Daily deals website Groupon canceled its investor roadshow and is reevaluating plans for an initial public offering in the face of stock-market volatility, a person familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. While the Chicago company isn't pulling its IPO, it is reassessing its timing on a week by week basis, the paper's source said. Groupon had originally been aiming to go public after Labor Day (5 September) and to price its shares in mid-September. The roadshow had been planned for next week. The delay may be due to scrutiny from the SEC. After filing its prospectus in June, Groupon was asked by the SEC to remove an unusual accounting metric, dubbed Adjusted Consolidated Segment Operating Income, which painted a more robust picture of its performance. Last week, the SEC also contacted a Groupon attorney over a different matter, the WSJ reported: a leaked internal memo from Groupon CEO Andrew Mason to his staff, in which he touted the company and blasted its critics. Making public statements about the financial status of a company during an IPO process is prohibited by SEC rules.
