Tim O’Shaughnessy, chief executive officer of LivingSocial, a daily-deal company, announced his decision to step down from the position later this year.
In a blog post, O’Shaughnessy said Living Social will begin its CEO search today. He will remain in his position until the company finds an executive who will take over his role. He is hoping to turn over his responsibilities to the new CEO in the first of half of 2014.
O’Shaughnessy emphasized that the “beginning of the year is a useful time for reflection” as to where the company came from, where it is now, and where it needs to go as an organization. He said, “I never imagined that the company would become what is today. When we began, we had little more than big ideas, big dreams, and the desire to build and create a hungry machine. The road we’ve traveled has not been straight and it has not been without bumps, but it has been, undoubtedly, extraordinary.”
He added that LivingSocial was able to create a remarkable team of people, a brand loved by millions of consumers, and a massively scaled marketing platform that allowed hundreds of thousands of businesses connect with customers. O’Shaughnessy said its achievements “far surpassed” their [founders] biggest ideas and dreams for the company.
Now is the best time to transfer leadership
“We now have the most stable and healthy business that we have ever had, and the luxury of having hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank to take us to the next level. As the steward of this organization, one of the hardest decisions I need to make is about who is best suited to lead LS into its next stage of growth. This is a responsibility I have never taken lightly,” said O’Shaughnessy. He pointed out that now is the best time to transfer the leadership of LivingSocial to shape its future.
The decision of O’Shaughnessy came following the company’s plan to restructure its business. In October, last year, LivingSocial recorded $26 million losses for the third quarter based on a regulatory filing of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN). The e-commerce giant is one of the primary investors of the daily-deals company.
The e-commerce giant estimated that its 31% stake in LivingSocial is worth approximately $48.4 million, down from its previous valuation of $1 billion in June 2012. The daily deals company tried to regain its success by executing different strategies such as offering long-term discounts instead of emailing daily offers from businesses to customers.
Plans to sell stake in Groupon
In a regulatory filing, LivingSocial recently disclosed its plan to sell its 13.8 million shares in Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN), which it received when its competitor acquired Ticket Monster, a South Korean ticket and e-commerce company for $260 million last November.
