Groupon priced its shares for its IPO debut today at a higher-than-expected $20 per share and at least one analyst urged investors to jump in based in part on the company's evolving travel business.
Benchmark's Fred Moran penned a research note urging investors to plunk their money down despite all the criticism that Groupon's business model may be unsustainable.
And part of Moran's bullishness about Groupon is based on an expected deeper foothold in the travel industry.
Moran writes:
We expect a combination of more diversification of offerings including travel and product deals to combine with geographic expansion to drive total Groupon gross billings growth of 450% year over year in 2011 to $4.1 billion, leading to $1.6 billion of revenue. Groupon's dominant position in the rapidly emerging daily deals segment of local commerce could lead to exponential growth and a potentially highly profitable enterprise. We recommend investors participate in the IPO of Groupon.
Moran adds: "These new offerings could really boost growth."
Groupon priced its IPO Nov. 3 at $20 per share on NASDAQ, higher than the previously expected range, in an offer that could bring a $13 billion valuation for the company. That's much lower than the buffed up valuation that Groupon and its supporters speculated about several months ago, but it's meatier than the $11.5 billion discussed over the last few weeks.
Moran writes that "travel and product offering represent the newest avenue for incremental deal offers."
Groupon enlisted Expedia and its vacation packages and launched Groupon Getaways with Expedia in July. In the interim, Expedia has expressed enthusiasm about the platform and says it will evaluate it further before taking next steps.
Moran also points to another travel industry deals publisher, Travelzoo, for evidence that the daily deals market is picking up some juice.
"Further evidence of daily deals market re-acceleration in September came through Travelzoo's 3Q11 earnings report released last Thursday with its September billings up 36% over August," Moran writes. "Daily deals may experience a holiday season uptick if it gets used as a gift-giving tool."
In June, Groupon indicated in a financial filing that travel is definitely a key component of its growth stategy and that launching deals categories by segment will help it better target customers.
Moran doesn't detail how Groupon may diversify its travel offerings in the future, but Groupon certainly covets getting more global so the possibilities of bringing in new partners, points of sale and products are many.
That is, of course, is if the business model is sustainable.