According to Bloomberg/Business Week, Godaddy.com the world’s largest registrar is in talks to be bought by a group led by KKR & Co. and Silver Lake Partners for more than $2 billion.
“Silver Lake is a Menlo Park, California-based private equity firm that focuses on investing in technology companies. KKR, the leveraged-buyout firm run by Henry Kravis and George Roberts, invests in private equity, debt and capital markets.”
The New York Post reported earlier on the talks and possible purchase but that story had the price at $1 Billion.
According to the New York Post story, “Go Daddy, is using adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, as its key metric — but that adjusted number is twice is actual Ebitda, a spread that is higher than usual.”
Interesting development in the domain industry with the new gTLD’s just approved and Godaddy as the number one registrar would be expected to gain a lot of the new business from the new gTLD’s which will be for the most part at a higher margin .com’s
Enom which is part of Demand Media and the world’s 2nd largest registrar has a market cap of just over $1b but of course Demand has other properties
That will be great! But why would they sell it?
it’s true this time? so, it was not sold the first time only due to a too low “price”?
Time to get out – get out – get out – get out – get out – get out before all the non.com garbage shakes out. All the money in being a registrar has already been made – and buying cash flow / renewals – ooch – that could hurt where there is very little loyalty.
$2B seems like a pretty cheap price for the amount of market share GoDaddy has.
Demand Media has a market cap of 1.12B, and is there really any comparison?
On paper GD might not be turning a huge profit, but their massive market share and revenue are worth a lot in itself.
At that price GD would probably be better just going public.
GD is my preferred registrar because of pricing, and VIP support. If any of that changes significantly I would certainly explore other options.
Brad
Brad
Demand has a lot more than just Enom
The best buy on the board is VeriSign at 5.8b they make $7 + a registration & has 100% market share & a 7% rate increase in every 4 of the next 6 years forever
It will be boring without Bob P and the Godaddy girls.
@Bulls
Yes – downhill – and fast over the course of 2-3 years
And Bob Parsons will just take the money and buy a small country in Africa – so he can shoot all the elephants he wants
Strike while the iron’s hot, or, while the iron’s still heating up but investor perception of how hot it will eventually get outstrips reality.
This is someone placing a big, big bet on the future of new TLDs and GDs role as the premier retailer.
KKR getting into domains?
Wow.
Goodbye Daddy.
Silver Lake were the ones who snatched Skype from Ebay for a quarter of what Microsoft paid only two years later.
Speaking of GoDaddy.
GoDaddy Auctions – “Transaction Assured” purchase is bunk, worthless. If you pay for a domain thru GoDaddy Auctions there is absolutely no guarantee you will ever own that domain. Don’t even expect GoDaddy to go to bat for you either.
And I’m not talking about expired auctions. It’s unconscionable.
with $2 billion to give back to banks and investors, I fear that the GoDaddy’s prices will rise and the service quality will fall
this is bad news kkr a lbo firm from the 80’s has a track record of raising and squeezing prices. that is how the jew
kravis makes a living the last 30 yrs. in additon if the cap is lifted on .coms the sky is the limit.
UPDATE:
Press release by Godaddy:
The Go Daddy Group, Inc., the world’s largest provider of Web hosting, domain names and new SSL Security Certificates, announced it has signed a definitive agreement to receive a strategic investment and enter into a partnership with KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Founded in 1997, Go Daddy is the world’s largest on-ramp for cloud-based software and services. The company serves more than 9.3 million global customers and manages more than 48 million domain names. Go Daddy has locations in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Washington, D.C., Singapore, Toronto and The Netherlands, and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Go Daddy’s track record of strong organic growth has been driven by its innovative products and differentiated customer service. The Company offers more than 50 product lines, including comprehensive hosting solutions, website creation services and building tools, secure SSL Certificates, personalized email with spam and anti-phishing filtering, e-commerce tools, online marketing solutions and more.
“I’ve always said we would make a move like this when the right deal with the right partners could help us do the right thing for our customers and our employees,” said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. “This is it! We are partnering with KKR, Silver Lake and TCV because of their technology expertise, their understanding of Web based businesses and because their values align with ours. We believe, together, we will take the company to the next level, especially when it comes to accelerating international growth.”
Go Daddy is widely recognized for its industry leadership:
Ranked on the Inc. “500/5000″ List of the nation’s fastest-growing privately-held companies for seven years, including 2009 and 2010;
Awarded “Innovator of the Year” by NetApp in 2011;
Ranked on the Deloitte “Technology Fast 500″ List for six years, including 2009 and 2010.
Greg Mondre, Managing Director, of Silver Lake said: “Go Daddy is powerfully positioned for future growth as it continues to innovate and add to its truly unique platform of cloud-based software and services. At the same time, we plan to maintain and augment all of the attributes that have made Go Daddy a clear market leader today, including world class customer support and competitive pricing for its 9.3 million customers.”
“In Go Daddy, we are pleased to be partnering with a high-growth market leader and an outstanding team,” said Herald Chen, head of KKR’s software and Internet effort. “Building on Go Daddy’s exceptional customer service and loyal customer base, we believe there is significant opportunity to expand the current portfolio of products and services as well as accelerate growth internationally.”
Will Griffith, General Partner at TCV, which is also joining KKR and Silver Lake as an investor in Go Daddy, said: “For years, we have admired what Bob and the team have built with Go Daddy. We are excited to invest in the business and contribute to its continued success.”
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Qatalyst Partners served as the exclusive advisor to Go Daddy in connection with the transaction. Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. and RBC Capital Markets acted as financial advisors and, along with KKR Capital Markets, they or their affiliates provided financing commitments for the transaction.
Also see:
http://domainnamewire.com/2011/07/01/bob-parsons-explains-go-daddy-kkr-deal-to-domain-name-wire/
UPDATE 2
You can also read this story
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/01/BU181K5M47.DTL
Hello,
Seems Bob will have more fun now 🙂 thats lots of Money 🙂