Groupon Falls 20% to appoint new sales director

Groupon's new sales director, Christopher Mours Sina Science and technology news, said August 24 morning, according to people familiar with the matter, that Groupon has appointed senior executive Christopher Mours (Christopher Muhr) from CityDeal, a European group-buying website, to be its sales director.　　Groupon bought CityDeal last year. Moore will replace Groupon's current sales director, Darren Schwarz Darren Schwartz, to help Groupon strengthen U.S. domestic business. Moore has previously been managing director of Groupon's UK company, where he works in London.　　The change shows that Groupon is hoping to use its strong international business team to boost growth in the US after the US buying market matures. This June, Groupon submitted an IPO application, which plans to raise $750 million trillion. This will be one of the most interesting IPOs in the US stock market in 2011. Groupon's valuations fell 20% to $16 billion in the latest private-equity auction, according to Wedbush Nomura, a US brokerage.　　The brokerage said this was due to volatility in the US stock market and to investor concerns about Groupon's growth prospects. "Groupon recently revised its S-1 document for IPOs to reflect a significant slowdown in the second quarter," Wedbush in a study in Tuesday. This has no help in raising investor interest in the company. Groupon's second-quarter revenue rose 36% from a year earlier, well below the 63% in the first quarter. At the end of the second quarter, Groupon had a total of 115 million registered users. Wedbush said Groupon's performance was disappointing, with most of the slowdown coming from the US market.　　Groupon's per-user revenue in North America has fallen by 12% to $8.57, says Yipit, an industry analyst. Other executives at Groupon headquarters include CityDeal co-founder Raja Roupalers (Rajen ruparell), Emanuel Streux (Emanuel Stehle) and Jens Hashrut (Jens hutzschenreuter). People familiar with the matter said Groupon had told employees about the change last week. A Groupon spokeswoman declined to comment on the change. (Chu Yue)