December 4th, 2010 9:27 am EST
Groupon Rejects Deal Reported to Be Worth $6 Billion
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In February of 2008, Microsoft made a run at acquiring Yahoo!, reportedly offering as much as $33 per share to buy the company. Yahoo! said that this offer undervalued the company, and Microsoft formally walked away from the bid a few days later.
Yahoo! now trades at $16.35 per share.
In September of 2006, Yahoo! reportedly made an offer to buy Facebook for $1 billion. Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) eventually decided to turn down the deal after expressing an interest to build the company "for the longer term".
Facebook is now valued at approximately $50 billion.
What's the point of bringing up these two transactions?
Earlier this week, Groupon's board of directors met to discuss a proposed deal with Google.
 According to various media reports, Google was offering up to $6 billion for the red-hot local deals site. If completed, this would have been Google's biggest acquisition to date.
Many people figured that Groupon would quickly sign off on the deal and count their billions.
These people were wrong.
According to Chicagobreakingbusiness.com, Groupon's board of directors decided to walk away from the deal. The reasons behind the rejection haven't been made public, but apparently the company may pursue an IPO in 2011.
Will this end up being a colossal blunder on Groupon's part (similar to when Yahoo! said no to Microsoft), or is the company destined to follow Facebook's path and be worth multiples more in just a few years?
Source: Chicagobreakingbusiness.com - Groupon Rejects Google's Offer; Will Stay Independent
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