Groupon C.E.O. Is Out

GROUPON DISMISSES CHIEF  |  Andrew Mason, the irreverent chief executive of Groupon, was ousted on Thursday, after the company’s dismal fourth-quarter results capped a string of disappointing quarters. True to his humorous style, Mr. Mason wrote in a letter to employees: “After four and a half intense and wonderful years as C.E.O. of Groupon, I’ve decided that I’d like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding â€" I was fired today. If you’re wondering why… you haven’t been paying attention.”

Groupon’s stock fell 24.3 percent on Thursday, to $4.53 a share, after the daily deals company missed analysts’ expectations for its fourth-quarter results and guidance for future revenue. That valued Groupon at about $3 billion, a far cry from the $12.7 billion valuation in its I.P.O. in late 2011. Mr. Masonâ™s departure had been speculated about for some time, given the company’s continued troubles, but it was only finalized on Thursday morning, DealBook’s Michael J. de la Merced reports. Shares rose more than 4 percent in late trading, after Mr. Mason’s exit was announced.

Mr. Mason, 32, “never seemed to dream about building a huge company or even becoming fantastically wealthy,” The New York Times’s David Streitfeld writes. “Groupon was an outgrowth of a start-up, the Point, which was aimed at encouraging charitable actions by groups. In late 2008, Mr. Mason and a few colleagues reformulated it as a deals shop.” But the company’s meteoric rise was followed by a steep fall, amid controversies that Mr. Mason acknowledged in his letter. “As! C.E.O., I am accountable,” he said.

Groupon said it was searching for a new chief executive, and that Mr. Mason would be replaced on an interim basis by an “office of the chief executive” made up of Eric Lefkofsky, the chairman and co-founder, and Ted Leonsis, the board’s vice chairman.

BEST BUY TAKEOVER TALKS DISSOLVE  |  Richard Schulze’s effort to take over Best Buy, the company he founded, has fallen apart, Mr. de la Merced reports, citing people briefed on the matter.

“By the end, Mr. Schulze and the firms â€" Cerberus Capital Management, Leonard Green & Partners and TPG Capital â€" had been negotiating to buy a bigger stake in Best Buy that would have added to his roughly 20 percent stake, these people said. Any prospect of a full takeover of Best Buy had disappeared several week ago, they added, after the investor consortium discovered little appetite for the debt that would have been involved in a leveraged buyout.”

Shares of Best Buy fell on Thursday after the after The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported that Mr. Schulze had changed course, trying to take a minority stake. The company may give more detail when it reports earnings on Friday, a day after the release was originally scheduled.

PROSECUTOR REFLECTS ON HIS TENURE  |  Lanny A. Breuer, who spent four years running the Justice Department’s criminal division, is leaving his post on Friday, having led investigations of some of the world’s biggest banks. Though he mounted successful cases, Mr. Breuer has also taken criticism for not putting more Wall Street chiefs behind bars after the financial crisis, DealBook’s Ben Protess writes.

“I understand and share the public’s outrage about the financial crisis,” Mr. Breuer said in a recent interview. “I approached these cases exactly the same way I approached BP, the same way I approached Libor, the same way I approach every case. If there had been a case to make, we would have brought it. I would have wanted nothing more, but it doesn’t work that way.” Asked about his legacy, Mr. Breuer said, “The criminal division is now at the center of criminal law enforcement, both in prosecutions and policy. I don’t think that was ever the case before.”

He also said it wasn’t certain that he would go back to Covington & Burling, his old law firm. “I love Covington. But I’m going to look at Covington; I’ll look at other firms.”

ON THE AGENDA  |  Berkshire Hathaway releases is annual report at about 4 p.m., including Warren E. Buffett‘s letter to shareholders. An interview with Stanley Druckenmiller, the longtime hedge fund investor, airs on Bloomberg TV at 10 a.m. Antony Jenkins, the chief executive of Barclays, is on CNBC at 4 p.m. Data on personal income and spending in January is out at 8:30 a.m.

CITI HEDGE FUND STEPS OUT ON ITS OWN  |  One of Citigroup’s internal hedge funds is beginning a new life on Friday as an independent firm, shedding the restrictions that come with being part of a bank. “What once was part of Citi Capital Advisors will now be known as Napier Park Global Capital, a $6.8 billion hedge fund, in one of the biggest spinoffs of a hedge fund from a major bank,” Mr. de la Merced writes. The move comes as banks respond to the Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul, including the Volcker Rule that prevents banks from owning more than 3 percent of a hedge fund or private equity firm. The move, in some ways, “opens up new opportunities for the nascent firm and its more than 100 employees, especially since it may attract new clients who hesitated to invest in alternative-asset operations owned by banks.”

But the parting is bittersweet. “Citi has been a terrific parent and partner to us,” Jim O’Brien, a Citi executive who will be a co-chief executive of Napier Park, told DealBook.

Mergers & Acquisitions »

Glencore-Xstrata Deal Faces Delay in China  |  Glencore said on Friday that it wuld not be able to finalize its planned tie-up with Xstrata by March 15 “because it is still awaiting regulatory approval from the authorities in China,” The Wall Street Journal reports.
WALL STREET JOURNAL

BSkyB to Buy Telefonica Unit for $303 Million  |  British Sky Broadcasting agreed to buy Telefonica’s broadband and fixed-line phone unit in Britain.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Paulson Opposes MetroPCS Merger With T-Mobile  |  The investment firm Paulson & Company, the largest shareholder in MetroPCS Co! mmunicati! ons, said the deal would saddle the new company with too much debt.
DealBook »

Bertelsmann to Buy K.K.R.’s Stake in BMG  |  The European media company Bertelsmann agreed to buy K.K.R.’s stake in BMG, a joint venture that manages music rights. The price “was 700-800 million euros ($915 million-$1.05 billion) including debt,” according to Reuters, which cites an unidentified person familiar with the matter.
REUTERS

Spanish Banks Said to Bid for Nationalized Lender  | The banks Santander, Sabadell and Popular were among bidders for Catalunya Banc, a nationalized Spanish lender, according to Reuters, which cites three unidentified people familiar with the auction.
REUTERS

INVESTMENT BANKING »

Lloyds Banking Reports a $2.2 Billion Annual Loss  |  The British banking group’s results were hit by a $2.3 billion charge in the fourth quarter related to compensation for customers that were inappropriately sold insurance products.
DealBook »

JPMorgan Earned the Most Fees on Wall Street Last Year  |  Bloomberg Markets Magazine ranked investment banks by how much they earned in fees, finding that JPMorgan Chase took the top spot in 2012, with $3.97 billion in fees.
BLOOMBERG MARKETS MAGAZINE

Would JPMorgan Ever Split the Chairman and C.E.O. Roles  |  “I don’t think it’s that significant an issue,” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, told Fox Business Network, but he said he “would probably take” shareholders’ advice on the matter.
FOX BUSINESS NETWORK

Bonus Rules May Just Reinforce Existing Practices  |  The proposed bonus rules in Europe may not prove to be the sweeping overhaul that bankers are lamenting.
DEALBOOK

Morgan Stanley’s Simkowitz Is Promoted  |  Morgan Stanley has named Dan Simkowitz co-head of global capital markets, according to an internal memo recently sent to employees.
DealBook »

Van Praag, Formerly of Goldman, Changes Name of Consulting Firm  | 
MARKETWATCH

PRIVATE EQUITY »

Warnings of Excess, as Deal Making Rolls On  |  “Buyout bosses fear a bubble may be forming,” The Economist writes. “That won’t stop it.”
ECONOMIST

In Europe, Investors Flock to the Buyout Elite  | 
FINANCIAL TIMES

Carlyle Leads Deal to Buy Chinese Hotel Chain  |  The Carlyle Group led a group of investors in a $688 million deal to buy 7 Days Group Holdings, a Chinese hotel chain that is listed in the United States.
REUTERS

Schwarzman Donates to Track and Field Foundation  |  Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of the Blackstone Group, gave $500,000 to the USA Track & Field Foundation. “Track and field was a central part of my life from 5th grade through high school,” Mr. Schwarzman said.
PRESS RELEASE

HEDGE FUNDS »

Icahn Gains 2 Seats on Herbalife’s Board  |  Herbalife plans to give two board seats to Carl C. Icahn, as the health supplements maker further binds itself to its most outspoken outside defender of late.
DealBook »

In Defense of David Einhorn  |  Though he has been criticized in some circles for his effort to get Apple to return money to shareholders, David Einhorn should be thanked “for upholding shareholders’ rights,” Jonathan Weil, a columnist for Bloomberg View, writes.
BLOOMBERG VIEW

Hedge Fund Said to Have Tried to Poach JPMorgan Employees  |  BlueMountain Capital, a hedge fund that was on the other side of JPMorgan Chase’s “London whale” trading loss last year, “tried to recruit several employees in the bank’s chief investment office in the months before the losses, according to two people familiar with the matter,” but none of the employees left, according to Reuters.
REUTERS

I.P.O./OFFERINGS »

Facebook Buys a Platform to Show Targeted Ads  |  Facebook bought an advertising platform, Atlas Advertiser Suite, from Microsoft, acquiring technology “that can! help Fac! ebook put its piles of personal data to greater use for behaviorally targeted advertising,” the Bits blog writes.
NEW YORK TIMES BITS

VENTURE CAPITAL »

Venture Capitalists Take a Shine to Nail Polish Seller  |  Julep, a start-up that makes nail polish and other beauty products, “announced it had raised $10.3 million in financing from Andreessen Horowitz, a well-known venture capital firm, and Maveron, the investment firm of Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks,” the Bits blog reports.
NEW YOR TIMES BITS

LEGAL/REGULATORY »

Bank of America Scrutinized Over Mortgage Securities  |  The New York attorney general is investigating Bank of America over mortgage securities that the bank created, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Italian Lender Sues Nomura and Deutsche Bank  |  Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the troubled Italian lender that received a bailout this week, filed separate lawsuits against Nomura and Deutsche Bank over soured derivatives, Bloomberg News reports.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Patton Boggs Said to Lay Off Lawyers  |  Reuters reports: “The Washington, D.C., law firm Patton Boggs has laid off an unknown number of lawyers and administrative staff, according to two sources inside the firm with direct knowledge of the matter and two sources outside the firm.”
REUTERS

Hungary Names New Central Bank Chief  | 
WALL STREET JOURNAL

Regulators and 13 Banks Complete $9.3 Billion Deal for Foreclosure Relief  |  The settlement was reached amid heightened concerns that a foreclosure review process was generating billions of dollars in fees for consultants, but providing little relief for borrowers.
DealBook »

Pondering the Housing Market Without Government Support  |  “Can the American mortgage market ever function again without Uncle Sam guaranteeing that lenders will be repaid It is amazing just how few people think it can,” Floyd Norris, a columnist for The New York Times, writes.
NEW YORK TIMES

For S.E.C., a Setback in Bid for More Time in Fraud Cases  |  A Supreme Court decision involving a statute of limitations rule may mean the S.E.C. will need to seek legislation from Congress that would give the agency more time to complete investigation, Peter J. Henning writes in the White Collar Watch column.
DealBook »