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A comment on Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable.

Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by puredemo on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:02PM (#2869914)
Groupon not selling to Google was the dumbest thing I've ever seen a company do.

Ever.

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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by jcampbell1 on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:21PM (#2870007)
Google's offer was $6B. The IPO is priced at $30B. I am scratching my head how that is the dumbest thing you have ever seen a company do. Ever. I can see the IPO valuation getting cut to a more reasonable $10B, but that is still more than the Google offer.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by jonknee on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:34PM (#2870072)
Who's to say the IPO will be successful? The suits will have to keep their shares for a bit, plenty of time for the whole mess to unfold. Plus, Groupon raised a ton of VC ($950M) after turning down Google's offer. Factoring in dilution, it won't take a drastically bad IPO to make $6B in-hand look like a steal.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by staunch on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:45PM (#2870105)
Hundreds of millions of dollars already went to the founders. The only risk is whether they'll be super rich or ultra super rich.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by teej on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @06:45PM (#2870535)
Incorrect. Tens of millions of dollars already went to founders. Only investors cashed out in the 9 figure range. [1]

That's a huge difference, especially considering that Groupon fancies itself a $30B company.

[1] - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-millions-of-dollars-group...

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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by staunch on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @07:09PM (#2870613)
Nope. Groupon was started by Andrew Mason and Eric Lefkofsky (who also put up the first money). Eric Lefkofsky through his investment shells^Wcompanies took more money out than anyone else.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by jonknee on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @05:02PM (#2870174)
There are more stakeholders in the company than the founders.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by staunch on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @05:33PM (#2870301)
Sure, but the founders (and the rest of the board) made the decision not to sell. You can call them fools, but they're laughing all the way to the bank.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by jonknee on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @07:13PM (#2870630)
Possibly laughing all the way to the bank, it could end up that Google was a much better deal.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by puredemo on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:58PM (#2870160)
We'll see..

http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/web-ipos...

"Groupon is still effectively insolvent, and without capital infusions is unlikely to exist in 18 months."

In my opinion, valuing a company at $10B when they haven't ever shown a net profit is ludicrous.

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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by samstave on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @05:53PM (#2870384)
Are they letting Goldman Sachs handle the IPO?

GS is pretty evil in pushing ridiculous IPO values in order to get their higher cut. Cant wait to see what BS goes on with GS handling Facebooks IPO.

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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by anigbrowl on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @08:17PM (#2870801)
That's an interesting point. GS has been having a rather lackluster year so far (by their own standards - many other firms would love to have their problems). The firm is caught between a rock and a hard place; it needs to demonstrate everything is above board and strictly in accordance with the law, but is also under pressure from investors to improve performance. Not that so much hinges on any one deal, but this IPO has become something of a barometer for the sector absent an announcement by Facebook.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by maukdaddy on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @08:18PM (#2870805)
Welcome to the 1990s!
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by hvs on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:06PM (#2869932)
So, does that make Google offering to buy Groupon also one of the dumbest things you've ever seen a company do?
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by enjo on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:24PM (#2870017)
Speculating here, but I don't think Google wanted Groupon as an immediate profit center. They wanted their considerable mindshare and ready-made sales and marketing team. I'm guessing that they felt they could merge Googles ability to optimize with that juggernaut and build something to just dominate the local marketing space (particularly the real time stuff).
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by mechanical_fish on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:12PM (#2869963)
It's relative. Google has piles of money and the means of making more; if they make a mistake in spending their pocket change, it's no biggie. But Groupon has piles of debts, and their runway is getting shorter.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by SoftwareMaven on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:22PM (#2870013)
I think Google was willing to pay way more than they should have for Groupon, but I wouldn't call it anywhere near the dumbest thing a company could do.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by emp_ on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:12PM (#2869965)
One goes be dumb and moves on, the other goes dumb and dies.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by lucasjake on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:18PM (#2869986)
This is pretty simplistic thinking. For all you know Groupon wanted the deal badly, Google walked away from the deal, and both parties agreed to go with the story that Groupon walked away so that it wouldn't kill their prospects of an IPO.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by jonknee on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:31PM (#2870050)
It's always nice to cushion your IPO with fraud...
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by uptown on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:33PM (#2870065)
Why would Google go along with a story that made it look like they were powerless to get what they wanted?
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by lucasjake on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @06:18PM (#2870459)
I don't think anyone had that feeling when the deal fell through. Many people were surprised Google was interested in the first place. Google had to consider the deal, after all Groupon was buying shit tons of advertising on Google at the time.

If you're company realizes a certain scale on the internet (i.e. a billion dollar valuation) there is a good chance the deal is going to get looked at by all the big consumer tech firms.

Groupon walked in to the negotiations with a publicly speculated valuation of 1B, and after the deal fell through they were being talked about somewhere greater than 5B, and got an extra investment from DST. Seems like negotiating with Google worked out well for them in that respect.

Notice how Andrew Mason never answers the question publicly about why they 'walked away' from Google.

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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by hello_moto on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @06:11PM (#2870435)
Maybe because Google can play the angle of "We almost got cheated, now we learn to become better" later on when Groupon crumbles...
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by uptown on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @06:20PM (#2870467)
That seems like a really complicated narrative for the two parties to fabricate. Isn't it just more likely that Groupon thought they were worth more than Google was willing to pay?
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by jayzee on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @05:57PM (#2870397)
It was actually smart. Groupon wanted a hefty break-up $5B fee. Google refused. Groupon must have known that the deal would never pass muster at Google after real number crunching. Hence they refused. With the break-up fee they would have still made like bandits.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by samirg on Thursday August 11, 2011 @01:32AM (#2871562)
The break up fee was to protect against the gov't blocking the acquisition due to antitrust concerns as far as I know. Pretty sure the business diligence was already complete by that time.
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by Tofusensei on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @07:53PM (#2870747)
Source?
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by shrikant on Thursday August 11, 2011 @06:34AM (#2872223)
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373870,00.asp

"I think the holdup on GOOG/Groupon deal is size of break-up fee if Gov't blocks deal," wrote Venrock venture capitalist David Pakman in a Twitter message early December 3.

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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by Macsenour on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @07:29PM (#2870678)
And how would you rank it with Yahoo not selling to Microsoft?
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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by r00fus on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @04:47PM (#2870114)
It's speculated that Google's terms may have been less profitable for the early funders (ie, the controllers of the company) than the round G (which gave a LOT of money back to early investors) and subsequent IPO.

So it could be a case of the powerful people not making enough with a Google exit than going public, even though Google + Groupon might have been a powerful and long-term more meaningful exit.

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Re:Groupon updates IPO filing, admits it's unprofitable by thomasgerbe on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @05:48PM (#2870362)
I wouldn't say it's the dumbest thing I've seen but Google certainly moved on by acquiring Dealmap.
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