Another domain firm going private as Endurance announces $3 billion deal
Endurance International, owner of registrar brands including Domain.com, BigRock and BuyDomains, plans to go private in a $3 billion private equity deal.
The buyer is Clearlake Capital group, in what appears to be its first foray into the domain name market.
It has offered to pay $9.50 for each Endurance share, saying it’s a 79% premium on the closing price the day before the media first got a whiff of a deal being in the works back in September and a 64% premium on Friday’s close.
The deal is still subject to shareholder approval, but Endurance says institutional investors accounting for 36% of its shares have already promised to vote in favor.
Endurance yesterday also announced its third-quarter financial results. It reported net income down from $7.8 million to $6.7 million, on revenue that was up 3% at $278.4 million.
The company does not break out what portion of its revenue or profit comes from domains. Hosting and web marketing services are also a big part of its business.
Indian domain conference attracts 4,000
While US domain conferences are reportedly becoming sedate affairs, a domain-heavy summit that kicks off tomorrow in Mumbai has more than 4,000 signed-up attendees, according to organizers.
The two-day ResellerClub Hosting Summit, organized by Directi, may have “hosting” in the title, but its sponsors and agenda reveal a strong presence from the domain name industry.
Verisign is the major sponsor, plugging its .com and .net TLDs. Other sponsors include .org, .biz, .co, .asia and .pw.
The agenda features speakers from Public Interest Registry, ICANN, NameMedia and Directi new gTLD applicant Radix.
ResellerClub sells 11,000 .pro domains in a month
Directi says it sold 11,000 .pro domains via its ResellerClub channel in the first month after it started supporting the TLD.
That’s pretty impressive going, given that the whole of .pro was only about 155,000 domains at the last count, enough to put the registrar into fifth place for .pro domains under management.
ResellerClub’s wholesale price until October 31 is $2.99, with two free email accounts, according to the company.
The surge will prove useful to .pro registry Afilias, which expects to see over 40,000 domains — all of them US Zip codes registered to .pro’s former owner Hostway — drop this month.
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