Groupon is entering a new era.
CNNMoney is reporting that CEO Andrew Mason is out at the company that he founded.
I wrote in November that it was likely that Mason was going to get fired. He survived that quarterly earnings period, but couldn't survive the most recent results.
It's not much of a surprise because of two things. First, they should have taken Google's offer to buyout for some $6 billion. Upon passing on that, they needed to diversify and earn revenue from that diversification fast.
Groupon started to diversify, including such things as a new credit card processing service (a highly watered down market as it is), but it was basically too little, too late.
So where does the company go from here? They will name an interim CEO, but from there the company has a few options.
They are now a major target for a takeover at a huge discount to what Google offered. They may also keep trying to further diversify their offerings and basically 'restart' the company. Third, they may end up going private.
It's a bit too early to say which way the company will go, but we will likely know by the end of the year.
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