Groupon, Inc.Common Stock Investor update
Review the key takeaways and the transcript of this earnings call.
- Groupon's leadership, including CEO Dushan and CFO Rana, discussed the company's turnaround since 2023, moving from negative 25% billings growth to low single-digit growth.
- The company has focused on rebuilding its platform and operations, including launching a project called Foundry to centralize data and integrate AI to accelerate execution and improve merchant and consumer experiences.
- Groupon operates a two-sided marketplace serving merchants and consumers, aiming to help merchants fill capacity and attract new customers while providing consumers with trusted local experiences at great value.
- The company has improved its marketing and customer acquisition engine, particularly in the 'things to do' category, and is investing in influencer marketing and social media to attract younger consumers.
- Groupon is emphasizing trust and quality by removing problematic deals and improving customer service, which has significantly reduced customer complaints.
- The company has been able to attract high-quality talent with experience from Uber, Klarna, and DoorDash, supporting its AI-native transformation and operational improvements.
- Financially, Groupon has 90% gross margins and around 50-55% contribution margins, with a fixed cost base that can be leveraged as the business grows.
- The management highlighted the importance of increasing purchase frequency and customer lifetime value as key drivers for future growth and profitability.
- The company has about 16 million customers who purchased in the last year, with a focus on converting new customers into repeat buyers.
- Groupon is currently generating positive cash flow and EBITDA, with expectations that growth will lead to higher operating leverage and cash flow expansion.
STOCKNOW INSIGHTS
Continue with outlook and guidance.
Log in to unlock executive comments and Q&A highlights.
Log in for the full summaryStockNow uses AI to translate and summarize earnings calls. Accuracy and completeness are not guaranteed.
Transcript
Preview the first fifteen paragraphs, organized by speaker.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. I am Mike Tepeli, Communications at Groupon. Before we begin, today's discussion and management's responses to questions reflects management's views as of today, September 10, 2026 only, and may include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially. Groupon undertakes no obligation to update these statements. Risks and other factors that could potentially impact the company's financial results are described in the company's SEC filings, including its most recent filings, Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. This is not an earnings call. Management will not provide new financial information or update the guidance issued on August 6, 2026, and comments will be limited to information already made public. Any non-GAAP financial measures referenced, including adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow, are reconciled in our earnings material at investor.groupon.com. This session is open to everyone, is being recorded, and a replay will be available.
With that, I am going to turn it over to today's host, Nick Nemeth. Nick, go ahead and introduce yourself.
Thank you, Mike. I think you have done a great job, and I am excited to talk to the CEO and CFO of Groupon today, Dušan and Rana. I am Nick Nemeth. I write on Mispriced Assets, a Substack where I talk about small cap stocks. Full disclosure for me, I am a Groupon shareholder, and I am bullish. I hope to get into the details of the investment thesis and allow Dušan and Rana to talk about the business in a way that is atypical to a typical earnings call or analyst call. Without further ado, if we click on Rana, click on Dušan.
Welcome, gentlemen. Hey, Nick. Happy to be here.
Welcome, everyone. Out of Croatia and I believe New York, Rana.
You need to unmute. Yeah.
Sorry. It is actually out of the Czech Republic, not Croatia, but the country which is the most popular vacation holiday place for Czechs, actually.
That is a great entrée because, just like I got it wrong as a shareholder and analyst, a lot of people do not know who you are, Dušan. Some people, certain circles. Can you give a little bit of an intro, talk about your career, as an entrepreneur, private equity guy, now a CEO of a publicly traded company?
Yeah, sure. Actually, the first e-commerce company which I founded was already in university. I was studying engineering, computer science, and math. And within that small company with my peers in the fourth grade of university, we built the first internet banking platform in Central Europe. It was a lot of fun, very wild environment. But the real big business where we got a lot of experience was called Xactly, and I founded it with my Swedish partner. We had, like, 40 people, but we were able to build dozens of products. We were running the email solution Inbox.com, which at some point was rated as number 2 behind Gmail. We were running Spyware Terminator security application with, like, 25 million users. Ton of games, screensavers, like, a product factory set up, which taught me that you don't need a ton of resources to build something unique.
We were able to build this profitable without external investment. It was a life lesson for me, and since then, I was building new companies, typically with no or very little funding, which was forcing us to think very smart, find alternative way how to build stuff so that we can compete with much bigger companies.
How did you switch over to private equity? I feel like people think of you as a private equity guy, and in public markets, there's a certain understanding of what private equity guys are.
Yeah. That intro, people are like, "Okay.
Yeah. How do you move over to private equity?
Yeah. I do not really see us as a private equity because the core of Pale Fire, you can see it more like a family office. It is me, my partner Jan Barta, and David Holý, and a few other partners. When we sold our last big business, which we built, which was an insurance marketplace in Europe, which we sold for a nine-digit figure in USD. Then we started Pale Fire, and we built part of it, which was investing, typically majority stakes in e-commerce companies. That is why some people were and are labeling us as private equity. But I see us as entrepreneurs and investors. We are building the companies in a way that we can keep them forever. We want to make sure that they are operated well, they are built with very healthy backgrounds, and the systems inside.
We started investing also on the stock market, and Groupon was one of our investments, but we are very strong investors in many other companies, both in the U.S. and in Europe.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Continue the full translated transcript in StockNow.
Log in to unlock every statement, the English original, and speaker-by-speaker history.
Log in for the full transcriptCall participants
4 people spoke on this call — only 1 are shown here.
PARTICIPANT LIST
View participant details in StockNow.
Log in to see executives and analysts, their roles, and complete speaking history.
Log in to view all participantsKeep exploring