Groupon eyes $750m float
ONLINE daily deal site Groupon filed for an initial public offering yesterday, hoping to capitalise on the biggest investor stampede into Web start-ups since the dot.com bubble burst a decade ago.
The company filed yesterday to raise up to $750m (£458.2m) in its IPO, an offering that has been widely speculated about for months and would be among the most closely watched of the year.
Groupon itself, in the filing, cautioned that it has incurred losses ever since it was started two and a half years ago, that its technology may not be ready to handle demand for its services, that its expenses are bound to rise, and that the daily deals market may not even continue to grow.
“As with any business in a 30-month-old industry, the path to success will have twists and turns, moments of brilliance and other moments of sheer stupidity,” Groupon chief executive Andrew Mason, 30, said in a letter to potential stockholders attached to the filing.
Yesterday’s papers did not specify the number of shares to be sold in the IPO, the price range, or the exchange, though it did say the shares would trade under the symbol “GRPN”. It also said the $750m figure is preliminary and may change.