sales Escrow.com purchased for $7.5 million

forge said:

Time to find a new escrow company?

Click to expand...

yes

equity78 said:

Freelancer.com announces the acquisition of Escrow.com and completion of capital raising

Some big news for a Sunday night, Escrow.com getting acquired by Freelancer.com. Back in September of 2014, Escrow.com purchased Agreed.com.

SYDNEY, April 27, 2015:

Freelancer.com, the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace,today announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Escrow.com from a private investor for US$7.5 million in cash, and completed a AUD$10 million placement of ordinary shares to institutional investors.

http://www.thedomains.com/2015/04/26/escrow-com-purchased-for-7-5million/

Click to expand...

Wow. Then this was a very stupid thing for them to do only a month ago...
https://www.namepros.com/threads/freemarket-is-spamming-flippas-failures.852780/

only 7.5 million? What was this, a short sale? lol

Shimmy said:

Has anyone used another 3rd party escrow service that they could recommend? After I read about Freelancer.com doing reversals and allowing sellers to lose both their domain and money on their freemarket.com site. I have zero trust in anything they run.

Click to expand...

I have used Escrow.com and EscrowHill.com, Andee Hill came from Escrow.com so might be worth checking out. Do your homework, they are not cleared to transact in certain states however.

To be fully transparent they are an advertiser on TLDinvestors.com but I have used the company, their premium service does take possession of the domain and the funds.

$4,000 sale on EscrowHill using Premium service would be $125 on Escrow.com basic it would be $130, Premier $252.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about EscrowHill.com. We do offer our premium service where we take possession of the domain so there is no review period on the transaction.

Remember Escrow.com acquired Agreed.com last year... so I'm wondering if they get that domain as well.

I can vouch for Andee's EscrowHill service. Amazing service plus quick response rate. Must try

Andee Hill said:

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about EscrowHill.com. We do offer our premium service where we take possession of the domain so there is no review period on the transaction.

Click to expand...

sbweb said:

Remember Escrow.com acquired Agreed.com last year... so I'm wondering if they get that domain as well.

Click to expand...

No, as far as I know, they did not acquire the Agreed.com domain with that sale.

Andee Hill said:

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about EscrowHill.com. We do offer our premium service where we take possession of the domain so there is no review period on the transaction.

Click to expand...

A few questions:

Do you allow buyers and sellers to split escrow costs and have the seller's fees deducted from proceeds?

Do you require buyers to sign up for an account to buy? This is one of the speedbumps when using sedo.

What is the typical turnaround time on premium escrow?

Do you have staff available over the weekend? (another issue when using sedo)

The New Guy said:

A few questions:

Do you allow buyers and sellers to split escrow costs and have the seller's fees deducted from proceeds?

Do you require buyers to sign up for an account to buy? This is one of the speedbumps when using sedo.

What is the typical turnaround time on premium escrow?


Do you have staff available over the weekend? (another issue when using sedo)

Click to expand...

1. Yes, we allow splitting the escrow fee and the sellers portion is deducted from their proceeds.
2. Users must sign up to agree to or create a transaction as we would need their information to securely provide them payment details and/or collect their disbursement details.
3. Turn around time on premium escrow depends on where the domain is currently registered and how quickly the seller can provide control to EscrowHill once funds are secured. It can easily be done in a few hours depending on the registrars involved.
4. Yes, we provide weekend email support. We can also release funds on Sundays since our New Zealand bank is many hours ahead of US states.

On more question for Andee Hill:

Can you handle multiple domain sales in one escrow transaction - for example a buyer wanted two or three of my domains and we agreed on a package price, can the escrow for all be done at once or do they need to be conducted separately?

The New Guy said:

On more question for Andee Hill:

Can you handle multiple domain sales in one escrow transaction - for example a buyer wanted two or three of my domains and we agreed on a package price, can the escrow for all be done at once or do they need to be conducted separately?

Click to expand...

Yes, when the transaction is created, the user can list each domain with a separate price or they upload the list of domains as an attachment.

equity78 said:

I have used Escrow.com and EscrowHill.com, Andee Hill came from Escrow.com so might be worth checking out. Do your homework, they are not cleared to transact in certain states however.

To be fully transparent they are an advertiser on TLDinvestors.com but I have used the company, their premium service does take possession of the domain and the funds.

$4,000 sale on EscrowHill using Premium service would be $125 on Escrow.com basic it would be $130, Premier $252.

Click to expand...

I will be looking at them for sure. Thank you.

equity78 said:

Freelancer.com announces the acquisition of Escrow.com and completion of capital raising

Some big news for a Sunday night, Escrow.com getting acquired by Freelancer.com. Back in September of 2014, Escrow.com purchased Agreed.com.

SYDNEY, April 27, 2015:

Freelancer.com, the world’s largest freelancing and crowdsourcing marketplace,today announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Escrow.com from a private investor for US$7.5 million in cash, and completed a AUD$10 million placement of ordinary shares to institutional investors.

http://www.thedomains.com/2015/04/26/escrow-com-purchased-for-7-5million/

Click to expand...

Bad deal.
I think the domain name alone is worth $7.5 Million

7.5 million only ??? :o :o :o

I fully appreciate the magnitude of 7-8 million dollars, and I can even sympathize with the owner wanting to cash out, but he/she left a mind-boggling amount of money on the table with this deal.

It appears to me that he/she didn't really know what to do next and saw no potential upside to retaining the business. Fair enough, but the correct approach would have been to hire new management who was capable of leading it in the right direction, instead of staying stagnant for another ten years.

Escrow.com is in a dominant position and on an uptrend. That is the time to double down, not undersell your business.

In my opinion, this is the most disappointing sale that I have ever witnessed in over a decade of being in this industry. One for the history books, folks.

I wouldn't be surprised if Freelancer strong-armed them into selling. Just kidding... Maybe...

Great deal for the buyer.

Great revenue and I am sure EBIDTA can be vastly increased to make this a 2-3 year investment in a field that isn't going anywhere. Just an amazing investment where any single or group of investors can retire on for life. Can't think of ANYTHING threatening the Escrow.com business nor can I think of any way the business can be threatened in the future.

I am wondering why Escrow.com hasn't contacted anyone else in regards to the sale of their business. I, nor anyone I know, has even heard the news that they are looking to be acquired. What a shame.

PS
A few years ago I did remember hearing rumors that they were looking to sell the business for only $2.5million.

Maybe they indicated lower price to the public to pay less in taxes from that. May be they agreed among themselves on a different amount

@Andee Hill You sound like to next go to place for my deals but honestly I hope the Escrow deal does not go through.

I have a somewhat related question.

From a technical perspective, how difficult would it be for one to create their own Escrow company?

magnate said:

I have a somewhat related question.

From a technical perspective, how difficult would it be for one to create their own Escrow company?

Click to expand...

Difficult. There are substantial financial and regulatory requirements that vary extensively depending on the location of the escrow company AND the location of the customers.

Andee Hill said:

Difficult. There are substantial financial and regulatory requirements that vary extensively depending on the location of the escrow company AND the location of the customers.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I see that you were asking from a technical perspective, not from a regulatory perspective. Technically, it is easier. Especially when you understand the best flow for a transaction.

I always got the feeling with Escrow that they had a staff of 5.

So maybe they are just done with the whole business and 7.5 mil can go a long way. For whatever reason, it will be interesting to see where they go with everything.

Good luck Escrow/Freemarket!

<- btw 700th post

Sounds like Escrow.com was motivated to sell for whatever reason.

DomainVP said:

I always got the feeling with Escrow that they had a staff of 5.

So maybe they are just done with the whole business and 7.5 mil can go a long way. For whatever reason, it will be interesting to see where they go with everything.

Good luck Escrow/Freemarket!

<- btw 700th post

Click to expand...

Agree they staff seemed like at an small office with 5 people or less BUT they handled themselves like a corporate company FULL of people working hard. They had so much trust within our domain community and now I feel Freelancer will make it o so much worse! God the more I talk about it the more I hate this deal to the core!