“Theyve been under takeover chatter before,” said David Lutz, managing director of equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in Baltimore. “What weve heard is that it may be Google, but its all speculation with no confirmation.”
Akamai provides customers such as Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. a global server network to speed delivery of large digital files, including video and audio. Google may want to buy Akamai to gain technology for its own networks, though the price would be high, said Sameet Sinha, an analyst with JMP Securities Inc. in San Francisco.
Jane Penner, a spokeswoman for Mountain View, California- based Google, and Jeff Young, a spokesman for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Akamai, didnt immediately return phone calls seeking comment.
Akamai added 73 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $20.86 at 2 p.m. New York time and earlier reached $21.05, the highest intraday level since July 27. Volume for call options giving the right to buy the shares rose to 28,600, more than quadruple the four-week average, and exceeded volume for puts giving the right to sell by 6-to-1.
Sinha said he would be surprised if Google made an offer. Customers would likely leave Akamai if it were acquired because they wouldnt want Google, owner of the worlds largest search engine, to have a window into their Web traffic.
Estimate Raised
The most-active options were October $21 calls, which climbed 80 percent to 45 cents and accounted for a third of todays call volume. The open interest, or number of existing contracts, for those calls was 1,748 before today, according to Bloomberg data. November $24 calls, which expire in five weeks, rose 73 percent to 45 cents.
Separately, Srinivas Anantha, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, raised his estimate today for Akamais adjusted third-quarter earnings to 24 cents a share from 23 cents. Anantha projects the stock will trade in line with the wider market.