Groupon To Sell 30M Shares At $16-$18 A Pop, Valuation As Much As $11.4B

Robin Wauters

Robin Wauters is the European Editor of tech blog The Next Web and lead editor of Virtualization.com. He was a senior staff writer at TechCrunch until his departure in February 2012. Aside from his professional blogging activities, he’s an entrepreneur, event organizer, occasional board adviser and angel investor but most importantly an all-round startup champion. Wauters lives and works in... → Learn More

Friday, October 21st, 2011
groupon

And so it begins. Groupon this morning published the expected price range of its shares, to be sold in an upcoming initial public offering, in an SEC filing.

The daily deals company plans to sell 30 million shares at $16 to $18 a pop, which would see Groupon raise between $480 million and $540 million. This would give Groupon a valuation as high as $11.4 billion.

As rumored yesterday, the Chicago company will trade on NASDAQ, under the ticker ‘GRPN’.

Groupon filed to raise $750 million in its IPO back in June 2011, but has since scaled down the offering substantially as many industry watchers have raised valid concerns about its accounting practices, the sustainability of its business model and the fact that the company has seen its share of executive departures recently. The market is also weak, overall.

There is one huge silver lining. The revised prospectus shows that Groupon is actually nearing profitability, as revenues are rising and marketing expenses are dropping.

The New York Times offers a detailed look on the company’s updated financials, which are suddenly looking remarkably strong. Who’d a thunk it? Andrew Mason, that’s who.

Perfect timing, too; Groupon’s IPO roadshow is expected to kick off next week.


Company: Groupon
Website: groupon.com
Launch Date: November 11, 2008
IPO: July 11, 2011, NASDAQ:GRPN

Groupon features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in more than 565 cities around the world. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, Groupon can offer deals that aren’t available elsewhere. Groupon brings buyers and sellers together in a fun and collaborative way that offers the consumer an unbeatable deal, and businesses a large number of new customers. To date, it has saved consumers more than $300 million and claims it...

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