2.2 billion is a lot of domains.

http://wallstreetrun.com/go-daddy-an...-sold-ap-2.htm

That's definitely some worthy news!

I suppose Bob Parsons couldn't really do much of a marketing job now, after the elephant incident, so it was time to sell.

It would be indeed, though I wonder how much profit they really have out of domains. I suspect that the hosting side of the business was a very heavy part in the valuation.

That would be my guess too Dan.
They do manage 48 million domain names though. A lot of paperwork.

48 million domains names. That's just a cosmic number. Wow.

Just read the article. $2.25n is a lot of shekels. But then its a billion-dollar company (annual sales-wise). Still wondering how they didn't go public with those numbers and remained private. Could this be a potential move by new investors?

If they did - would you buy company stock?

They didnt go public a few years ago, because no-one wanted to buy the stock ... most of their t/over comes from non-domain items - guess the 32 pages of hard-upsells does work !

It wouldn't matter to the investors how they make their money, as long as they make it. And they clearly are making lots of it.

If you notice, GoDaddy hasn't been marketing itself as a domain registrar. They even have it in their slogan: "domains, websites & everything in between."

Overall they provide good hosting and domain registration services.

Interested to see if the company goes in a new direction, or if they continue with the current established path. Also wondering when the news will hit the public. It's one thing for the hosting industry to know, but when the general public finds out, I wonder what the reaction will be (if any)

It is a hell of a deal. They'd probably try to expand further in the web hosting niche and would try to up-sell all the domain name customers.

I read a few more articles/postings on this. Looks like Bob will remain the largest individual share holder (percentage was not revealed from what I could find). I did find it interesting that Mr. Parsons stated that it is not a buy out, it was an investment;
- source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/07/...d-silver-lake/

It also looks like Parsons will become an executive chairman of the new company - so while things are changing, it may not change that much.

I also read somewhere that of the 2.25 billion dollar deal, half of that is actually DEBT from the company - so was it really still a good deal?

I was always under the impression that although Godaddy generated a lit of gross revenue, the actual profit they were pulling in every year was next to nothing. There was actually an article about it somewhere back in September when Mr. Parsons first started shopping Godaddy around.

We will see what happens, but unless the new owners have some innovative plans on how to keep godaddy afloat, I think they will probably just ride it until the wheels fall of. 2.2 billion dollars is a lot of money for a company that probably isn't making a whole lot of money annually (still in the millions, but nothing compared to billions). So if Godaddy ever goes public, I'll probably wait a month and then start shorting it

Not used godaddy for a long time now, their site is not great and I would never attempt to check their servers from feedback given!

However, that is a nifty amount of bucks there for a hosting and domain company, goes to show what hard work can pull off.

I still think they may fall at some point though

I only use them for domain registration. so far so good. Not tried the hosting part yet.

Indeed, having read some other articles myself, I feel that the deal is quite different from a "sale".

Going "local" globally was indeed the next step for a company the size of Godaddy, and given the small profit they purportedly have, they needed cash to fund the growth.

What is most interesting I think is that Bob Parsons didn't get to sell the company. Maybe he was expecting too much for it, or there are few buyers interested in a company this size in this market, with the budget to buyit.

I think we've all seen this coming, like a herd of elephants.