Financial Management - Study of 3 Companies and their Flotations (IPO) Essay

Financial Management - Study of 3 Companies and their Flotations (IPO) onto the Stock Exchange - Essay Example Through IPO, companies intend to raise money by offering shares for the first time to the outsiders (Espinasse, 2011, p.1). Recently, Groupon, LinkedIn and Angie’s List decided to go public and released their IPOs. ‘Facebook’ has also filed its IPO recently. These are US based high profile internet companies and are running successfully worldwide. There are lot of benefits as well as some challenges too that are to be faced by companies going public. About the companies and its products and services Groupon: Groupon is a daily deal website, headquartered at Chicago, IL, US and was launched in November, 2008. Groupon is an e-commerce marketplace. It provides a link between the local merchants and consumers. The goods and services are offered at a discounting rate to the consumers. Groupon is a means of advertising through internet where local merchants can attract customers in order to facilitate selling of its goods and services. Consumers are informed about the d aily deals through emails, websites and mobile applications. These daily deals are about, what the consumers can do, see, eat or buy in their local markets where they live. One coupon named, ‘Groupon’ is offered everyday in each of the markets where it serves. The ‘Groupon’ is like an assurance contract which requires a minimum number of people to sign up for the deal or offer before it is available to everyone, or else the deal gets lapsed for the day. LinkedIn: LinkedIn Corporation is a social networking website which is mainly meant for professional business purposes. It is headquartered at Mountain View, California, US. LinkedIn was launched in May, 2003 and its website is available in different languages like English, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, etc. It provides a leading service in professional networking globally. An individual can post their profile in LinkedIn website and then they can use different tools available in the site for accessing different services. These services include, opportunities for searching jobs, recruitment of candidates searching for job, search for partners, suppliers and customers, finding expert advice, etc (Yoffie, Slind & Achsaf, 2008). Through LinkedIn, registered users can maintain their contact details of users with whom they are related to each other. Sponsored advertising facility is also available in the site. The subscribers or members can also form groups which provide a platform for group discussion on various topics, mainly related to employment and career opportunities. Angie’s List: Angie’s List, Inc. is a US based company headquartered at Indianapolis, Indiana, US. It maintains a huge database of reviews made by customers. Angie’s List provides services that are consumer driven and requires membership fees. Customers give online reviews on the services provided by different companies and then grading of these companies is done by Angie’s List based o n different criteria like, price, professionalism, quality, etc. From the reviews and grades provided, customers get to know more about services in the areas of architect, plumbing, medical, automobiles, etc (Green Watch, n.d.). Only the top graded companies in Angie’s List are allowed to advertise. Build-up to the Floatation (IPO) onto the Stock Exchange Groupon Inc. IPO Groupon Inc. decided to go public for the first time and launched its IPO during November, 2011. It got listed in NASDAQ stock market with the ticker symbol â€Å"