Tiger Global Takes a Chunk of Groupon

An SEC filing shows that Tiger Global has taken a 65 million share position (9.9%) in Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN). That certainly will press its shares higher, at least temporarily.

Tiger is one of the oldest and most well-known hedge funds in America. Plenty of analysts will believe that Tiger has made a good bet as Groupon shares trade at $3, down from a 52-week high of almost $26. Tiger may have called a bottom because it would take almost no positive news to reverse the sell-off.

But the majority opinion will be that Tiger has wasted its money. Groupon has too many competitors, both privately held ones and public companies like Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and bricks-and-mortar giants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). Groupon only needs one more bad quarter to press its shares toward $2.

But shares of Groupon are up more than 4% in premarket trading to $3.24 so far this morning.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Internet, Retail Tagged: AMZN, GRPN, WMT