SiriusXM CFO Sees ‘Interesting Strategic Things’ That Can Be Done With Pandora

SiriusXM sees no “competitive issues” that would block regulatory approval of its deal to pay $480 million to buy 19 percent of Pandora (see 1706090005), Chief Financial Officer David Frear told the Bank of America Merrill Lynch investor conference Friday. “I can't imagine why DOJ would step in the way of this,” said Frear. Once the deal closes, under which SiriusXM will land three seats on the Pandora board, including that of chairman, “there are interesting strategic things that the two companies can do together,” said Frear. “There is a solid strategy and path execution for Pandora itself to really maximize its value.” The average Pandora user spends “20-somewhat hours a month on that site,” he said. Compared with how much time people spend on Facebook or YouTube, “it's just an enormous amount of time,” he said. “So they have tremendous customer engagement. There is a lot of information as it relates to what people like to listen to.” How SiriusXM “can plumb that for other aspects of value is going to be an interesting dialogue to have” with Pandora, he said. Most of the estimated 100 million cars on the road “are connected, and so we could engage them to the extent that there are people in those vehicles using the Pandora app and we could use that as a cross-marketing opportunity, right?” he said.