And the cheap get cheaper. Groupon
And it's not just the early shareholders who are bailing. New retail investors also moved on after last week's dreadful quarterly report. Despite a 45% spike in year-over-year revenue growth, sequential revenue declined by 7% if you back out the company's direct revenue that's being booked through its recent Groupon Goods merchandise offerings.
Yikes!
As Groupon's market cap has cratered to $3 billion -- a shell of its $12 billion price tag when it went public late last year -- it's getting popular to criticize Groupon for passing on what now seems like a very generous Google
Neither company ever confirmed the chatter, but it's been widely reported that Yahoo!
It's easy to blast Groupon. It's also a sobering contrast that Groupon's hitting a new low today just as Google is striking a four-year high. However, let's not gloss over the reason Groupon was holding out for a beefy penalty if the deal fell apart. Regulators would have taken a long time to review the acquisition, and antitrust regulators probably wouldn't have agreed to let the world's largest online advertising company grab the world's largest daily-deals leader.
Google has proved to be a good owner. YouTube has flourished under its watch. But the months of uncertainty as regulators weighed the decision could've been brutal. It took them nearly a year to clear Google's purchase of a much smaller travel software company.
Living Social, backed by Amazon.com
If the deal had been nixed, Groupon would've been in an even weaker position today. Yes, Groupon's flawed. The model's a mess. However, using Google as an exit strategy was never as viable an option as many people reflecting back on the situation today make it seem.
What a deal
Daily deals are no longer a lucrative niche, but there's a hot technology trend out there with legs. There are only a handful of ways to play this booming industry, and a new report details the three stocks to own to profit from this revolution. Did I mention that it's a free report? Check it out now.