The Groupon IPO Will Be Huge (God Help Us)
Groupon goes public tomorrow, and the financially frightful coupon startup should be a stock market hit: With about 10 times more prospective buyer than shares, the stock priced today at $20, up from an expected $16 - $18. So it looks like the tech bubble, inflated heretofore by private investment deals, is going public. How exciting.
Groupon added 5 million shares to its initial public offering to help meet the demand, Kara Swisher at All Things D reported, bringing the total to 35 million. Groupon will be valued at around $13 billion, versus $6 billion that Google offered for the company a year ago. That's a lot of appetite for an unprofitable company with bizarro accounting, frighteningly large liabilities, and well documented retention problems. Of course, none of that matters now that lots of people are speculatively buying Groupon's stock at inflated prices, now that financial regulators have done their typical due diligence, and now that Goldman Sachs has put its good name behind the sale of these vouchsafed securities. Those are three very encouraging signs for this basically bulletproof investment, signs that have never led anyone astray ever before . Buy! Buy! Buy!
[Pic: Groupon CEO Andrew Mason receiving the next best thing to a $13 billion IPO, a Webby Award. Getty Images.]