I was wrong, Famous Four bosses WERE kicked out

Famous Four Media’s portfolio of gTLDs is under new management after an investor rebellion, contrary to what I speculated earlier this week.
FFM’s former stable, which includes the likes of .men and .science, is now being managed by a company calling itself GRS Domains, but this new company has absolutely nothing to do with FFM’s former management.
That’s according to Robert Maroney, founder of Connecticut-based Engineers Gate Investments, which is a shareholder of ultimate portfolio owner Domain Venture Partners.
Maroney got in touch with DI yesterday to explain some of what has recently happened to the ownership and management of the 16 high-volume new gTLDs.
Back in June I speculated based on the quite limited available information that FFM might be bankrupt.
On Tuesday, after GRS Domains announced a relaunch and a rejection of its previous volume-heavy, spam-friendly business plan, I speculated based on slightly more information that management had repurchased the TLD assets after investors forced it into administration.
I was wrong on both counts, according to Maroney. What actually happened is more akin to an investor takeover.
Maroney said he “engineered” the ouster of FFM and its two shareholders/managers, Iain Roache and Geir Rasmussen, after Roache attempted to close down DVP.
DVP is basically a collection of private and institutional investors (brought in by Roache and others) from around the world which, based on the available evidence, have little or no connection to the domain name industry.
It’s a matter of public record that each gTLD contract is owned by a distinct Gibraltar-based shell company — dot Bid Limited owns the ICANN rights to run .bid for example — and that Domain Venture Partners owns these companies.
I’ve previously reported that Famous Four was also owned by DVP, but Maroney said that this was never the case. It was owned 80-20 by Roache and Rasmussen and contracted by DVP to manage the 16 gTLDs.
The affiliated registrar AlpNames, which has been responsible for a very large portion of registrations in the portfolio, had the same ownership structure as FFM and was never directly connected to DVP, Maroney said.
Following a court battle, GRS Domains has replaced FFM as the registry manager.
GRS is owned by PricewaterhouseCoopers, and is currently being managed by court-appointed administrator Edgar Lavarello, a Gibraltar-based accountant at PwC.
Maroney did not want to get into the detailed specifics about what caused the investor revolt, but did say that shareholders were unhappy with how FFM was managing the portfolio.
Its low-price, high-volume strategy had caused its TLDs to become the destinations of choice for spammers and other abusive registrants.
But the court case was brought after Roache attempted to break up DVP, restructure ownership of the 16 individual registries, and “escape the regulation of Gibraltar”, Maroney said.
“Roache wanted to shut down DVP in a way we considered to be unlawful,” he said.
He said DVP shareholders felt Roache’s moves were “inappropriate and unlawful”, which is what caused him to “engineer”, via fellow investor Christina Mattin, DVP being placed into administration.
I have seen no independent evidence that Roache acted or attempted to act unlawfully. The court document I’ve seen appointing Lavarello as administrator contains no finding of wrongdoing by anyone.
The upshot of all this is that the group of TLDs formerly known as Famous Four Media is now GRS Domains — Global Registry Services Ltd — and that Lavarello is currently in charge.
I imagine the company will want to find permanent management at some point, but Maroney did not want to talk about that.
In the meantime, GRS has already made moves to become more transparent and to engage more with the rest of the industry.
Maroney said, and I have independently confirmed, that he was at the ICANN meeting in Panama recently, meeting senior industry figures. Famous Four executives have not been known to attend ICANN meetings or industry events in the past.
GRS has told registrars it intends to have a formal presence at ICANN 63 in Barcelona also.
The company will shortly terminate all of its promotional pricing and introduce a flat $9.98 registry fee, which is very likely to affect its volumes and reduce spamming activity over the next year or so.
UPDATE July 30 2020: This article was edited to remove an erroneous link to the web site of Engineers Gate LP, which is not the same company as Engineer’s Gate Investments LLC.
UPDATE August 12 2020: This article was edited to correct GRS’s ownership status. It’s owned by PwC, not DVP. Roache’s job title at FFM was also corrected.
In addition, Roache recently wrote to DI, almost two years after the article was originally published, and made the following statements:

Famous Four Media (FFM) was placed in voluntary administration by myself and Mr Rasmussen as respective 80% and 20% shareholders, due to invoices that went unpad by PWC Gibraltar as administrator to DVP.
…
There was NO “court battle to replace FFM with GRS”. FFM withdrew services after promises to pay FFM its outstanding invoices by PWC turned out to be untruthful.
…
To say or repeat the allegation that it was “unlawful” to close the fund down is untrue… DVP was set up as a closed end fund with a maximum maturity of April 2018 on 12 April 2012 — i.e. a 5-year fund with a one-year extensions.
Against the recommendation of myself as Investment Director and largest creditor and investor, the support of the Board, the regulated Fund Administrator Juno, the Fund’s own regulated legal counsel Isolas and the approval of the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission — a number of investors pushed to place the Fund into administration. The actions of those few investors led by Ms Mattin, Mr Maroney and PWC have been hugely prejudcial to other investors in DVP and the seed investors, including myself. In April 2018 the valuation of the Fund’s assets was in excess of £30 million and of the total registry assets more than £100 million — today the value is close to zero if not insolvent under the disastrous management of PWC, Maroney and Mattin.
Mr Maroney’s statement that he “engineering the ousting of Mr Rasmussen and I” is also untrue — I made it clear to all investors in DVP in an emaill dated October 2017 that if the Fund was not redeemed in Specie with investors honouring their debts then the alternative choice would be a structured administration which ran the risk of losing their entire remaining assets in DVP.

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Tagged: alpnames, domain venture partners, engineers gate, Famous Four Media, ffm, global registry services, grs domains