別嘲笑Groupon已過氣 看看它的現金流和負債

When we began work on our Age of Unicorns cover forFortune, one internal conversation was about cautionary tales. Fab? Sure. Box? Seemed so at the time, not so much today. “What about Groupon?” someone asked with a chuckle.

當我們開始爲《財富》做“獨角獸時代”封面故事時，我們曾經進行內部討論，嘗試尋找一些類似的警世故事。做閃購的Fab？可以。做軟件的Box？當時看起來岌岌可危，但今時已不可同日而語。有人竊笑：“Groupon怎麼樣？”

Social buying site Groupon GRPN -1.64% was one of the original unicorns, becoming valued at more than $1 billion by venture capitalists less than two years after its founding. It later would turn down a reported $6 billion acquisition offer from Google GOOG -0.88% , before going public inNovember 2011 at an initial market cap of $12.65 billion and closing its first day of trading worth more than $23 billion.

團購鼻祖Groupon曾是一隻標準的“獨角獸”。該公司成立還不到兩年的時候，風投給它的估值就超過了10億美元。據說它隨後拒絕了谷歌拋出的60億美元收購要約，並於2011年11月上市，當時的市值達到了126.5億美元，交易首日收盤時，其市值已經超過了230億美元。

But it didn’t take long for the wheels to fall off: By June 2012, the company was valued below Google’s proposed acquisition price. The following March, founding CEO Andrew Mason was fired. The company that was supposed to re-energize Chicago’s startup scene — replete with a warehouse chic headquarters that also served as a new business incubator — had run out of gas.

沒過多久，Groupon就開始盛極而衰。到2012年6月，該公司的市值已經低於谷歌的收購要約價。2013年3月，Groupon的創始CEO安德魯o梅森被炒魷魚。這家本應重新激發芝加哥創新活力的公司——其倉庫風格總部的另一個功能就是創業孵化器——似乎已經到了油盡燈枯的邊緣。

And then everyone seemed to forget about it, as a much larger group of billion-dollar startups emerged. Everyone, that is, except for people who wanted to make jokes about past valuation excess.

接下來，隨着更大一批10億美元估值的創業公司開始崛起，所有人似乎已經忘了這家團購網站——我這裏說的“所有人”，不包括那些想用它過去的高額估值開玩笑的人。

But from where I sit, the laughter is unwarranted.

不過在我看來，這種嘲笑是沒有道理的。

Groupon not only was an original unicorn, but it remains a successful one. The company currently has a market cap of $4.9 billion, which is higher than it ever was valued by venture capitalists. Its revenue and EBITDA have consistently climbed in each year since going public, and there is plenty of cash on hand without a single cent of debt.

Groupon不僅曾經是一隻非常成功的“獨角獸”，而且現在依然是。該公司目前的市值爲49億美元，仍然高於風投最初給出的估值。自從上市以來，它的營收和EBITDA（息稅折舊及攤銷前利潤）一直在穩步攀升，另外Groupon還坐擁大筆現金，而且沒有一分錢的債務。

If you want to criticize someone for overvaluing Groupon, take a good long look at public market investors. You know, the folks who are supposed to use all sorts of clear-headed, quantitative metrics (as opposed to VCs, who are said to pull unicorn valuations out of thin air). In fact, even Groupon’s final deals in the private market were largely driven by mutual fund managers dipping down to buy secondary shares from VCs who were smart enough to bake in some early gains.

如果你想對那些給Groupon估值過高的人指手劃腳，不妨首先看看那些公開市場上的投資者。他們本來應該使用各種理性的量化分析指標，來進行投資決策（這一點和風投不一樣，風投玩的就是“伯樂相馬”）。但事實上，就連Groupon在私募市場上的最後幾筆交易，很大程度上是都是由互惠基金經理們推動的，他們下沉到二級市場從風投手裏買二級股，而聰明的風投則早早地掙了一筆錢。

It would be like if the smartest guys in the room convinced everyone that this year’s Boston Celtics were going to win 60 games, and then making fun of the Celtics when they failed to achieve such lofty goals. Obviously the team isn’t where it ultimately wants to be, but it wasn’t the one making bold predictions. Nor has it collapsed.

這就好比在一個屋子裏，有一些最聰明的人說服所有人相信，波士頓凱爾特人隊今年將贏得60場比賽。而當凱爾特人隊沒有達到這個過高的目標時，他們又來笑話它。顯然凱爾特隊的戰績也沒有達到它的終極期望，但做出這些荒唐預測的並不是它自己，而它現在也沒有崩潰。

If Groupon is a cautionary tale for other unicorns, perhaps it only is in the context of going public. Groupon’s decision to IPO when it did is arguably the reason it remains in business. As venture capitalist Bill Gurley noted, it is much easier to survive a valuation decline as a public company than as a private one. Had Groupon waited a couple more years, perhaps it would have been worthy of derision. But it didn’t. And it isn’t.

如果Groupon能爲其它“獨角獸”們提供一些借鑑意義，或許也只有在上市時機的選擇方面。Groupon當初的IPO決定，或許正是它目前仍然堅守陣地的原因。就像風投資本家比爾o柯爾利指出的那樣，上市公司會比私人公司更容易挺過估值下跌。如果Groupon多等了一兩年才上市，它纔是值得嘲笑的，但它沒有那樣做，所以現在它也不應受到嘲笑。（財富中文網）