Groupon Inc. canceled its roadshow and is reevaluating its plans to go public in the face of stock market volatility, said a person familiar with the matter.
The Chicago-based daily deals site isn’t cancelling its initial public offering, said this person, but is reassessing the timing for an IPO on a week by week basis. Groupon had originally been aiming to go public after Labor Day and to price its shares in mid-September, this person said, adding that the company had set up a roadshow next week to attract potential investors to the stock.
Given the recent stock market gyrations, Groupon executives had started taking a wait-and-see approach, paying close attention to market volatility in Europe, added this person. With international markets continuing to tumble overnight, executives decided to put the IPO on hold, the person said. The roadshow has been canceled, this person said
The person also said that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission contacted a Groupon attorney last week, asking them to answer a series of questions related to a recently leaked memo in which Groupon Chief Executive Andrew Mason touted the company to employees. Making public statements about the financial status of a company during an IPO process is prohibited by SEC rules.
A Groupon spokesman declined to comment. The SEC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Groupon is one of a slew of high-profile Web companies that filed to go public this year, following the splashy debuts of Internet companies such as LinkedIn Corp. Online gaming company Zynga Inc. has also filed to go public.