Shares in daily deals site Groupon’s first day on the stock markets jumped 40pc to US$28 when they began trading on Nasdaq today. At the time of writing, they had settled down to around US$26.25.
Groupon, which uses the ticker GRPN, had priced its shares to debut at US$20. The company’s IPO will see 35m shares, up from 30m mid-week, enter the marketplace.
The 40pc increase in share price to US$28 gives it a current market value of US$17bn.
The daily deals site which has brought online business to the door of many traditional businesses across the US, Europe and China, spurned a US$6bn offer from Google.
The company’s performance has been under the spotlight due to the fact revenues for 2010 were reduced from US$713m to US$313m and losses came in at US$420m.
The e-commerce company was likely to raise US$540m with the issuance of 30m shares, but the extra 5m shares might enable it to raise at least US$700m. The company is releasing just 5.5pc of 637.3m shares overall.
