GROUPON’S PLANS for an initial public offering have been dented by the stock market slump and new financial disclosures that suggest the daily deal company’s business is slowing in North America, analysts said this week.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index fell more than four per cent on Wednesday, leaving it down about 13 per cent in the past month.

“Any shock to the market like the one this week is bad for anyone with IPO dreams, especially Groupon which did not have time on its side in the best of circumstances,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, an e-commerce analyst at Forrester Research.

A technology investment banker pronounced the market shut for IPOs and said the hope is for stability in September.

Enduro Royalty Trust, InvenSense, HomeStreet, WageWorks and Loyalty Alliance Enterprise have all postponed IPOs recently.

In June, Groupon filed to raise $750 million in an IPO. The company has been working toward a stock market debut in mid to late September.

It has not launched a roadshow yet, so it may be too early for the company to decide whether to proceed based on the health of the broader market.

Groupon updated its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, suggesting it is still working toward an eventual offering.

Groupon’s latest IPO filing may not help because some of the company’s new disclosures suggest its North American business is maturing.

Revenue rose to $878 million in the second quarter compared with $644.7 million in the first quarter and rose more than 900 per cent from $87.3 million in the second quarter of 2010, the company reported in the filing.

The numbers show Groupon’s growth slowed from the first quarter. Revenue was up 36 per cent in the second quarter, below growth of 63 per cent in the first quarter. The number of Groupon subscribers jumped to more than 115 million at the end of the second quarter. – (Reuters)