Shares of Web.com (WEB) rose over 13% after hours as Reuters.com reported the company “is in talks with private equity firms after receiving takeover approaches.”
The story went on to say “The buyout interest in Web.com comes as its sector has become increasingly crowded, with companies such as Wix.com Ltd, Weebly Inc and Squarespace seeking to gain market share from established players such as GoDaddy Inc.”
KKR & Co LP and Silver Lake Partners LP acquired GoDaddy.com (GDDY) in 2011 for $2.25 billion before taking it public.
Godaddy currently has a market cap of just under $7 billion dollars and finished the day at $41.42
Web.com had a market cap based on its closing price of $21.20 of just under $1 Billion dollars.
Shares of Web.com were up $2.90 in after hours trading at $24.10 based on the Reuters story that went on to say “Web.com has engaged in early-stage talks with private equity firms in response to approaches about a potential leveraged buyout, although the story says the company is not actively soliciting offers and there is no certainty that any deal will occur”.
“Web.com generated $710.5 million in revenue in 2016, compared to $543.5 million the year before. It reported adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in 2016 of $179.5 million, up from $155.8 million the year before.”
Web.com owns the domain name registrars NetworkSolutions.com and Register.com as well and the domain name auction and marketplace platform SnapNames.com as well as 1/2 of the domain auction platform and marketplace NameJet.com
More funny money games by a group who cannot afford to finish their purchase of Yodle.com. Because you know, generating $600m in revenue makes a $300m purchase to inherit 40,000 lowball customers really smart and easy. Go back to pre-November on this company, with a share price around the $13 mark. Then watch them take $100m and buy out all the shares they can’t control hold strategies for until they physically drive the price up to $20 within a matter of a month. They have lost their registrar streams for profiteering on expiring names to GoDaddy, compromised the future strength of NameJet by overpushing 4L and false “chips” almost solely created to help the Chinese bypass currency restrictions, and tend to taint everything they touch. Their biggest premiums still come from duping legacy Network Solution customers at $35 per year renewal fees. Their subsidiary leads.com was roughly the same consumer size base as Yodle, and they dumped all of the content from it and just tried to auction it at the last NamesCon conference. While still having it listed for new shareholders as one of their working income assets. An attractive acquisition!!
Who rebrands all of this to Web.com when there is already an identical company Webs.com offering the near same service set? Most of the talent at Web has jumped ship over the past year unfortunately, and the elementary decisions made by the leftovers are mind boggling at best. Disconnection and lack of intelligent foresight seems to be the new currency for US business leaders and the wondrous valuation models are stock exchanges are producing.