It all started in June of 2011, many months before the IPO of one of the biggest scams to cross the US equity exchanges (and that's saying a lot in and of itself). I posted a forensic analysis of Groupon “What Does Groupon and the Matrix Have In Common? [6]". I warned, I valued, the company went public, and... Nov 12, 2012 Multiple Muppet Mashing Leaves Groupon Shareholders Holding The Bag After 89% Off IPO Coupon [7]. In that particular post, I actually offered the full Groupon reseach to download for free. It's amazing how this obvious Ponzi scheme got so much analyst and investor attention. Any and all BoomBustBlog subscribers saw it for exactly what it was, and hopefully shorted accordingly!
Earlier, I got on the Ponzi Exposure Express once again... Sep 26, 2011 I Suggest Groupon Offer Coupons To It's IPO Investors, They're Going To Need Them [8]. And previous to that, once again...
Here's an abstract from our June subscriber-only analysis - Groupon Forensic Analysis & Valuation (923.04 kB 2011-06-16 10:34:36) [9]:
“Groupon’s revenue consists of the gross amount paid by customers for purchased Groupon while gross profit is the amount that the company retains after paying its merchants an agreed upon percentage of the purchase price to the featured merchant. So the comparable number for price-to-sales to use for Groupon is gross profit, or the fees it collects from merchants, which the management has correctly stated as the best proxy for the value created by the company. To put things into perspective, if eBay used the same math as Groupon does, it would have reported revenues of $61bn instead of $9bn. The company reported gross profit of $530m over last 12 months. At $25bn valuation that would put the valuation at 42x “comparable sales”. To put things in perspective, Google trades at Price-to-sales of 5.8x, Apple at 4.7x, Microsoft at 3.3x, Amazon at 2.6x and Yahoo at 3.4x.“
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In the latest S-1 registration statement, the company has revised its revenue figures by more than half. The company has restated its 2010 revenues from $713m to $313m while Q1-11 revenues were restated to $296m from $645m previously. The company has restated its financial results “to correct for an error” in the way it reported revenue. The revenue accounting change is Groupon’s second since it filed to go public. The company has also changed the presentation of certain expenses to be consistent with reporting revenue. Clearly, such errors and frequent change in the accounting policies clearly puts strain on the credibility of management – and that’s putting it lighlty, especially for a company that is contemplating an IPO, not to mention that such changes are top line numbers such as revenues. In another blow to Groupon, the company’s COO Margo Georgiadis is leaving the firm to join back Google.
How about... Muppets Get MASHED Once Again - Groupon Half [11]-off (Share price) Sale, Aug 14, 2012 – CNBC reports that Groupon [GRPN 5.815 -1.735 (-22.98%)] plunged more than 20 percent...
I can go on, but why bother? This company was pumped, dumped and marketed by several big name analysts and banks. One would think independent analyst shops would be one of the biggest shops in all of Wall Street, no?
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