La voglia di Borsa, bolla o non bolla, è tornata: dopo LinkedIn è la volta di Groupon. Per la società che sfrutta l’-ecommerce su base locale offrendo sconti è la volta di un’IPO da 750 milioni di dollari.
Interessante l’analisi spietata che ne viene fatta qui: Groupon sarebbe uno schema Ponzi, perchè il business sarebbe destinato a fallire miseramente.
So a company that owes $230 million more than it has, and appears to be burning through $100 million or more a quarter, is using money raised from later investors to pay back early investors? Sounds vaguely familiar. I’m not accusing Groupon of doing anything illegal or unethical. Ponzi, Enron, and Madoff all swindled their investors by misleading them about the financial health of their enterprises. As Minyanville’s Todd Harrison likes to say, “The only difference between intervention and manipulation is communication.” Groupon is telling you exactly what they are in their filing forms and by their actions. Invest at your own risk.
Le domande, credo, sono quelle che si fanno un po’ tutti:
There are all kinds of questions about the business. How can they possibly sustain this kind of revenue growth? Can they get costs under control? What about merchant and customer fatigue? How about deep-pocketed and savvy competition, either doing exactly what they’re doing (LivingSocial) or coming to the table with a ton of customer data, i.e., Facebook and Google (GOOG)? The Daily Deal I got offered today was for a restaurant 30 miles away: how does that make sense either for the customer or merchant? How can you possible build a sustainable business by going from 0 to 8,000 employees in two years? Why did the COO and CTO both leave the company in late March, barely two months ago? How do you value a business that could do $3 billion in revenue this year but might not be able to keep the lights on in 12 months?
Per dirla alla TechCrunch, davvero un business così vale 25 miliardi di dollari? Che ne pensate?