Deal-service Groupon ready to go public

SAN FRANCISCO – Daily deals pioneer Groupon priced its initial public offering late Thursday at $20 per share.

That’s above its expected range of $16 to $18, indicating investors are excited to snap up the company’s shares.

The price gives Groupon Inc. a market value of $12.7 billion. That makes Groupon’s IPO the second-largest by an Internet company behind only that of Google Inc. in 2004.

The online search leader made its public debut at a market cap of $23.1 billion seven years ago. In comparison, LinkedIn Corp. went public in May with a market value of $4.3 billion and was worth $8.4 billion at the end of trading Thursday.

The pricing is a milestone in a process that served as a reality check for Groupon. Coming at a time of worldwide market turbulence and deep economic woes, Groupon’s IPO has been closely watched by fellow Web startups looking to follow a similar path.

It’s a lofty appraisal for a service that started just three years ago, but a big comedown from the $25 billion estimate floated when the company filed its IPO plans in June, months after rejecting a $6 billion buyout offer from Google.

Groupon began in 2008 when computer programmer Andrew Mason figured out how to get people excited about the low-margin coupon business.

The company is expected to make its trading debut today on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol “GRPN.”