domains GoDaddy acquiring Uniregistry's registrar & marketplace, and Name Administration's domain portfolio

[equity78]

The first blockbuster deal of the decade. GoDaddy Inc. (NYSE: GDDY), the company that empowers everyday entrepreneurs, today announced it is acquiring Uniregistry's leading domain registrar and marketplace businesses. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close sometime in Q2 2020. The Uniregistry domain registry is not part of the … [Read more...]

 

[Doron Vermaat]

This is a super-smart move by GoDaddy and shows their commitment to the domain name investing industry and the aftermarket. It's obviously terrific news for Frank Schilling. One of the true innovators in our industry during the last decade.

As a GoDaddy customer (I have most of my .com's with them) I am also excited about this statement from Paul Nicks, GoDaddy's VP of Aftermarket:

“The [Uniregistry] registrar experience will become our domain investor experience,” he said. “Today, you’re toggling between [advanced and regular views]. I want a customer to be able to toggle right into that investor experience.”

If the above will be really implemented that well remains the big question. GoDaddy essentially takes a big competitor and huge innovator off the market which is never good for the industry as a whole.

I doubt the news will be received that well by Uniregistry's sales platform and registrar customers. Many of them are with Uni because they have an aversion to GoDaddy and vice versa.

At Efty, we've seen a huge influx in signups since the news broke and I am sure some domaining friendly registrars will see an influx in names being moved too in the coming months as the acquisition will be finalized.

 

[Kai W.]

I feel sad rather than happy for this.
The reduction of giant registrars is conducive to the implementation of higher renewal prices. It is clear that both GODADDY and UNI have made a choice for this, GD chose to support it and UNI chose to withdraw. I decided that I would move my precious name to EPIK, at least for now, EPIK stands for justice.

 

[sellnow]

Thank you ... Godaddy is really great registrar, expend all their business more and more... Congrats for godaddy

 

[Henry Y]

It seems the acquisition still keeps name registration and the Uni Market unchanged, while Uni will integrate with Afternic DLS to support Fast Transfer and to gain exposure, and expired names will be put on GD auctions. It looks like a good news for Uni customers.

I register and sell names at Uni, and will keep looking how the situations change. If something go wrong, I will definitely switch to other venues for name registration and selling.

 

[Kai W.]

It seems the acquisition still keeps name registration and the Uni Market unchanged, while Uni will integrate with Afternic DLS to support Fast Transfer and to gain exposure, and expired names will be put on GD auctions. It looks like a good news for Uni customers.

I register and sell names at Uni, and will keep looking how the situations change. If something go wrong, I will definitely switch to other venues for name registration and selling.

Whether UNI to send emails against rising COM prices.I use GD but have never used UNI, but I think this may have more impact on registration and renewal than the secondary market.

 

[Embrand]

It seems GoDaddy got a steal, according to their own valuation

uniregistry.com

Estimated Value: $11,222

 

[daica85]

better together!!!

 

[Bernard Wright]

Maybe this will result in more historical sales data for GD appraisal comps.

 

[frank-germany]

You will probably see a lot of them quit after a few months. Some of the veteran ones will
probably integrate into Afternic. They do have good relationships with repeat clients.

oh no!

 

[Belmont]

Guys, what about parking?

Godaddy's parking and revenue is significantly worse than Uni. Will Uni keep their parking service or not?

Anybody knows maybe?

 

[wwwweb]

I think Godaddy dealt a huge blow to sedo with today’s sale, a lot of name admin inventory did sell thru sedo which may now be delisted for exclusive listings.

Dan could take a bit of a hit, but only if Godaddy chooses to embrace the self managed sales platform, if they gut it, Dan should get a lot more inventory set to it’s nameservers, and probably spike their sales as customers move to their landing pages.

I think Epik will see a lot of domains move over from the no daddy crowd.

Maybe Godaddy should buy Topcoin next, integrate their own cryptocurrency into the network.

 

[Ategy]

Wow .. so now GoDaddy becomes an even bigger virtual monopoly. That being said, I'm pretty sure this wasn't done for the domains.

Most importantly .. I'm very VERY disappointed Epik (@Rob Monster) didn't make this move. Seems it was good timing as Epik was on the way up and Uni was really suffering because of the legal situation. Frank likely sold under value as there seems just to have been too much outside stuff going on. ~1.125 million domains could have taken Epik to about 1.6M domains, placing them just outside the top 20 right in there with Dynadot, Domain.com and Name.com (all around 1.7M domains) .. I think it would have been great for competition to have another player at that level.

As I continue to say .. GoDaddy's platform is a disaster .. not sure if they really could effectively merge it with Uni. Given GoDaddy's track record over the last few years I'm thinking attempting to do that could end up making things worse.

The addition of quality brokers is also a plus .. but seems Uni has slowly been losing staff over the last couple of years. Lately at least one or two to Saw.com. Wouldn't be surprised to see more companies pilfer staff.

As for the Registry business .. most of them are garbage. The people who complain about the price hikes don't realise that it was either that, or sunsetting some of those ngTLDs. Besides .. I don't think a single person who's posted in this thread yet owned any of the domains in question.

GD likely didn't want the registry business both because it's garbage .. but also possibly because they didn't want to give the impression of competing with their current suppliers like donuts.

I always found it odd that Uniregistry rebranded to "Uni", without owning the .com. In fact .. despite Frank's spectacular portfolio and rich experience in domains, Uniregistry is(was) probably the worst named registrar in the business.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

As for the Registry business .. most of them are garbage. The people who complain about the price hikes don't realise that it was either that, or sunsetting some of those ngTLDs. Besides .. I don't think a single person who's posted in this thread yet owned any of the domains in question.

Just in case not clear, the 26 new extension registries are not part of the deal as I understand it. Frank S will continue to own those. The Uniregistry registrar business is included although at least initially it will continue operating separately.
Bob

 

[Ategy]

Just in case not clear, the 26 new extension registries are not part of the deal as I understand it. Frank S will continue to own those. The Uniregistry registrar business is included although at least initially it will continue operating separately.
Bob

Yup .. as I also said ...

GD likely didn't want the registry business both because it's garbage .. but also possibly because they didn't want to give the impression of competing with their current suppliers like donuts.

 

[alcy]

Wow .. so now GoDaddy becomes an even bigger virtual monopoly. That being said, I'm pretty sure this wasn't done for the domains.

Most importantly .. I'm very VERY disappointed Epik (@Rob Monster) didn't make this move. Seems it was good timing as Epik was on the way up and Uni was really suffering because of the legal situation. Frank likely sold under value as there seems just to have been too much outside stuff going on. ~1.125 million domains could have taken Epik to about 1.6M domains, placing them just outside the top 20 right in there with Dynadot, Domain.com and Name.com (all around 1.7M domains) .. I think it would have been great for competition to have another player at that level.

As I continue to say .. GoDaddy's platform is a disaster .. not sure if they really could effectively merge it with Uni. Given GoDaddy's track record over the last few years I'm thinking attempting to do that could end up making things worse.

The addition of quality brokers is also a plus .. but seems Uni has slowly been losing staff over the last couple of years. Lately at least one or two to Saw.com. Wouldn't be surprised to see more companies pilfer staff.

As for the Registry business .. most of them are garbage. The people who complain about the price hikes don't realise that it was either that, or sunsetting some of those ngTLDs. Besides .. I don't think a single person who's posted in this thread yet owned any of the domains in question.

GD likely didn't want the registry business both because it's garbage .. but also possibly because they didn't want to give the impression of competing with their current suppliers like donuts.

I always found it odd that Uniregistry rebranded to "Uni", without owning the .com. In fact .. despite Frank's spectacular portfolio and rich experience in domains, Uniregistry is(was) probably the worst named registrar in the business.

you mean you are disappointed epik didn't buy unireg for 9 figures?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

give the impression of competing with their current suppliers like donuts.

I think this is likely the case. Also, I wondered with various monopoly watchdogs, there may be some virtue in not being both a registrar and a registry.

Outside .link none of the Uniregistry new extensions have much traction. Without the advantage of their marketplace and broker network now, got to wonder what Frank S plans are for the registries.

Sorry for not reading fully to the end previously. That happens to me too!

Bob

 

[Ategy]

you mean you are disappointed epik didn't buy unireg for 9 figures?

Maybe could have worked something out where Frank kept his domains (I'm not even sure if Frank's portfolio is part of Uni's 1.1M count) .. beyond that I'm not sure it even was a 9 figure deal. Remember .. Uni was a slowly sinking ship ripe for acquisition (1.211M domains in Oct 2018 vs 1.126M in Oct 2019 .. a significant drop in a growing industry).

Ultimately I wouldn't even say the actual domains match up with GoDaddy's average client. GD is focused on the upsell (Hosting, Email), my understanding is that Uni was mainly a domainer registrar .. which means a significantly lower rate of upsale, with the alternative being a higher focus on domain sales (more in tune with Epik's direction).

I think this is likely the case. Also, I wondered with various monopoly watchdogs, there may be some virtue in not being both a registrar and a registry.

Maybe if they were strong ngTLD's .. but most are truly worthless. I just don't understand why they went for some of those with there being so many better alternatives.

Seems he did have a couple of good ones .auto/.autos? Not sure .. but I still remember hearing some of them and thinking .. nobody is ever going to register anything on those.

 

[Samer]

you mean you are disappointed epik didn't buy unireg for 9 figures?

epik save money for something better...

Rob isnt Bob Iger, bro...

Samer

 

[Ategy]

epik save money for something better...

I doubt there will be an as good acquisition deal any time soon. Obviously we don't know the details, and maybe GD did indeed pay a premium .. but Uni was a sinking ship .. while also losing key staff making that downward momentum even more likely to continue.

Obviously GD has the market cloud to buy anyone they want at a premium .. but for smaller players, this is a missed opportunity, if not for Epik, then maybe for one of the ones I mentioned earlier who are already in the 1.6M domain range.

 

[johnn]

To all the Psychics:

Acquisition NOT Merging.
3M and GE own a lot of other companies and they buy small companies for profit - not merging them into one.

This is what Ms. Cleo said - I was on the phone with her 5 minutes ago. If you don't know who Ms. Cleo is google it.

 

[wwwweb]

I doubt there will be an as good acquisition deal any time soon. Obviously we don't know the details, and maybe GD did indeed pay a premium .. but Uni was a sinking ship .. while also losing key staff making that downward momentum even more likely to continue.

Obviously GD has the market cloud to buy anyone they want at a premium .. but for smaller players, this is a missed opportunity, if not for Epik, then maybe for one of the ones I mentioned earlier who are already in the 1.6M domain range.

I agree this was a unique transaction, not an easy thing to do to integrate all those moving parts, I think the Brandsight potential will be great for Godaddy. I didn’t know Uniregistry had such a stake in the company. The main guy at Mark Monitor, Matt Serlin, and a few other execs came over when they started it.

350,000 of those domains will be owned by Godaddy.

The other accounts are made up of probably some veteran, and newbie domainers who will not hesitate to move them out. The same way they cold called to get them in, just as fast they could move out.

Both sides will need to be transparent with their clients on what will be happening down the pipeline so owners can make informed decisions.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

@Quintin
Can you inform us about the upcoming changes on UniMarket, if any?
For example, your payout processor remains OR it will be switched to GoDaddy's (bad news)?

 

[Samer]

@Quintin
Can you inform us about the upcoming changes on UniMarket, if any?
For example, your payout processor remains OR it will be switched to GoDaddy's (bad news)?

Who is @Quintin?

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

Who is @Quintin?

Tech leader on UniMarket.

 

[Business Brands]

It is sad to see Frank go.