Owning a Bankrupt Company's Domain Name - Good or Bad?

[FUTRS]

Hey everybody.

About a year or so ago, i bought a domain name off of GDA. It was in the automotive industry and more importantly to me - it was one of my focal categories. It's definitely a top tier name for this sector.

When i saw the name listed i did a little background to see what's what and found out that this name had belonged to a once fairly reputable company that, unfortunately for them, wound up declaring bankruptcy and folded the business.

...so now the name is mine.

Along the way, i have found out through visitors to my FUTRS site (which is where the domain is now forwarded to), that there are a fairly nice amount of link backs to this site from some really big sites (BusinessWeek... CNET...among others..). This company was making some pretty nice headline for a while there before they went under, so they're not exactly a secret in this industry.

I've had a couple of inquiries on the name already with one person balking at my asking price saying that he was aware of the history of the company and wouldn't spend that much on it because of that.

so my question then, really, is this...
is it common to see a new(er) company being formed that would knowingly be happy about using the name of a bankrupted company? Off hand, i can't think of any nor do i know where to research such a thing.

... i 'm sure there's plenty of instances of a new company forming their business under an older name such as this - completely unaware of the history attached... but is it more of a good thing or a bad thing that i have this name?

It really is a solid name - estimated worth $xx,xxx

Looking forward to hearing back from you all.
Thanks

 

[Kate]

While the company may be dissolved, there might still be live TMs, even if nobody is going to enforce them. Buy you never know, some assets of the defunct company may have been transfered/sold to a new entity. That possibly includes IP assets.
Just playing the devil's advocate here.

It seems very unlikely to me that another company would want to brand around a name that has heavy history, especially if:

• the domain name is not generic
• the potential buyer is in the same industry as the previous holder

IMO the most obvious benefit would be to redirect the domain and siphon whatever residual traffic there is. Traffic can bring in clients, but it might also bring in complaints from disgruntled (former) customers.

Depends on the name, is it generic enough to start a new life, or too deeply associated with failure.

 

[johname]

Depends on the name

Lots of people would want enron.com for many reasons, and that one has as bad of a stigma as it gets.

Are the items they made out there and still collected/traded?

There will always be low ball collector/dealers out there that would balk at your enduser/startup price

 

[momentum]

I dont think a bankruptcy hurts a domain name unless it was a widely known scandalous thing. If anything you know the person who contacted you probably wanted to poach their old customers, so obviously there is value to the domain name.