groupon ipo
Groupon has raised $700 million having increased the size of its initial public offering. This makes it the largest IPO by an Internet company since 2004 when Google raised $1.7 billion.
At $700 million raised, it makes the daily deals leader worth almost $13 billion after it increased the offering by 5 million shares to 35 million total and pricing them at $20 each, above an initial range of $16 to $18.
The public trading debut of the 3 year old Groupon, will be one of the years most closely watched. The tiny public float represents just above 5 percent of the company and has helped control and drive up demand and price. Having one of the smallest public floats of the past decade should help support the initial price share price when it begins trading on the Nasdaq on Friday under the ticker GRPN, analysts say.
Demand for the stock is expected to be strong, but Groupon has been plagued by questions surrounding unusual accounting measures, revisions of sales figures and scaled-back expectations of how much money Groupon will raise.
“It’s a flashback to the late ’90s. We’ve seen this game before and we know how it’s going to end,” said Tony Catanach, accounting professor at Villanova University.
