Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

Pandora Thinks Investors Like What They Hear, Bumps Up IPO Price

Another sign investors are clamoring to get into the next wave of IPOs: Streaming music service Pandora has pushed up the price for its pending offering.

The company says it plans to sell shares at a range of $10 to $12 apiece, which will let it raise as much as $202 million when it hits the market. Last week, the company said it thought shares would go for $7 to $9, which would let it raise $142 million. At $12 a share, the company would sport a market cap of $1.9 billion.

[UPDATE: Pandora plans to start trading on the NYSE next Wednesday, June 15.]

It’s worth noting that in between last week’s filing and the one Pandora sent to the SEC today,  Apple unveiled its iCloud/iTunes Match music service plans, which will let consumers access their own music collections from Internet-based servers.

It’s a completely different idea than Pandora’s service, which streams a selection of songs based on your likes and dislikes, but I’ve seen some commentary that iCloud/iTunes Match will pose a problem for Pandora. Pandora’s filing indicates that institutional investors, at least, don’t agree.

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Nobody was excited about paying top dollar for a movie about WikiLeaks. A film about the origins of Pets.com would have done better.

— Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com comments on the dreadful opening weekend box office numbers for “The Fifth Estate.”