SAN FRANCISCO — Internet radio station Pandora Media’s IPO surged by as much 63 percent in its debut Wednesday before pulling back later in the session.
The shares closed at $17.42, still a decent gain amid the market’s broader decline. It marked a 9 percent increase from Pandora’s initial-public-offering price of $16 and a nearly sixfold increase from what Pandora’s board thought the stock was worth six months ago.
The performance shows the recent market slump hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm investors have for new stock offerings from rapidly growing Internet services.
The excitement began to build after shares of professional-networking site LinkedIn Corp. more than doubled on their first day of trading last month. Now it looks like the fervor could escalate into an outright mania as even bigger Internet companies such as online coupon seller Groupon Inc., Web game maker Zynga and the biggest star of all, Facebook, go public during the next year or so.
“Everyone seems to be getting gold-rush fever,” said analyst Phil Leigh of Inside Digital Media. “People are starting to believe they can find gold in every stream or around every hill, but that’s not the reality.”
The warm reception for Pandora pegged the company’s market value at $2.8 billion.
