As I speculated last December, domain registrar GoDaddy appears to be gearing up for an initial public offering.
News reports today, including this one at MarketWatch, suggest that GoDaddy could be valued at a quarter billion dollars when it hits the markets. Analysts estimate that GoDaddy’s revenue jumped from under $1M in 2000 to over $75M in 2004 — that’s quite a growth rate!
It will be interesting to see how the company changes during this process. GoDaddy President Bob Parsons is not one to keep his lips sealed but will have to do so during the so-called “quiet period”. Parsons might also find himself in a position where he needs to keep his political views separate from the company. His blog has featured stories about divisive issues like torture.
Here are some recent articles at Domain Name Wire about GoDaddy:
–Is GoDaddy violating ICANN’s transfer policy?
–GoDaddy’s TDNAM testing extended auctions
–GoDaddy ad approved for Super Bowl
–Survey: GoDaddy top registrar, eNom tops for big players
–Is GoDaddy typosquatting?
5DayDomains.com says
GODADDY WITHDRAWS IPO…WHAT NOW?
If AOL is smart they will scoop up GoDaddy and have a big play in the Domain business to go hand in hand with their overhaul. Yahoo sells domain names and it seems to be a good lead in for its business services offering.
Bob Parsons will come out on top, and who or however this deal is done the key is to keep Bob on board for the reasonable furture. If you remember he sold his other software company and came out smelling like a rose.
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