has been a success in the eyes of the market, but I feel this will eventually hit a ceiling because most of the Apple Music users switched, because of the integration into OSX and iOS.
Spotify I believe will continue to be the true winner. They have a social network, they have full catalog licenses,and they have a great b2b play with the their developer API. They very well could become the Soundcloud of commercial big4 label content.
John Drefahl has a simple but powerful point for the 1% of us that can actually afford to invest in the stock market: Know what companies like Apple, Spotify, and Pandora do, how good they are at it, and if customers like them. In other words, do the homework before investing.
Thank you captain obvious. Are you part of the 1%? If so get off a music biz blog. Your not welcomed here
Actually, no, Shlomo, I’m not in the 1%, but if I were you don’t want me to read a music biz blog like DMN and find out how Apple, Spotify, and Pandora are doing? Why is that? You welcome only less well-to-do people? Is it better for you if the 1% sticks with the New York Times?
As to obviousness, many people of modest means do invest in stocks, and they often do it with very little information, or let other people decide for them. I’m sure its obvious to you, but that is not good. Better informed investors like to read “music biz” and other trade publications to get unique information about businesses, and is there anything wrong with that? Maybe they will help bring revenue to the music biz publications you like. It should be obvious to you is that “music biz” is a business. FG
This is meaningless. Stocks are cyclical. Come back in a month and report how the stock is doing.