SEC filing details plans for spin-off of domain business.
Later this year, Marchex hopes to spin off its pay-per-click and domain name business into a new publicly traded business called Archeo. It will trade on the NASDAQ under the ticker ACHX.
It released more information about Archeo in a June 7 SEC filing.
On the domain name side of the business, Archeo will work to sell domains from its portfolio of 200,000+ domains, “opportunistically” acquire new domains, and selectively develop sites.
This model is similar to a number of large domain name portfolio holders.
The company will launch a domain marketplace. At first it will focus on selling Archeo’s domain names, with a focus on what it considers to be its premium domains. Over time it may include domains owned by third parties.
Of the domains Archeo owns, more than 75,000 are U.S. zip code sites in .com and .net. The company owns lots of geo targeted sites.
For now, two of the company’s executives are also Marchex executives Russell Horowitz (CEO of Marchex) and Rod Diefendorf (COO of Marchex).
The company also hire Michelle Miller at the beginning of this year (she was contracting for the company last year). Miller worked with Mike Mann to help build BuyDomains into a giant domain portfolio company that was sold to NameMedia.
The SEC filing also includes this chart, showing domain sales averages reported by Sedo compared to Archeo’s own results.
The company has started to release quarterly domain sales information, which should add much more color to these averages.
Jp says
Wow Marchex looks like it sells a lot more domains than Sedo. Goes to show what having a controlled inventory will do for sell-thru-rates.
Sal says
Bad name choice. How do you say it exactly?
Andrew Allemann says
@ JP – Marchex sells fewer domains, just at higher prices.
Bill Sweetman says
@ Sal, it’s pronounced “ark-eee-oh” and comes from a Latin root.
ChuckWagen says
Even with 200k names, I don’t see how those sales numbers are possible. They sold over 25% of their inventory this year alone? Do they acquire as fast/as much as they sell?
Andrew Allemann says
Sales numbers? These are average size of sale
ChuckWagen says
Or I could answer my own question with two words, “fire sale”.
ChuckWagen says
stress kills :/