Groupon sells 650,000 holiday deals

(Reuters) — Groupon Inc. sold more than 650,000 holiday deals between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, an increase of 500 percent compared with last year, CEO Andrew Mason said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The largest daily deal company's shares have come under pressure in recent weeks on concerns about increased competition. The stock has fallen by nearly half since hitting a high of $31.14 after its initial public offering earlier this month.

Groupon shares rose 2.3 percent to $16.39 in early trading on Nasdaq.

LivingSocial, which is Chicago-based Groupon's closest rival and is partly owned by Amazon.com Inc., offered more than 20 deals with national merchants over the crucial Black Friday shopping period.

Mason, known to be outspoken, also said in his blog post that with the IPO behind it, Groupon would communicate more freely again.

"We're back to communicating like a normal company again ... well, as normal as we can muster at Groupon," Mason wrote.

LinkedIn (LNKD) looks like a buy today

Facebook Plans IPO Between April and June

Facebook is looking to go public between April and June 2012 with a valuation of over $100 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

• Hoping to raise $10 billion
• Biggest tech IPO ever

Facebook is exploring raising $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal said on Monday. It hopes the offering will value the company at more than $100 billion, according to WSJ, which first reported the story.

Facebook's Chief Financial Officer, David Ebersman, had discussed a public float with Silicon Valley bankers but founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg had not decided on any terms and his plans could change, the Journal said.

The social network, which now claims more than 800 million members after seven years of explosive growth, has not selected bankers to manage what would be a very closely watched IPO. But it had drafted an internal prospectus and was ready at any moment to pull the IPO trigger, the Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying.

Facebook chief executive officer and Founder Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook expects to be required by U.S. regulators to disclose financial results by April 30, 2012, if it doesn’t go public by then, the company said in January. Facebook decided to wait until 2012 for its IPO to give Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg more time to gain users and boost sales, people familiar with the matter said last year.

Google’s IPO
Google Inc. (GOOG), one of Facebook’s chief rivals in the Internet advertising market, raised $1.67 billion in its IPO in 2004. It is now valued at $188.7 billion.
Facebook’s revenue will more than double to $4.27 billion this year from $2 billion in 2010, research firm EMarketer Inc. said in September.

At $100 billion, Facebook would be worth 23 times that projected revenue, signaling the company expects its faster growth rate to justify a premium valuation over rivals. Mountain View, California-based Google trades at 6.4 times projected current-year revenue. Apple Inc. is worth 2.5 times sales, while the multiple for Microsoft Corp. is 2.8.

The valuation Facebook is said to be seeking would place it (SPX) near PepsiCo Inc., which is worth $99.5 billion, and Verizon Communications Inc., at $103.7 billion. Apple is the world’s most valuable technology company, at $346.9 billion.

Facebook’s valuation is currently pegged at $66.6 billion by SharesPost Inc., which handles trading of closely held companies. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Facebook was considering the $10 billion IPO with a valuation of more than $100 billion. The company aims to go public between April and June, the Journal said.

Mattress Firm (MFRM) started trading on the NASDAQ

Mattress Firm Inc (MFRM), one of the world's largest specialty bedding companies, visits the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City's Times Square in celebration of their initial public offering on November 18, 2011 on The NASDAQ Stock Market.

Groupon (GRPN) looks like a buy today

Yelp Files for IPO

Google has become a fierce competitor since Yelp rejected its $500 million buyout offer in 2009. Yelp claims Google has "removed links" to its pages in search results and promoted its own local search results. And Google's recent acquisition of Zagat provides a large database of curated reviews, which some users may find more valuable than Yelp's user-generated ones. Worryingly, Yelp says Google remains the source of "more than half" of the traffic to its website.


Yelp, the popular local reviews service, has filed for a 2012 IPO that could raise approximately $100 million for the company.

Yelp has been preparing for its IPO for a while now, ever since it rejected a $500 million acquisition offer from Google in early 2010. The IPO could value the company north of $2 billion.

According to the company’s SEC filing, Yelp has more than 22 million reviews, 61 million monthly unique visitors and 529,000 business pages claimed.

Yelp earned approximately $12.1 million in revenue in 2008 and doubled to $25.8 million in 2009. In the first nine months of 2011, the company generated $58.4 million in revenue. However, the company is still not profitable. It lost $7.6 million in the first nine months of 2011, a bit less than the $8.5 million it lost during the first nine months of 2010.

Most of Yelp’s income comes from local advertising, followed by brand advertsiing and “other services” such as Yelp Deals, partnerships and remnant advertising inventory. In the first nine months of 2011, Yelp generated $40.3 million in local advertising revenues, $12.7 million in brand advertising and $5.4 million from other services.

Yelp’s largest owners are Bessemer Venture Partners, which owns 22.5% of the company, and Elevant Partners, which owns 22.4%. Benchmark Capital owns 16.2% of the company. Max Levchin, the first investor in Yelp, a board member of the company and co-founder of PayPal and Slide, owns 13.8%. Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman owns 11.1% of Yelp’s outstanding shares.

Delphi Automotive (DLPH) started trading on the NYSE

Angie's List (ANGI) started trading on the NASDAQ

InvenSense (INVN) started trading on the NYSE

Zipcar (ZIP) - profile

Zipcar, Inc. (Zipcar) operates a car sharing network. The Company provides over 400,000 members, also known as Zipsters, with self-service vehicles that are located in reserved parking spaces throughout the neighborhoods where they live and work.

The Company’s vehicles are available for use by the hour or by the day through its reservation system, which is available by phone, Internet or wireless mobile devices. Once the vehicle is reserved, a Zipster simply unlocks the vehicle with his or her keyless entry card (called a Zipcard) and drives away. Its all-inclusive rates include gas and insurance so Zipsters can estimate the total cost of their trips. The Company has two segments: North America and the United Kingdom. In On April 21, 2010, the Company acquired Streetcar Limited.

Address
25 First Street, 4th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02141
United States

Key stats and ratios

	Q3 (Sep '11)	2010
Net profit margin	0.97%	-7.59%
Operating margin	1.92%	-3.98%
EBITD margin	-	3.33%
Return on average assets	0.78%	-8.34%
Return on average equity	1.22%	-
Employees	474	-
Carbon Disclosure Rating	-	-

The Company offers four solutions: individual membership, Zipcar for Universities, Zipcar for business and Zipcar for government, and FastFleet.

• Through individual membership solution, the Company offers a solution for individuals seeking an alternative to the high-cost of urban car ownership. 
• Through Zipcar for Universities solution, the Company provides college students, faculty, staff and local residents living on or near campuses with access to Zipcars, while helping university administrators maximize the use of limited on-campus parking and reduce campus congestion. 
• Through Zipcar for business and Zipcar for government, the Company helps businesses and local governments meet environmental goals and reduce parking requirements by providing their employees with access to Zipcars. 
• Through FastFleet solution, the Company offers a fleet management solution, called FastFleet, on a software-as-a-service (SaaS), basis to organizations that manage their own fleets of vehicles. 

The Company operates its membership-based business in 13 major metropolitan areas and on more than 150 college campuses in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The Company initially focused its operations in three metropolitan areas: Boston, New York and Washington, D.C.

SandRidge Permian Trust (PER) looks good today

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** Renko **

LinkedIn (LNKD) : early investors start to cash out

LNKD will most likely continue sliding because:

• Insider selling: Bain Capital selling their entire LinkedIn holding, i.e. 3.7 million shares, or about 4.3% of its outstanding stock (more than $275 mln worth), according to a regulatory filing. It bought into the company in 2008 as the largest investor in a $53 million funding round.
• Insider selling: both CEO and CFO selling 10% of their holdings
• The sales follow a 180 day "lock-up" agreement following the company's May 19 IPO. That agreement prevented certain investors from unloading their stakes until the end of the period, which expires on Nov. 20.
• A secondary offering is coming up soon: 1.3 million new shares, worth about $100 million. The company announced that second offering earlier this month.
• Company reported a loss of $1.6 million for the third quarter

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Mattress Firm sets pricing terms for $100 million IPO

IPO Profile

• Expected Date: Week of 11/14/11
• IPO File Date: 06/10/11
• Deal Size: $100.0 mm
• Price Range: $17 - $19
• Shares Offered: 5.6 mm
• Lead Manager(s): Barclays Capital, UBS Investment Bank, William Blair

Mattress Firm Holding Corp filed with U.S. regulators to sell 5.56 million common shares at an anticipated price of $17-$19 apiece in an initial public offering.

The specialty bedding retailer had filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in June to raise up to $115 million in the initial public offering.

Barclays Capital, UBS Investment Bank, and William Blair are underwriting the IPO.

The company, which along with its franchisees operates more than 680 stores in 23 states, plans to list its shares on Nasdaq under the symbol "MFRM" and will use proceeds from the offering to repay debt.

Imperva raises $85.5m in NYSE IPO

• Update 10/10/18:  Private equity firm Thoma Bravo to acquire Imperva in $2.1B buyout. 

The data protection solutions developer issued 4.75 million shares, at $18 per share, above its $14-16 target.



Data protection solutions developer Imperva Inc. raised a gross $85.5 million in its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange at a company value of $398 million. The company, founded by president and CEO Shlomo Kramer, issued 4.75 million shares, at $18 per share, above its $14-16 target. The shares will be traded under the symbol "IMPV".

In addition, shareholders sold 250,000 shares for a gross $4.5 million. If the underwriters exercise in full their over-allotment option to buy up to 750,000 shares, the offering will increase by a gross $13.5 million. The offering was based on the company's prospectus filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday.

Fusion-io to sell up to $350 million more of its shares

Storage memory solutions company Fusion-io this morning announced that it has filed a registration statement with the SEC for a proposed public offering of shares of its common stock.

The company proposes to sell, from time to time, up to $350 million of its common stock, approximately $100 million of which would be sold by Fusion-io and the rest by its shareholders.

Fusion-io says the remaining shares will be sold by existing stockholders, including any shares issued to the underwriters to cover over-allotments.

According to the filing, Fusion-io will not receive proceeds from the sale by shareholders.

Founded in 2005, Fusion-io combines hardware and software to develop a storage memory platform, giving servers native access to data to accelerate enterprise databases and applications while reducing energy consumption. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is its Chief Scientist.

The company’s share price closed at $37.61 yesterday, but is down roughly 10 percent in pre-market trading. At present, Fusion-io’s market cap stands at $3.2 billion.

Groupon (GRPN) down on the third day of trading

Yelp planning a $2 billion IPO in 2012

Yelp Inc., the review website, chose Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Citigroup Inc. (C) to lead its initial public offering next year, said two people with knowledge of the situation.

The San Francisco-based company hasn’t decided how many shares to offer, said the people, who declined to be identified because the plans haven’t been formalized. The Wall Street Journal reported Yelp’s IPO plans earlier today and said the offering may value the company at as much as $2 billion.

Yelp is scaling back a foray into the daily-deal business, differentiating itself from top website Groupon Inc. as the market becomes inundated. Yelp planned to cut its sales staff dedicated to Yelp Deals by half, moving about 15 salespeople to other areas of the business, Vince Sollitto, vice president of corporate communications, said in an August interview. The number of deals e-mailed to users is unlikely to grow, he said.

Groupon raised $700 million last week in an initial public offering, becoming the biggest IPO by a U.S. Internet company since Google Inc.’s offering in 2004.
Stephanie Ichinose, a spokeswoman for Yelp, declined to comment on the company’s IPO plans. Andrea Rachman, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, and Mark Costiglio, a spokesman for Citigroup, also declined to comment.

Yelp’s IPO would help lift returns at Elevation Partners, the private-equity firm whose investment team includes Roger McNamee and U2 singer Bono. The Menlo Park, California-based firm bought a 20 percent stake in Yelp last year for $100 million. A $2 billion valuation for the company would make Elevation’s stake worth $400 million.

Elevation is also an investor in Facebook Inc. The $270 million the firm has invested in the social-networking company is now worth about $1.2 billion. It is also an investor in online real estate company Move Inc. and was an investor in Palm Inc., before the handset maker was bought last year by Hewlett- Packard Co. In July, Yelp hired Rob Krolik from Move as chief financial officer.

Yelp was cofounded in 2004 by former PayPal Vice President of Engineering Jeremy Stoppelman, who is still CEO of the business. The website accepts a wide range of user reviews -- from restaurants to transit agencies to media organizations -- that are categorized by topic and location.

In late April, the company confirmed that it was exploring a public offering but had not yet begun any formal processes, such as hiring banks. In 2010, Elevation Partners invested $100 million in Yelp, which valued the company at $475 million, according to reports filed at the time.

Groupon : Secondary offering next on to-do list

Now that Groupon Inc. has pulled its closely watched IPO across the finish line, it's time to start working on another stock offering.

Groupon's IPO Friday at $20 a share defied doubters who questioned its business model, but it made only 6% of its shares available for public trading. That's not enough to allow big mutual funds to buy in or the venture-capital firms that backed the Chicago-based daily-deal phenom to cash out. Both need more liquidity to trade shares freely without triggering big price swings. That requires a secondary offering that will put more shares on the open market within the next six months or so.

“Going public is a two-step process,” says Tim Loughran, a finance professor who studies IPOs at the University of Notre Dame. “First is the IPO. Then they'll need to do a secondary offering relatively quickly to let the venture capitalists exit and let the institutional investors get a bigger role.”

A secondary offering requires a rising stock price. To keep its shares climbing from their Friday closing price of $26.11, Groupon's business results over the next few months must banish persistent questions about its ability to keep growing and turn a profit.

Late in the trading day Monday, Groupon was trading down 1.3% at $25.78.

“No one knows what the long-term operating model is for the company,” says David Rudow, an analyst at Minneapolis-based Thrivent Investment Management Inc., one of the nation's largest mutual funds, who listened in on Groupon's investor road show. He's still deciding whether to buy, but he prefers a larger float.

Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based IPOX Schuster LLC, a $2.5-billion fund, is skipping Groupon's offering because of the small float. “We usually look for 8% to 10%,” he says.

Zynga planning its IPO after Thanksgiving

Zynga Inc. plans to proceed with its initial public offering after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 24, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

The company may set terms in the last week of November and then begin pitching the IPO to potential investors, said the people, who declined to be named because the discussions are private. Zynga had planned to proceed with the IPO before Thanksgiving, two people familiar with the company’s plans said last month.
Zynga, which filed for a $1 billion IPO in July, would follow a public offering by Groupon Inc., the online-coupon leader, whose shares rose 31 percent in their first day of trading on Nov. 4.

Last week, Zynga updated its prospectus to show that 6.7 million of its users were paying customers in the first nine months of the year, compared with 5.1 million in the year- earlier period. Revenue more than doubled to $828.9 million. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission hasn’t completed its review of the company’s financial results, said one of the people familiar with the company’s current plans.

Adam Isserlis, a spokesman for San Francisco-based Zynga, declined to comment on the company’s plans to go public. Kevin Callahan, a spokesman for the SEC, also declined to comment.

Founded in 2007, Zynga offers its games for free and then sells virtual items within applications, such as a townhouse in “CityVille” or a shipyard in “Empires & Allies.” Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) are managing the offering.

Zynga’s shares will trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol ZNGA.

Groupon (GRPN) started trading on the NASDAQ

 Ticker: GRPN

Groupon Inc raised $700 million after increasing the size of its initial public offering, becoming the largest IPO by an Internet company since Google Inc raised $1.7 billion in 2004.

Andrew Mason with his wife Jenny Gillespie

SodaStream (SODA) looks good today

 

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Zipcar beats on EPS; stock tumbles

Zipcar (ZIP) shares fell 4% in after-hours trading after the company beat EPS expectations and issued guidance that is generally in line with analysts’ expectations.

(daily chart, before earnings were announced)

ZIP posted 2 cents per share in earnings, 3 cents better than estimates. Revenue came in at $68.1 million, in line with expectations. The company said that fourth quarter net income on a GAAP basis could range from a loss of $500,000 to a gain of $500,000, a range that straddles the average estimate of analysts for 0 cents of EPS. The company expects EBITDA of $4 million to $5 million.

(weekly chart, before earnings were announced)

“We made significant progress during the period on several fronts, including increased activity and revenue growth across our consumer, business, university and government memberships, as well as the introduction of our Facebook app which builds on our technology leadership and provides an additional access point for our members. Following the quarter end, we completed the integration of the acquired Streetcar operations in the U.K., and we now look forward to further international expansion,” said Chairman and CEO Scott Griffith.

Angie's List plans a $75 million IPO

Local-business reviewer Angie's List Inc. set the range of its initial public offering at $11 to $13 a share and said it plans to offer 8.8 million shares.

The company, which had said in August it planned to sell $75 million of stock, runs a ratings and review service for members to research, hire, rate and review local professionals like plumbers and auto mechanics. Members pay a subscription, but the company gets more of its revenue from service providers. It lets local service providers who are highly rated by members advertise discounts and other promotions to its membership base.

The company plans to sell 6.3 million shares. Members of senior management are selling about 2.5 million shares, of which the company won't receive any proceeds.

In the first half, its loss widened despite 40% growth in revenue, as its marketing costs shot up 89%.
Angie's List said it would use proceeds from its portion of the offering to pay for advertising to build membership, as well as for general corporate purposes. It said it could use some of the money to snatch up complementary technologies, products, services or businesses.

TRI Investment LLC , which is run by Angie's List directors John H. Chuang and Steven M. Kapner , owns 23% of the business.

The company plans to list its stock on Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol ANGI.