Pandora announced today that shareholders have approved its $3.5 billion acquisition by SiriusXM. After the transaction closes, several key Pandora executives will leave, including CEO Roger Lynch, general counsel Steve Bene, CFO Naveen Chopra, and chief human resources officer Kristen Robinson. SiriusXM CEO Jim Meyer will lead the combined company.
Pandora and SiriusXM announced the proposed acquisition last September, with SiriusXM offering to pay $3.5 billion in stock, or $10.14 per share, for Pandora.
Sirius and Pandora services will continue as before the acquisition. The deal is meant to “capitalize on cross-promotion opportunities,” as the companies put it, so this means customers can expect to see new offerings like subscription packages with both SiriusXM radios and Pandora streaming music included or Pandora’s content made available through SiriusXM’s car radio distribution channels.
SiriusXM says it has about 36 million subscribers in North America and 23 million annual trial listeners, while Pandora has 70 million monthly active users—but only 6.8 million of them were subscribers as of Q3 2018, compared to 87 million and 50 million subscribers for Spotify and Apple Music, respectively.
