I've been told by a reliable source who wishes to stay anonymous that the domain name WE.com sold for $8 million. The sale was confirmed earlier in the year but price and details of the transaction were never disclosed.
In an earlier article, I was able to confirm that the brokerage fee was around the $1 million mark, which allowed us to speculate that the final sales price may have been around $8-10 million.
However, I can now reveal that the final sales price was $8 million, and the domain name was sold to Tencent - China's largest Internet service portal and creators of WeChat, a free messaging and calling app used by over half a billion people.
The brokerage fee was reportedly 12.5%, which would mean that my article earlier in the year about WE.com's brokerage fee was right.
The 12.5% commission is Sedo's standard commission agreement and was broken down into two agreements: firstly, a 10% brokerage fee. Secondly, a 2.5% fee for the brokerage firm not to reveal the price paid.
As Sedo was the main broker in the deal, I reached out to Sedo to ask whether they could confirm any of the details above, but naturally they couldn't.
This $8 million sales price would put We.com at the 7th largest domain sale on record, only $500,000 behind FB.com.
Update on Aug 24, 2015: The WHOIS information has been updated to show the registrant as [email protected] as the owner. This email address was used in the $300,000 acquisition of Heika.com by Tencent Holdings (owners of WeChat).
In an earlier article, I was able to confirm that the brokerage fee was around the $1 million mark, which allowed us to speculate that the final sales price may have been around $8-10 million.
However, I can now reveal that the final sales price was $8 million, and the domain name was sold to Tencent - China's largest Internet service portal and creators of WeChat, a free messaging and calling app used by over half a billion people.
The brokerage fee was reportedly 12.5%, which would mean that my article earlier in the year about WE.com's brokerage fee was right.
The 12.5% commission is Sedo's standard commission agreement and was broken down into two agreements: firstly, a 10% brokerage fee. Secondly, a 2.5% fee for the brokerage firm not to reveal the price paid.
As Sedo was the main broker in the deal, I reached out to Sedo to ask whether they could confirm any of the details above, but naturally they couldn't.
This $8 million sales price would put We.com at the 7th largest domain sale on record, only $500,000 behind FB.com.
Update on Aug 24, 2015: The WHOIS information has been updated to show the registrant as [email protected] as the owner. This email address was used in the $300,000 acquisition of Heika.com by Tencent Holdings (owners of WeChat).