WSJ says Godaddy is up for Sale for $1 Billion Dollars; Seems like they left off a zero

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that GoDaddy.com, has put itself up for sale in an auction that could fetch more than $1 billion according to the journal

Qatalyst Partners has been hired to shop The Go Daddy Group. Private-equity firms are expected to bid for the company, which currently has more than 43 million domains under management.

If anything $1 Billion seems a low figure for a business that has a greater than 50% market share off all new registrations, especially with all the new extensions coming.

Godaddy has been long rumored to be going public so this is a pretty interesting and surprising turn.

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  6. Mojito Recipe says

    Or maybe he knows that the best days are behind the domain business. Will the mobile App kill domain registration?

  7. wannadevelop.com says

    Gotta love this biz… Always something going on 🙂

    $1B is probably what it’s worth honestly, it’s a lot of dough and considering that Register.com sold for $135M just a few month’s back…. You can see where the $1B figure came from.

  8. Josh says

    They are undervaluing at $1B because of market share? Last time I looked it was the bottom line that mattered and actually if anything they have little more real room to grow. 50% share to me says DONE.

  9. Louise says

    Anybody with domains at GoDaddy, take screenshots of your WhosIs to ensure noone plays fast and loose with your registrations.

    Guess the large portfolio holders have a big job ahead of them.

  13. MHB says

    Gnames

    This is how this type of situation is handled. You don’t go out and say your putting yourself up for auction.

    You hire someone to find buyer and sit back and let them do the work

  14. Einstein says

    A Billion sounds just about right. Don’t forget that as far as we know, Parson is the only shareholder, so a billion is different from the Youtube 1.6 B

  15. Anthony says

    @sa
    No one individual is allowed to buy up all the new gTLDs?
    ———————————————————–

    1Billion$ would allow Bob Parsons to buy up some of the best gTLDs 🙂

  16. Jim Fleming says

    Bob likely sees the impact of FREE domains from Microsoft via PNRP

    There is also the migration and fragmentation to the Set-Top-Box DNS…
    …parked domains will not be invited to that LAN party…

    S.C.U.B.A will also be rolling into the Eco.System

    The 1980s DNS has had a nice run…

  19. Anunt says

    Sorry, Godaddy girls do not come with the auction!

    Godaddy girls have already filled out an application at hooters to wait tables!

  22. Jim Fleming says

    Verisign has sold their CA business and may have some spare cash.

    IF Verisign buys a few Registrars, they have .COM and .NET retail solved.

    That is mostly the way it was before ICANN in 1998.

    ICANN could be dissolved.

  23. Deke says

    This is bad news b/c a new entrant will look to bilk every dollar out of GD’s customers, thus causing a huge upheaval in the market as folks look to use other registrars.

    Every time a company like this gets bought out you can count on the customers getting screwed, blued, and tattood.

  27. page howe says

    i guess the most amazing thing is in a world where the dow jones stays flat for ten years, a 3-5 billion dollar business grows up inside a 20-25 billion dollar industry, despite icann, tlds, apps, google, yadda yadda yadda.

    ill say that private equity teams with a internet operator (probably japanese who take advantage of their strong yen), bob stays on but its easier to do a online tv show with $1.2 billion in the bank and 2000 happy employees….and the new owners to seek to extract more money with little increases in every $4.99 fee to $5.49 etc etc which does add up to the millions they need for dividends…..

    and then we can have some more innovation… and opportunity..

    every other registrar except maybe domainmonster is still what they were in 2000 when registrars were introduced…. and the public is a bigger buyer than ever, think of people you know , they may have interacted with a registrar once a year 10 years ago, how its more and more and more.

    if modern business hangs their hat on facebook.com/whatever or twitter.com/whatever, they may have exactly what they got when they bought the keyword whatever on AOL or lycos, or compuserve, or myspace, or MAIN STREET, or RealNames . its great to “use” the distribution system of the day but we should own our brands and names in .com.

    ok enough of a rant, back to godaddy, let say they clear 200 million a year in operating cash flow, plus the expired names surprise box, so ill say $3.5 billion

    private equity borrow 1.2 the price at 4.5%, owns the whole company free and clear in 15 years and makes $7 billion, plus say 1 billion in dividends…not bad for domain names……….

  28. Dean says

    Something is rotten in Denmark. Coming on the heels of the white house calling a meeting with registrars seems auspicious. I know it was reported that the requested meeting is about cracking down on illegal online pharmacies, but my gut tells me there are some other possibly bigger issues at stake. Either way, I can almost guarantee that the government will start taking a more active role in regulating registrars activities in the next few months. Does Bob Parson’s know something we don’t?

  30. OuMun says

    I wouldn’t touch GoDaddy with the point of a stick for that money.

    GoDaddy is clearly a Giant with feet of clay.
    Every year between 1997 – 2006, the company has experienced a loss.
    9 years of losses as of 2006.
    I don’t think the situation is better now.

    Just see how they dropped their IPO project (real Investors know a to read balance sheet)

    So all those people shouting “$1B is too low”, grab a “how to read a balance sheet” book or just google it. You are just showing how ignorant domainers are when it comes to be profitable.

    P.S. “Revenue” is NOT “Net Profit”

  31. Mua says

    “Does it come with the Godaddy Girls?”

    If you have a $billion+ you can find much better ones, and they will come to you 🙂

  34. George says

    I would be very surprised if Godaddy actually goes through with a sale. They either know something we don’t or it’s some kinda publicity stunt.

  35. Hans Hedgehog says

    here are some facts – Bob Parsons has had nothing to do with Godaddy for awhile. Warren Adelman became president and ran the company into the ground like he did with his other companies.How do I know this? I used to work for them. spent the last 5 years trying to make sense of what happened to the company. I hope whoever buys Godaddy knows that they are also buying the headaches it comes with and deals with the employees fairly.

  36. Slate says

    “”Warren Adelman became president and ran the company into the ground like he did with his other companies.How do I know this? I used to work for them. spent the last 5 years trying to make sense of what happened to the company””

    It always makes me happy to hear from disgruntled ex-employees. Do you by chance have an axe to grind?
    Your statement couldn’t be biased by any means could it?

    Just checking

    Cheers

  37. hans hedgehog says

    Slate.. .I am not actually disgruntled..I love the company I worked for.. but it is no longer the company I worked for

  38. movie2k says

    Something is rotten in Denmark. Coming on the heels of the white house calling a meeting with registrars seems auspicious. I know it was reported that the requested meeting is about cracking down on illegal online pharmacies, but my gut tells me there are some other possibly bigger issues at stake. Either way, I can almost guarantee that the government will start taking a more active role in regulating registrars activities in the next few months. Does Bob Parson’s know something we don’t?