Groupon co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason may need to wait a little while longer before joining the billionaire-on-paper club.
The daily-deal company’s investment bankers priced the company’s initial public offering at $20 a share last night, valuing the company at $12.65 billion.
That places Mason’s worth just below $1 billion, not that he’s shedding tears over it.
Here’s a breakdown of the largest shareholders’ worth, which of course will fluctuate along with the stock price:
Eric Lefkofsky: $2.56 billion
Not bad for the guy who bet $1 million on ThePoint.com, the predecessor to Groupon started by Mason. Talk about “wildly profitable.” This is on top of the $386 million of stock he redeemed earlier this year–shares he paid just $546 for. Yes, $546. Lefkofsky, who now invests in start-ups through his firm, Lightbank, was previously Mason’s boss at a Chicago printing company.
- New Enterprise Associates
- Peter Barris
New Enterprise Associates: $1.75 billion
The venture firm has already pocketed $70 million, redeeming shares in January that originally cost the firm just $1.36 million. But if all goes well with Groupon, this bet has the potential to deliver one of the great returns in the venture industry. Led by NEA Partner Peter Barris, the firm invested just $14.8 million in Groupon, back in 2008 and 2009. On paper, we’re talking about a 118x return. That should pay back much of the fund it invested from, a $2.5 billion pool of capital, one of the largest venture funds ever raised.
- Bloomberg News
- Little Andy Mason
Andrew Mason: $919 million
Earlier this year the scuttlebutt pegged Mason a billionaire, thanks to a rumored $20 billion price tag set on the company. That’s not the case pre-IPO, but as we saw this year the winds can shift fast–knock the stock price up one dollar to $21 and voila, he cracks Forbes’ Billionaires list. Not that we feel sorry for him. No matter the riches, Mason just may be one of the most fascinating start-up CEOs of our time.
- Bloomberg News
- Brad Keywell
Brad Keywell: $825 million
Co-founders Keywell and Lefkofsky already made a small fortune together as the founders of Echo Global Logistics, a transportation management company that went public in 2009. The college pals now run venture firm Lightbank together. Before he was a serial entrepreneur, Keywell worked at Sam Zell’s private investment vehicle.
- European Founders Fund
- The Samwer brothers
The Samwer brothers: $784 million
Marc, Oliver and Alexander are the trio behind venture capital firm European Founders Fund, which is making quite a name for itself with investments in Facebook, HomeAway and LinkedIn. They actually didn’t invest in Groupon — rather they received their shares when Groupon acquired German clone CityDeal in May. They also previously founded Alando, which sold to eBay in 1999 for $54 million, and Jamba, which sold to Verisign in 2004 for $273 million.
- Accel Partners
- Kevin Efrusy
Accel Partners: $664 million
This is the other venture firm that can brag it bet on Groupon early, paying $20 million in November 2009 for shares now worth about 33x that number. The partner who invested is none other than Kevin Efrusy, the man who convinced Accel to take a chance on Mark Zuckerberg.
COMMENTARY: These are phoney on-paper-only billionaires and millionaires. When Groupon stock prices start to drop later this month, Eric Lefkowsky maybe the only staffer billionaire.
Courtesy of an article dated November 4, 2011 appearing in The Wall Street Journal
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.