• The New York Times, Tuesday, October 18, 2011 12 AM

If not quite an obituary, The New York Times examines what went wrong with Groupon, and how Wall Street overlooked multiple warning signs in its haste to bring the company public. “Underwriters are supposed to be gatekeepers, not just a sales and marketing agent,” say Lynn E. Turner, a former chief accountant for the S.E.C.

“Underwriters have gotten to the point of being cheerleaders. I question whether they are really fulfilling their obligation to investors.” The offending underwriter, in Groupon’s case, was Goldman Sachs, which beat out other investment banks to shepherd what was, as NYT writes, “supposed to be the hottest initial public offering of the year: Groupon, the fledgling online coupon company that was being valued at around $30 billion.”

Now, however -- in the face of slowing growth, accounting and disclosure issues and serious management questions -- analysts question whether Groupon warrants a valuation over $10 billion.

Read the whole story at The New York Times »