News ToolsReg Shops |
Belgian asks $1.5 billion for domain names100,000 up for salePublished Tuesday 27th June 2000 14:04 GMT A Belgian doctor claims his collection of 100,000 domains could be worth a massive $1.5 billion - and he's ready to flog the lot. Dr Lieven Van Neste has spent $2 million on his collection (he only started registering them in August last year) and has now enlisted the help of British-based domain auctioneer, shoutloud.com, to sell them off to the highest bidder. The alternative medicineman intends to use to the proceeds from the sale to create a Global Health Centre - what he describes as a kind of "Wellness Resort" for all types of natural healing and fitness treatments. Dr Van Neste won the backing of a handful of private investors to help buy the domains as well as using his own cash. Stephen Etheridge, MD of shoutloud.com, said: "The sheer scale of the collection, not least in terms of the time spent choosing and registering each name, is absolutely mind-boggling." According to Dr Van Neste, independent valuers have priced his collection at anywhere between $360 million and $1.5 billion. Although some people might balk at the prospect of investing $2 million in domain names, Dr Van Neste believes his commercial ken is sound. He told the The Register he is currently negotiating with a Californian company to dispose of 12,000 domains for between $25 million and $50 million. And he claims to have already secured $10,000 apiece for clicksoftware.com, optimumnutrition.com and getwellness.com. According to Etheridge, even if he sells a quarter of his domains for what he describes is the "average market price of $3,000 each", Van Neste will scoop an impressive $75 million. To see what the fuss is all about, go here. ®
Track this type of story as a custom Atom/RSS feed or by email.
|
|
Top 20 stories • All The Week’s Headlines • Archive • Search