Watch Groupon Stock Soars, but Does It Have Lasting Value? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
Groupon is trading very quietly Monday, its second full day as a public company, reinforcing the view that its IPO Friday was “as near a perfect launch as a company could hope for,” in my own cringe-worthy words. They were uttered during a refreshingly-relaxed (the program, not necessarily me) appearance on the PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff, who spared me a Herman Cain-esque question to flub.
Having said that, it is a tad pretentious to declare that Groupon’s IPO was near perfect, since I have zero knowledge of the internal process before, during and after Friday’s launch.
From the outside, though, and having both bought (Netscape) and passed (Google) on opening-day IPO shares when I was not ethically prevented from trading individual shares, it sure seems smooth when a company:
Tells Google that $6 billion isn’t enough — and then values the company at twice that;
Proceeds with an IPO in a very volatile market, where what happens in Greece (of all places) can account for double-digit percentage swings day-to-day;
Opens above the strike price and hovers in that pop area, even as we suspect institutional, family and friend investors are selling shares to cash in on their insider windfalls;
Doesn’t trade terribly higher than the strike price on its opening day, which means that the underwriters didn’t underestimate interest in the offering, and thus left money on the table;
Trades flat in the early hours of on its second day as a public company, which suggests the first day wasn’t the anomaly.
So, I’m sticking with that assessment. For the other words that may come back to haunt me, watch the clip!
