Groupon announced today that it has finalized its acquisition of Ticket Monster, a Korean ticket and e-commerce company. In its document filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, it read that it has completed its previously-reported purchase of LS Korea on January 2. LS Korea, or LivingSocial Korea is the holding company of Ticket Monster.
According to TechCrunch, Groupon acquired the Korean company for $260 million. The purchase was for the purpose of boosting its efforts at international expansion and flagging revenue growth rates. In its recent quarter, Groupon posted earnings per share of $0.02 and $595.1 million in revenue.
The report said Ticket Monster could accelerate Groupon's top line quickly. On an annual basis, the report said Ticket Monster has $800 million in gross billings at the time of the acquisition announcement, and has 4 million active customers. As a company, Ticket Monster was observed to have recorded revenue growth quickly and will be bringing in cash and equivalents of a mere $15.1 million to Groupon, however. This, TechCrunch said, could be the reason why LivingSocial decided to divest its Korean business. The report also pointed out that LivingSocial itself is not doing well, and might be needing funds to continue its own business.
Groupon was noted for a time as the fastest growing company of all time. It has since gotten listed, but saw its shares plunged as profits were elusive for the company. As such, its growth curve that it was famous for initially had flattened out.
RIval LivingSocial, on the other hand, has managed to raise a total of $924 million to date. At one point, shareholder Amazon had to charge $169 million in its books when the company struggled in the global market.
The report said investors of Groupon would not be very happy with the dilution of the 13.8 million new shares due to the deal, but if Groupon could grow its business again to its former impressive figures, TechCrunch said the share dilution will no longer be an issue.
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