new gtlds Donuts makes $70 million unsolicited offer for Rightside’s new TLD business

[News]

Donuts announced today that it’s making a $70 million offer to acquire Rightside’s (NASDAQ:NAME) new top level domain name business.

On the face of it, $70 million might represent a nice return for Rightside. Before acquiring .games, it had spent a net $16 million to acquire its 39 top level domains. But the company has invested substantially in marketing and behind-the-scenes operations, including setting up its back-end registry. Donuts uses Rightside’s registry platform, and I imagine it would be part of the acquisition.

If it were to sell the new top level domain assets, it would retain its registrar platforms (eNom and Name.com), its portfolio of about 300,000 domain names as well as half of NameJet...

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