In a research report released Tuesday, Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein upgraded shares of Pandora Media Inc (NYSE:P) from Perform to Outperform, while establishing a price target of $18, which implies an upside of 32% from current levels. Pandora shares are currently trading at $13.62, up $0.25 or 1.87%.
Helfstein explained, “We believe an acquisition by SIRI is a legitimate possibility. SIRI’s market cap is $21B compared to $3.2B for P. Our hypothetical takeout value of $18-21/share (based on 15x terminal EBITDA discounted at 15%, assumes synergy from sales & marketing) implies EV of $4.4-5.0B. With only $572M cash balance, SIRI will need to issue debt for the transaction.”
Furthermore, “We believe P’s demographic profile is “just right” for a takeout given its users skew younger than SIRI, but older than competitors Spotify and Tidal. P should help SIRI recapture potentially churned subs by offering an ad-supported free service and other lower-priced product tiers ($4.99 online radio and $9.99 on-demand) as well as the potential to target a younger audience.”
As usual, we like to include the analyst’s trackrecord when reporting on new analyst notes. According to TipRanks.com, which measures analysts’ and bloggers’ success rate based on how their calls perform, analyst Jason Helfstein has a yearly average return of 7.9% and a 56% success rate. Helfstein has a -36.9% average return when recommending P, and is ranked #225 out of 4256 analysts.
Out of the 34 analysts polled by TipRanks, 18 rate Pandora Media stock a Buy, 13 rate the stock a Hold and 3 recommend to Sell. With a return potential of 18%, the stock’s consensus target price stands at $16.07.
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