Groupon Stock Has Doubled Since Andrew Mason Was Fired

Andrew Mason was back in the news Tuesday with the release of his first record, a selection of motivational business songs. The release, which was quickly panned by many tech blogs, marked Mason's first public project since being fired as Groupon's CEO at the end of February.

While Mason has been testing the waters to see what comes next — he has teased the idea of launching another e-commerce startup or even a news outlet — Groupon has enjoyed a resurgence among investors in recent months.

Groupon's stock topped $9 a share in early trading Tuesday for the first time since July, 2012. In fact, the stock traded as high as $9.08 on Tuesday, more than twice its closing price of $4.53 on February 28, moments before the company revealed that it had fired Mason.

Groupon is still well below its IPO price of $20 from November, 2011.

GRPN data by YCharts

Mason's departure may have been a factor in the early stock increase, but recent gains have been due to a better-than-expected earnings report for the March quarter and renewed optimism among analysts and investors that the company is becoming less reliant on the daily deals model it started out with.

Ross Sandler, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, touted the company's success on mobile a few weeks ago, writing in a research note that "Groupon is surprisingly the most mobile penetrated e-commerce company we track." More recently, Wunderlich Securities argued that the stock is undervalued and noted that Groupon is "transitioning away from the daily deals business model."

That transition technically started while Mason was still running the company and has continued in his absence. The company has focused more on promoting deals that don't expire, edged into the mobile payments industry and recently introduced an option to make reservations online for upscale places.

Even though Mason is no longer with the company, he has benefited personally from the stock increase. Mason owns nearly 47 million shares of Groupon stock, or about 7% of total shares. At the time of his ouster, those shares were worth about $213 million; now they are worth around $420 million.

Perhaps Mason can put some of that money towards his next startup or maybe his next record.

Image via Getty, Johannes Simon