Skip to footer

Groupon woes continue with lawsuit, low earnings

Groupon's stock hit an all-time low last week, and the company has been hit with a lawsuit from shareholders for dishonest business practices.

|
Mark Lennihan/AP/File
During happier times, employees and guests of Groupon celebrate the company's IPO at Nasdaq. Since its dazzling opening just six months ago, Groupon stock has plunged to an all-time low, and the company has come under fire for being less than truthful about the state of their finances.

So it turns out that Web 2.0 investing isn't all exits and lollipops and blazers with hoodies underneath...

Things get serious whenever you're talking billions instead of a few million between friends.  I admire Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason for trying to keep things the way they were.  But that's not how it works when you're a public company with hundreds of thousands of shareholders - the frat boy-wonder schtick just isn't cute anymore.

From TIME:

Groupon’s headaches are growing more serious. Just days after an accounting snafu forced the discount website to reveal a greater-than-reported fourth-quarter loss, the company was slapped with a shareholder lawsuit accusing its top executives of a “fraudulent scheme” that “deceived the investing public” about the company’s prospects and business. As if that wasn’t enough, Groupon’s stock hit an all-time low Wednesday and it faces a probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Also, check out Francine's expert take on what responsibility Ernst & Young have here, if any, for the weak controls and restatement...

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Groupon woes continue with lawsuit, low earnings
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Reformed-Broker/2012/0409/Groupon-woes-continue-with-lawsuit-low-earnings
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe