阿里会接手吗？Groupon正在寻找买家 [美国媒体]

Groupon’s 10-year run as an independent company could be coming to an end. Groupon

长达10年的作为一家独立公司的历史可能即将成为过去。（译者注：Groupon，团购鼻祖级公司， 谷歌曾计划以60亿美元收购Groupon.，这将是当时谷歌最大的一笔收购，但最终收购失败。）



Groupon executives — as well as bankers who represent the company — have contacted several public companies in the past month to try to drum up interest in acquiring the Chicago-based company that pioneered the local commerce category known as daily deals, two people briefed on these approaches told Recode.

Groupon的高管以及代表该公司的银行家们——在过去的一个月里联系了几家上市公司，试图激起它们收购这家公司的兴趣，以芝加哥为基地的Groupon开创了商业交易的新概念，两名知情人士向Recod新闻简要介绍道。（Recod：一家新闻类网站）

Groupon has made it known for some time to potential acquirers that the company is open to the idea of a sale, but representatives for the company were especially aggressive last month in attempting to create interest among potential suitors, one of these people said. It’s not clear if Groupon has been successful in stirring up a suitor or what’s behind the current push to sell.

Groupon对于被收购持开放态度，该公司已经向潜在收购方透露这一消息有一段时间了，但是知情人士透露，在激起投资者兴趣方面，该公司的代表们在上个月特别积极，目前尚不清楚Groupon是否已经成功地激起了投资者的兴趣，以及目前推销的背后代表着什么。

A Groupon spokesperson declined to comment.

Groupon发言人拒绝置评。

In the first few years following its launch in 2008, Groupon was one of the darlings of the startup world after introducing the concept of daily deals to online consumers, igniting a frenzy among deal seekers and local businesses alike. By its IPO day in 2011 — the second-largest ever for a tech company at the time — Groupon was worth more than $16 billion, making its decision to turn down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google a year earlier look smart.

在2008推出后的最初几年里，Groupon因为向在线消费者引入了日常交易的概念，成为创业市场的宠儿之一，点燃了投资者和当地商业企业的狂热。在2011的IPO当天，Groupon市值超过160亿美元，这是当时科技公司中市值第二高的——这也使得Groupon一年之前拒绝谷歌60亿美元的收购看起来很明智。

But that may have been the company’s peak. Today, Groupon is valued at just $2.4 billion after a years-long decline in the daily deals category; Groupon acquired its principal competitor LivingSocial for $0 in 2016. Amazon once owned a third of LivingSocial in addition to operating its own local deals business, which it shut down in 2015.

但这可能是该公司的巅峰时期。现在，经过股市日常交易中长达一年的持续下跌，Groupon市值只有24亿美元；Groupon在2016年以0美元度收购了其主要竞争对手LivingSocial。亚马逊也曾为了发展自身的本地商业业务，持有LivingSocial三分之一的股份，但在2015亚马逊退出。（LivingSocial，是仅次于Groupon的美国第二大团购网站）

In the past year, Groupon decided to focus less on its Goods category — where it sells discounted physical products — and more on its core digital voucher business, in an effort to boost profit margins.

在过去的一年里，为了提高利润率，Groupon决定更多的关注于它核心的数字证书业务。而不是出售打折商品的零售策略。

As a result, overall company revenue fell 5.6 percent in 2017 to $2.84 billion — its lowest total since 2013. Groupon, however, turned an operating profit in 2017 for the first time since 2014.

结果是，2017的公司总收入下降了5.6%到28.4亿美元——这是自2013以来的最低水平。当然，2017年也是Groupon自2014年以来首次扭亏为盈。

Since November 2015, Groupon has been run by CEO Rich Williams, who had previously held other senior roles at the company since arriving from Amazon in 2011. For years, he has said that the company’s goal is to make Groupon a “daily habit” in the life of consumers. That surely hasn’t happened yet, but no other online company focused on the local commerce sector has accomplished it either.

自2015年11月以来，Groupon一直由首席执行官里切·威廉姆斯运营，自2011从亚马逊离职进入公司以来，他就在该公司担任其他高级职务。多年来他一直说，公司的目标是让Groupon成为消费者生活中的不可缺少的一部分，这肯定还没有发生，但其他专注于本地商务的网络公司也没有达成这一目标。

Who would buy Groupon? Alibaba and IAC have been floated as potential acquirers in the past — Alibaba because it bought a nearly 6 percent stake in the company in 2016and IAC because its CEO Joey Levin sits on Groupon’s board.

谁会买Groupon呢？阿里巴巴和IAC(埃驰)是可能的潜在收购方，阿里是因为它在2016年围绕Groupon已经收购了6%的股份，而IAC则是因为他们的CEO乔伊莱文是Groupo的董事会成员之一。(IAC的主营业务在制造业上，实际上收购的可能性不大.)
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