Groupon Shakes Up Management — Reuters

In an effort to fix its sagging European business, Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) has named a new head of its European, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, according to an exclusive report at Reuters. Chris Muhr, currently senior vice-president of sales, gets the nod, while senior vice-president of International Veit Dengler is leaving the company.

Groupon’s declining sales and profits have opened the exit door for a number of the daily deal company’s executives. That is especially true of the sales team, which lost a senior vice-president and at least one other top sales exec last month.

The problem in Europe is that many of the company’s customers think that the discounts offered by Groupon are too large. If the deals drove more customers to the merchants, of course, they would not be complaining. As it is though, the steep discounts are cutting sales and not making it up on volume. That will not be an easy issue to fix.

Groupon’s shares are up fractionally in the premarket to $4.81. The 52-week range is $4.00 to $31.14.

Paul Ausick