For a brief moment on the opening day of trading of Pandora’s stock, the company had a market value of $4.2 billion – over three times that of Warner Music Group’s current $1.28 billion market value.
But after the company’s shares reached that high of $26.00, they fell consistently throughout the rest of the day. It hit $20.10 at noon, dropped to $18.55 at 1 pm and stood at $17.42 when trading closed at 4 pm. Even at $17.42 Pandora’s $2.78-billion market value is over twice that of Warner’s $1.28 billion market value and well over Live Nation’s $1.98 billion market value.
Depending on how you look at it, Pandora’s stock either gained a little or almost nothing on the opening day. Its close of $17.66 was 8.88% higher than the $16 offering price received by the company from institutional investors. But $17.66 was just 0.01% better than its $17.35 opening price on the New York Stock Exchange.
In either case, shares were actively swapped throughout the day. Although the offering put just 14.7 million shares into the marketplace, 42 million shares were exchanged on Wednesday.
Despite media skepticism, Pandora sold 6 million of those 14.7 million shares. Receiving $16 per share, the company grossed $96 million from the IPO and probably netted somewhere in the area of $80 million after fees and expenses.