Watching Groupon's IPO by the numbers
The market debut of the daily-deals site will be closely watched because it's largely a total crapshoot. Here's a look at the numbers to know.
Groupon launches its initial public offering on Friday and there are comparison’s to Google’s debut, worries about the end of the world, and lots of talk about how much the company has to prove.
The storylines today are going to be relatively predictable. To wit:
- There will be the Groupon is a sign of a bubble story.
- There’s the Groupon failed because shares didn’t do much Friday story.
- There’s the “wow look at that surge” story assuming shares do anything.
- And then there are a lot of tales about whether Groupon has the chops to make it or not complete with debates over whether the company is a Ponzi scheme or not.
The reality is Groupon has a bunch of doubters even though it’s arguably the fastest growing company in history. Groupon’s financials do give plenty of reasons to be skeptical, but the company’s latest financial results showed some serious signs of maturation. We’re not going to pretend to know how this Groupon tale will play out—and anyone that does is full of it—but we do know the numbers that matter.
The price for one of Groupon’s 35 million shares being floated to the public market under the ticker GRPN.
3.6 million: Shares of common stock acquired by Andrew Mason. on Nov. 1, 2009 for $144,000.
$72 million: Value of those 2009 shares at Groupon’s $20 IPO price.
45.9 million: Total Class A shares held by Mason after the IPO good for 7.3 percent of total.
999,984: Class B shares owned by Mason after IPO.
19.8 percent: Total voting power held by Mason after IPO.
$99.6 million: Free cash flow for the nine months ended Sept. 30.
$214.5 million: Net loss for the nine months ended Sept. 30.
$466.5 million: Money spent on online marketing for the nine months ended Sept. 30.
142.9 million: Subscribers to Groupon’s daily emails as of Sept. 30.
$465.6 million: Groupon’s merchant payable balance as of Sept. 30. Groupon collects cash up front when customers buy Groupons and pays merchants later. The merchant payable balance topped Groupon’s cash and equivalents as of Sept. 30.
59.3 percent: Portion of revenue generated from international units as of Sept. 30.
93.6 million: Groupons sold as of Sept. 30.
$11.90: Average revenue per Groupon sold.
16 million: Repeat customers.
Around the network:
MoneyWatch: Groupon’s hype march to its IPO | Groupon: Ignore Our Chairman’s Remarks About Being “Wildly Profitable” | Groupon’s Wild and Crazy IPO Accounting May Be a No-Go With the SEC