Ticketfly’s future as part of music streaming firm Pandora could be assured for now at least after SiriusXM reportedly ended its interest in a full takeover of the group.
The US satellite radio station remains in talks to make a strategic investment in Pandora, but is no longer considering an acquisition, according to Billboard.
It had been suggested that Pandora would be forced to sell off its ticket operator subsidiary Ticketfly due to SiriusXM’s owner Liberty Media also having a stake in Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
Last month, it was reported that Pandora, which has lost market share to Spotify and Apple Music, was looking to sell Ticketfly to generate cash and focus on its core streaming business and its new on-demand Premium service.
KKR, the private equity firm, had agreed to invest $150m (£120m/€135m) in Pandora if the streaming company didn’t find a better deal in the 30 days ending yesterday (Thursday). That deadline has now been extended to a new unannounced date.
Explore interest
In a statement, Pandora said KKR had agreed the extension so it could “explore interest expressed by a strategic investor in making a substantial minority investment in Pandora, in lieu of the KKR investment”.
Struggling Pandora last year recorded a net loss of $343m — up from a loss of nearly $170m in 2015 — and in the first quarter of this year, Pandora reported the lowest number of active monthly listeners in more than two years, at 76.7 million.
In contrast, Ticketfly, which Pandora bought for $450m in October 2015, generated a 25 per cent year-on-year surge in service revenue to $27.8m in Q1 2017.
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