Groupon’s executives held a series of meetings with bankers Thursday in Chicago to discuss a potential initial public offering for the coupon website, CNBC’s Kate Kelly reported Thursday evening. Groupon, Kelly said, is serious about an IPO, but the process could take months, possibly into this spring. The offering could be worth $1 billion to $1.5 billion, she said, but the company hasn’t offered any details of the potential size of the deal.
Separately, Kelly said that Internet radio site Pandora held a series of IPO “bakeoff” meetings Tuesday in California. That offering is expected to be smaller than Groupon’s, at about $100 million, she said, and Pandora could announce the bankers for the IPO as soon as Friday.
$1 billion. It’s a great company and all. But that’s a lot to pay for an e-mail list, which, aside from a bit of goodwill, is the only long-term asset groupon has.
People love IPO’s, though.
Really? After the beating the stock market took these past couple of years, they want to IPO?
I think Groupon is doomed. It’s nothing more than Valpak – coupons on stuff you really don’t need or want.
http://mankabros.com/onmedea/2011/01/the_trouble_with_groupon.html
Jill, which Ivy League school did you graduate from? Did they not provide you with the proper guidance for writing an essay? You just made up a bunch of **** and didn’t list any references or actual facts. Groupon has at least 100 deals every day, you could have done simple research and presented some facts. Instead you wrote an opinion piece filled with BS. Great job!
Maybe you should do more research on the company and you’ll read about what they are doing to stay ahead of their competitors, generate further marketing value for their clients and provide better deals for their customers. You can Google Groupon 2.0 for more info. I think you’re being a little nearsighted about their future. You can’t really expect the fastest growing company in history to sit around and wait for a competitor to surpass them. They had a great idea and now they are expanding on it.
As long as they continue to provide good deals on products and services that make Groupon members happy, they will continue to succeed. And from what I’ve read, they are taking strides insure their future.
Groupon has bo barrier of entry. Some other competitor will come into the business and groupon will become obsolete. Look at what happened to My Space and Facebook. In that sense, Groupon is just an email list. The owners of groupon are looking to cash out on the current high valuations of the company. Why wouldnt they? The business could be worth nothing in a year or two. If groupon’s owners thought that it had sustainable earnings, why would they ever allow the public a piece of the pie? There seems to be plenty of private financing avaliable to them. Due the the scalable nature of the business, why do they need to raise so much more capital?