Groupon Sliding

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/04/20/groupon-falling-down-market-valuation-approaching-old-google-buyout-offer-price/?awesm=tnw.to_1E7Ly&utm_campaign=social%20media&utm_medium=share%20button&utm_source=Twitter&utm_content=Groupon%20falling%20down:%20Market%20valuation%20approaching%20old%20Google%20buyout%20offer%20price

by antr • 14 years ago

43 32 14 years ago

thenextweb.com

NelsonMinar• 14 years ago

This article editorializes "The company’s deflation has thrown something of a pall over tech companies, and could introduce chop into the IPO waters". Groupon is a special case. Much of their current woes is a new set of questions about their accounting. Ie: http://retheauditors.com/2012/04/07/groupon-you-must-have-fa...

gojomo2• 14 years ago

I treat it as an instant credibility demerit against journalists and headline-writers who casually group Groupon with other completely different, more tech-heavy, more honest companies.

rollypolly• 14 years ago

I hope this signals the end of that bubble.

antr3• 14 years ago

I was recently talking to a friend working at a hedge fund, and the Groupon topic came up. They say that, after some deep analysis/valuation, Groupon ain't worth more than $1.5bn (max). He also said that many investors don't see Groupon as tech, so other companies thinking of IPOing anytime soon should be save from this disastrous company.

arunoda• 14 years ago

Yes! I believe it. We are experiencing the same here in Sri Lanka.

We had a great war of GroupOn like sites in past 6 months. But only one is working on it greatly.

It is a FAD for me.

R_Symtex_II• 14 years ago

I doubt its even that, and I question the due diligence of the People at said Hedge Fund as Groupon has been using shadow banking and nefarious accounting to hide massive loses since its inception.

http://www.valuewalk.com/2012/04/groupon-inc-grpn-accounting...

There is no accurate way to place a (positive) estimate/valuation of the operation or its profitability, personally I doubt they even have operating capital since it took that dive earlier this month. It looked to me like the tail end of a significant short selling position finally came to fruition by insiders who got in early.

ErrantX• 14 years ago

Clearly Groupon is going to fail, that seems fairly certain now (right?).

But the real question is what the long term fall out from that will be?

drumdance• 14 years ago

Dunno about their business prospects but as a consumer I've found myself using them and LivingSocial more and more. Not restaurants, but things like yoga classes, massage, museum exhibits etc.

PhrosTT• 14 years ago

Using Groupon at a restaurant is like telling the waitstaff, "Hi I'd like you to treat me like shit tonight."

mikescar• 14 years ago

Or, you have two more realistic options:

- Present the coupon when settling the bill - Let your server know upfront that you will tip against the price before the coupon. And then do it.

lawrence• 14 years ago

I haven't really noticed the pall. LinkedIn and Jive are doing very, very well on the public markets. As far as the private markets, valuations and acquisition prices don't seem to be, ahem, slipping too much.

gojomo2• 14 years ago

I predict May will be a very cruel month for Groupon. Around mid-month, three big things happen:

• they have to report their next-quarter results, the first reporting after they belatedly recharacterized a profit as a loss. They'll be watched like a hawk, and even if they report good results many will have doubts.

• the 6-month lockup on many insiders selling their shares expires

• Facebook goes public. Contrasted against Facebook and other newly-public real-profits, non-deceptive-accounting tech companies, GRPN will stick out as the shifty exception. It won't have the halo of being mentally grouped with other more solid companies much longer.

antr3• 14 years ago

i just hope that the company goes bust before the lock-up expires. i'd rather see VCs write-off another bad investment rather than seeing that stock be dumped to pension funds.

chollida12• 14 years ago

Groupon isn't in any major index.

Groupon doesn't pay any form of dividend.

There is no major positive event to trade it around.

Given that, I'm curious to know what pension fund you think would invest in Groupon?

bsandbox• 14 years ago

Those outcomes are likely. Although it's also possible that:

* next-quarter results are "less bad" than expected, and the large band of short sellers have to start buying to cover

* insiders feel that the stock is unfairly priced and are willing to hold on until it improves

* Facebook's IPO is a roaring success and generates a rising tide for all internet stocks

I think the first one has the most chance of happening. The stock is heavily shorted right now, any news that's not negative has the chance of sparking a rally.

thecosas• 14 years ago

Does anybody else just see this as the market being smart after seeing what real money Groupon is/isn't making?

karlshea• 14 years ago

Exactly. How anyone thought that Groupon was ever going to do well is a complete mystery to me.

tatsuke952• 14 years ago

The problem was "doing well" wasn't good enough.

julian37• 14 years ago

Off-topic, but does anybody else find the Groupon stock "chart" on that page infuriating?! It looks as if it's interactive, suggesting that you can use the control at the top to zoom in on a particular time range, or use the slider at the bottom to go back in time. And the "hand" cursor on mouse-over suggests that you can interact with it. But clicking anywhere just serves to reload the page! Maybe it's just me but it took me two full-page reloads to realize I was being conned.

@thenextweb.com: please embed the real, functional widget; or, failing that, embed a chart that doesn't look like a widget. If you really, really must embed a functional-looking but non-functional picture of a widget, at least link it to the real widget.

And if for some reason none of the above is possible, and you really have to include a picture of something that looks like you can interact with it, don't make it clickable because doing so will confuse the hell out of people like me.

tatsuke952• 14 years ago

>"But clicking anywhere just serves to reload the page! Maybe it's just me but it took me two full-page reloads to realize I was being conned."

Yeah, it looks like they just took a screen shot of the Google Finance chart:

https://www.google.ca/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:GRPN

Kind of weird.

Zhenya• 14 years ago

Agreed! Very unprofessional to take screenshots with interactive components and leave them there.

I spent a few seconds trying to drag the dang scroll bar!

Gormo• 14 years ago

It's a screenshot from Google Finance. They didn't bother to crop out the UI controls.

MaysonL• 14 years ago

edzme• 14 years ago

No i think it's fine. After you click it once you'll know. Takes about 3 seconds.

kevinlu310• 14 years ago

This is exactly what I was and is expecting.

mathattack• 14 years ago

They are in a tough spot.

I think the article overstates the impact of their stock performance on the overall tech market. If they underperform, it might keep sanity in the market. And most tech firms don't follow their business model. It may hurt coupon site fast followers, but that's not a big loss. The Facebook IPO will erase any bad memories of Groupon.

aresant• 14 years ago

This company is about Andrew Mason.

From a former employee quoted on TC - "For all the shit he takes, you should especially worry if Andrew isn’t running Groupon."

I loved this.

Mason in the press gets an undercurrent of "not from the valley" or "former music major from northwestern" or "eccentric".

As a result the tilt of stories about Groupon suggest that it was built on "won the lottery" luck, not "when preparation meets opportunity" luck.

The guy built the fastest-to-a-billion in REVENUE ever online.

I get the inherent problems @ Groupon, but can't help remembering when Steve Jobs was dismissed as a has-been that was lucky to ride on the coattails of Woz, and thrown to the wolves by the board.

klochner• 14 years ago

We need a corollary to Godwin's law for references to Steve Jobs.

Together they would constitute the 'gambler's ruin' of online discussion forums.

Groupon Sliding

Related Stories