Tim Boyle/Bloomberg NewsGroupon headquarters in Chicago.
It appears that investors are flocking to Groupon’s forthcoming initial public offering like customers to one of the daily deal giant’s coupons.
The company is considering raising the price of its shares above its current expected range of $16 to $18 a share, people briefed on the matter told DealBook on Friday. That would value the online coupon pioneer at potentially more than $12 billion.
Behind Groupon’s deliberations, these people said, is heightened demand from potential investors. The company’s executives and bankers, led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, have completed the first week of a multistate road show. The presentation team has been pitching institutional investors about the three-year-old start-up’s business prospects, describing them as primed for enormous growth.
On Friday, Groupon held a presentation before a crowd of more than 300 people at the St. Regis Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
Groupon’s management and executives had not reached a final decision to raise the offering price as of Friday night, these people said. Should they move ahead, the new price range would likely be disclosed in an amended prospectus on Monday.
A representative for Groupon declined to comment.
Such a move would be only the latest shift in expectations for the offering, the latest in a new generation of Internet start-ups that has captured the public’s fancy. But the road to going public has been rocky for Groupon, as critics seized upon several accounting revisions as potential concerns for the company’s health.
Next week, Groupon is expected to visit prospective investors out west, including in cities like Los Angeles and Denver. Its bankers expect to price the I.P.O. on Nov. 3 and its stock to begin trading the next day.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=667106d7241b00cd5aa0de7cdbbaae6e
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