Groupon IPO set for November 4

Added by Erik West on October 21, 2011

Groupon, the leading deal-of-the-day website that offers discounted gift certificates useable at local or national businesses, on Friday set its long-anticipated IPO date for November 4 2011.

In an S-1 filing with the SEC, the company said it seeks to sell 30m shares at between US$16 and US$18 per share, valuing the company at approximately US$11.2 billion with the IPO worth about USD$478 million. Groupon said the IPO represents less than 5% of the company’s total outstanding shares.

Groupon’s previous plan was to raise between about US$750m and US$1bn, while valuing the company at more than US$15bn, yet it scaled back its plans as a result of volatility in the global equities market and amid questions about the way the company reported its profitability.

The company’s offering includes over 630m class A shares plus over 2m super-voting class B shares, all held by insiders. The class B shares, having 150 votes each, will control about 36% of the company’s voting stake.

Groupon reported US$1.12bn in revenue and a loss of US$308.1m for the first nine months of the year. The average revenue per sold Groupon is US$11.90, with over 93m Groupons sold during the first nine months of the year. About 16m people have bought more than one Groupon since the company’s inception in November 2008.

The company will be listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol GRPN.