Go Daddy on the block for $2.5bn
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Domain names and web hosting provider Go Daddy is reportedly on the verge of being acquired by private investors for up to $2.5bn.
The New York Post reported that a group led by Silver Lake Partners and KKR & Co plans to buy the closely held company for $1bn. The Associated Press later put the price tag at between $2bn and $2.5bn.
An official announcement of the deal could come as soon as tomorrow, these reports said.
Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Go Daddy has sold more domain names than any other company and owns about half of the market, as well as good-sized chunks of the web hosting and SSL spaces.
The company has approaching 50 million domain names under management and has issued about 500,000 active SSL certificates.
It is best known in the US for its saucy TV commercials, which often featured busty models in skimpy clothing, as well as for the antics of its ever-quotable CEO, Bob Parsons, who's a regular talking head on cable news programmes.
Go Daddy filed to go public in 2006, but withdrew its IPO at the eleventh hour due to poor market conditions, accounting frustrations, and because Parsons said he found the pre-offering quiet period "suffocating".
It was also rumoured to be on the auction block in September last year, with a price tag around the $1bn mark, but those talks did not immediately result in a deal.
Go Daddy is likely to be in great demand over the coming years, given the forthcoming expansion to the domain name system approved by industry overseer ICANN last Monday.
Due to its huge market share, competition for shelf space in Go Daddy's store will be fierce among new domain registries, a situation ripe for exploitation. ®
COMMENTS
Bob's seen the writing on the wall
GoDaddy may have market share, however the market has shrunk considerably, almost all holders of what seemed like good names have reduced their portfolios, so the domain name business is a shrinking business, not an expanding one
Bottom line is, that in almost all cases, you need to build a website with traffic, real value and a real money making business or the name is worthless
Yes, there may be a blip in increased business with all the new TLDs, but that's all hype and those TLDs will all fail ( watch what happens to .xxx in 2 years and look into the value of having a .biz domain now )
It's likely the hype behind these new TLDs that is pushing the price up beyond the $1 billion that's been floated months ago, and I'm sure there is still profit in GoDaddy, but it is at best a level business in these poor economic times with little hope for growth.
Bob's a smart guy, getting out and moving on, while the getting is ok .. if he had been a genius though, he would have gotten out by 2004 and probably gotten $10 billion for the business
IP
yeah their control panel which sucks more than anything else i have seen... period.
The Ryanair of domain name services
I have a couple of Godaddy accounts and they work reasonably well. Nothing special but they work. So service is ok.
What isn't ok is the constant nickel and diming going on. You start off being told one price for a domain on the front page and by the time you've gone through a maze of options and settings you discover the price is actually double or triple.
The controls are also laden down with links, upselling and so on making it a burden to administer accounts without constantly feeling under pressure from a pile of superfluous links and advertising. Oh and not a day goes by without some discount voucher spam.
I feel dirty from using their service and I'm sure other customers do too. Moving provider requires a little work but I expect in many cases it's not a huge amount. Next time a renewal notice rolls around I expect I'll be looking elsewhere because if Godaddy is going to treat me like shit then my loyalty to them in future will reflect that.
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