After Turning Down Google’s Offer To Buy It For $6 Billion, Groupon.com Finds Itself Having a Value of Under $2 Billion

2012 November 9
by Michael Berkens

Less thanĀ  two years ago Groupon.com turned down an offer of $6 Billion dollars from Google.

It was just over a year ago that Groupon.com went public at $20 a share, given it an implied valuation of $13 Billion.

After reporting declining revenue yesterday shares of Groupon sank below $3 a share today down some 30% from the previous close, giving the company a $1.8 Billion dollar valuation.

So the company went from a $6 Billion dollar offer from Google which if it would have taken all Google stock for, which was at $570 at that time, they would have made an extra 20% as shares of Google are currently $663.

Instead the company is only valued at $1.8 billion and shares are not trending well.

 

6 Responses leave one →
  1. 2012 November 10

    Greed is alive and well – and often hurts.

    The $6bn offer was the jackpot – yet, they wanted more – thought they could be a $100bn business. But why wasn’t $6bn in 2 years from zero enough?

    …Why is it that stupendous success can so often lead to incomprehensible stupidity? (sigh)

  2. 2012 November 10
    Grim permalink

    It’s amazing that an easily-copyable business model like Groupon was ever offered $6 billion in the first place. When compared to the recent purchase of LucasFilm by Disney for $4 billion, something just doesn’t seem right.

  3. 2012 November 10

    @Grim good point. They should have taken the 6B and run, don’t think they will recover. Saved G a lot of money.

  4. 2012 November 10
    Paul permalink

    This also means Google would have overpaid by more than $4 billion. So you have to wonder about that aspect too. All these payouts by big companies to relatively small upstarts… it’s all a little maddening. Bet the insiders at Groupon wish they could have a do over. Easy come, easy go. Do we ever learn from our mistakes people? Pets.com anyone?

  5. 2012 November 10
    Louise permalink

    Yet Yelp turned down 1/2 billion from Google in December 2009:

    Yelp Walks Away From Google Deal, And Half A Billion Dollars
    http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/20/yelp-walks-away-from-google-deal-and-half-a-billion-dollars

    yet, it did the right thing, its market cap near $1.12 billion now, one could surmise. That is the deal that got away from Google.

  6. 2012 November 10

    A while back , Last 2 years everywhere you looked on the web you would see groupon ads.
    With all the hype and over inflated interest ,(A lot of domains were regged with couponing in mind)Which is common it does not surprise me the actual worth is starting to shine through.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.


Sign In With: