Groupon上市失利谁之过？

    先是团购网站Groupon解雇了安德鲁•梅森。现在流媒体音乐服务供应商Pandora又表示乔•肯尼迪即将离职。在那些上市首日股价飙升、并因此在公共市场引起轰动的公司担任CEO，现在看起来真像是一场职业冒险。

    Pandora在2010年6月将股价定为16美元。首个交易日，它的股价猛涨至26美元，随后一天又跌至发行价以下。去年，Pandora的股价曾一度跌至每股8美元，到昨天收盘时涨回到11.73美元。这个价位离首次公开募股的价格仍然低了27%，比历史最高点低了55%。

    Groupon的股价轨迹与之相似，不过更加夸张。它的发行价为每股20美元，仅仅几个小时后就上涨到31.14美元，随之而来的便是缓慢而痛苦的下跌。梅森离开Groupon的那一天，公司股价已经低至每股4.24美元，比起首次公开募股价格低了79%，比首日转瞬即逝的历史最高点低了86%。

    看看这两只股票。经验丰富的投资者早已对第一个明显的教训谙熟于心：当心第一天的飞涨。很久以前，购买首日发行的股票，它的涨势很可能会持续几周，甚至几个月。但是最近急躁的投资者对于快速变现短期收益或抛空短命股票已经越来越缺乏耐心。

    不过经过事后分析，还有一些事情也逐渐清楚：对许多公司而言，利用互联网盈利似乎变得越来越难。能够与消费者产生大量共鸣的商业模式无法转化为带来稳定收入增长的业务。

    在第一波网络初创公司的浪潮中，亚马逊（Amazon）和雅虎（Yahoo）这样的公司在稳定盈利之前，早期都有过几年的亏损。而更近一些崭露头角的公司，如谷歌（Google）和Facebook，已经能获得20%至30%的利润空间。

    不过这些都是例外。许多网络公司最近的首次公开募股都在与稍纵即逝的盈利或常规性的季度亏损作斗争。Pandora和Groupon的利润空间与谷歌的对比如下图所示。的确，谷歌是一家资历更老、更加成熟的公司，但是它公开发售股票时，拥有13%的净利润空间和20%的税前利润率。

    First Groupon fired Andrew Mason. Now Pandora says Joe Kennedy is leaving Pandora. Being a CEO of a company that made a splash in the public markets with high-flying IPOs is starting to look like a job hazard.

    Pandora (P) priced its shares at $16 in June 2010. On its first day of trading, the stock shot up to $26 before plunging below its offering price the next day. After dipping as low as $8 a share last year, Pandora has rallied to $11.73 at yesterday's close. That's still 27% below its IPO price and 55% down from its record high.

    Groupon's (GRPN) stock has followed a similar if more extreme trajectory. Offered at $20 a share, the stock surged to $31.14 in a matter of hours, then began a slow painful slide. The day Mason left Groupon, the company's stock traded as low as $4.24 a share, a 79% discount from its offering price and 86% off its fleeting, first-day high.

    Looking at these two stocks, the first apparent lesson is one well-known to experienced investors: Beware the first-day pop. Once upon a time, buying a stock on the first day of trading could possibly let you in on a rally that could last months, if not weeks. But recently bearish investors have been impatient to cash in on quick gains or short stocks they believe have a brief shelf-life.

    But with more hindsight, something else is becoming clear: It seems to be getting harder for many companies to make money from the web. The business models that have resonated with consumers on a large scale simply aren't translating into businesses that can generate steady profit growth.

    In the first wave of Internet startups, companies like Amazon (AMZN) and Yahoo (YHOO) posted early losses for years before moving into steady profitability. Newer companies like Google (GOOG) and Facebook (FB) have emerged capable of delivering profit margins of 20% or 30%.

    But these are the exceptions. Many recent web IPOs have struggled with fleeting profits or regular quarterly losses. Compare the profit margins of Pandora and Groupon with that of Google in the chart below. Granted, Google is an older, more mature company, but when it went public it had net profit margin of 13% and a pretax margin of 20%.