The dailymail.co.uk, ran an interesting rags to riches story about a about a 40 year old former kitchen sales businessman who had no business schooling started AO.com which just went public in London.
“John Roberts, 40, founder of online appliance retailer AO.com, set up the company after realizing that the long supply chain for ‘white goods’ such as dishwashers and fridges was adding needless costs.”
“This week AO.com smashed expectations for its stock market debut with a 33% rise that increased Mr Roberts’ worth by £113 million in less than nine hours of trading.”
“Mr Roberts banked £86 million by selling shares in the run-up to the listing still his remaining 28.6% increased in value by £113 million to £456 million by the end of the day.”
So Mr. Roberts is now worth over £550 Million which equates to $915 Million dollars.
“Mr. Roberts started the company 14 years ago when he was in charge of appliance sales for Moben Kitchens.”
AO.com has cornered 24% of the UK white goods market.
Anyone want to chat about how expensive domain names are now?
I quoted $1500 or $25/month on an IT-related .COM and was told that was too expensive.
Looking at the WHOIS history for the AO.com domain name, the current owners appear to have bought it last year, from a Russian. Another billion-dollar company joining the 2-letter .com club.
And according to page 104 of the AO.com prospectus, they paid a mere £391,000 for 2 domains, with most of that being for the AO.com, as per the WHOIS history and timing.
Oops, I forgot the link to the prospectus. It’s at:
http://ao.com/~/media/files/ao-ipo.ashx