• GigaOm, Friday, April 13, 2012 1:51 PM

As part of a broader shakeup, Groupon is bringing in a new chief to oversee operations of its international business. Marc Samwer -- who got the gig after Groupon bought his family’s daily-deal clone Citydeal in 2010 -- is out. In is Austrian Veit Dengler, an executive who, as GigaOm reports, has done time at Dell, T-Mobile, McKinsey and Procter & Gamble. Austria-born Dengler is now expected to run Groupon’s overseas business from its international headquarters in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Why the change? “Perhaps it was just time to move on: after all, two years after an acquisition is not unusual for an entrepreneur to earn out and head off to the next challenge,” GigaOm suggests. “Samwer has plenty going on with Rocket Internet,” it adds, referring to the Berlin-based clone merchant, which is reportedly one of Europe’s most powerful Web businesses. What’s more, “But life at Groupon is pretty complicated right now.”

Along with an ongoing accounting scandal, Groupon’s international business, which is responsible for approximately two thirds of the company’s revenue, has been finding itself under fire, too. Groupon’s U.K. operation, for one, was recently censured by regulators after consumers filed so many complaints that it was found to have breached advertising codes a record 50 times in a single year.

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