“Napster Inc. shares ballooned as much as 50% Tuesday after a report said Google Inc. might buy the online music service pioneer, but the stock gave back more than half its gains after Google denied takeover interest,” Jeffry Bartash and Scott Banerjee report for MarketWatch. “A Google spokesperson, in an emailed response to MarketWatch, said the company has “no plans to acquire Napster, nor do we have plans to develop a music store at this time.”
“‘For a company to acquire Napster at this point doesn’t make that much sense,’ said analyst PJ McNealy of American Technology Research, who covers Napster. ‘Napster’s business model is still unproven and in a ‘show me’ mode.’ Recently, the Los Angeles-based company cut about 10 middle managers from its payroll. Napster said that the ‘management redundancies’ were attributable to a consolidation of an online music subscription service and music sales effort,” Bartash and Banerjee report. “Before the layoffs, Web site Digital Music News reported that the company is also ‘considering various exit options, including a fire sale or liquidation.'”
Full article here.
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