Forming a New Analyst Consensus in Groupon (GRPN)

Groupon, Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) is now finally off of its post-IPO quiet period and the analyst community, whether a part of the underwriting syndicate or not, is now free to cover the social coupon website service however they see fit.  We have seen some very positive analyst calls and we have seen more ‘down to earth’ analyst calls.  The online social couponing site was initiated in coverage as follows by some of the syndicate firms:

Overweight and $27.00 price target at Barclays;

Buy with $28.00 price target by Bank of America/Merrill Lynch;

Neutral and $24.00 price target at Citigroup;

Neutral with a $25.00 price target at Credit Suisse;

Hold with a $21.00 price target by Deutsche Bank;

Buy with a $29.00 price target by Goldman Sachs;

Neutral at Janney Capital Markets;

Neutral and $24.00 price target at JPMorgan;

Sector Perform with $25.00 price target at RBC Capital Markets;

Outperform with a $29.00 price target by Wells Fargo Securities;

Outperform at William Blair.

What is interesting is that the form Benchmark issued a “Buy” rating and a $32.00 price target objective back on November 7 as it was not a part of the underwriting syndicate.

As far as how this compares with the total universe of coverage, we still do not have all of the research calls with price targets.  The preliminary “consensus price target” would be somewhere between $26.00 and $27.00 depending upon which of the “non-target” firms are or are not counted.

The stock is down over 7% this morning at $21.65 and the post-IPO trading range is $14.85 to $31.14.

JON C. OGG