Millions of dollars in domains sold at auction.
The biggest domain name auction of the year took place yesterday, but you probably haven’t heard about it. And Oversee.net, parent company of Moniker, was a bidder, not a seller.
Yesterday at 10 am substantial assets from The Parent Company were scheduled to be auctioned off at the law offices of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP. The Parent Company owns a number of online retailers including eToys. Among the domain names owned by The Parent Company are Toys.com, eToys.com, Toys.org, Birthdays.com, Birthday.net, eBirthdays.com, eKids.com, Hobbies.com, iToys.com, Pinata.com, and ePregnancy.com.
A number of companies submitted qualified starting bids prior to the auction, ranging from $10,000 to $500,000. The final sale amount of the domains was in the millions. Top sales include:
ePregnancy.com, Baby Universe and Dreamtime Baby, eToys.com and related eToys names for $2.15 M
Birthdays.com, Pinata.com, eParties.com $200,000 sold to Done Ventures
Toys.com $1.25M sold to Faculty Lounge
eKids.com $17,000
Hobbies.com and iToys.com $102,000 sold to Domain Equity
Among the bidders were:
Amazon.com (through a subsidiary)
1800diapers.com, which owns Diapers.com
Oversee.net, parent company of DomainSponsor, Moniker, and SnapNames
Vertical Axis, LLC, familiar to most domainers
Domain Equity, LLC (involves Monster Venture Partners)
Drugstore.com
The Parent Company filed for bankruptcy in December 2008 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Delaware.
Attorneys from Pachulski Stank Ziehl & Jones were not immediately available for comment.
Great report!
Take note that this clearly indicates that domains ARE ASSETS!
This could be good and bad news.
Imagine this being the sticking point in a divorce proceeding.
Interesting, I wonder what the parent company initially paid for these?
Yeah domains are assets, but it does not mean you can’t easily transfer them to a shell corporation. The same way you do a home or commercial real estate, you can sell it to yourself in another country. I’ve seen it done with a mansion here in Florida and a few (very expensive) vehicles in Latin America.
1.25 million for Toys.com! Sounds like a bargain to me.
Now the trick is for the owner to actually build a business on the domain, instead of just holding it.
That is the difference between a domainer and a business person.
Troy
WoW…great names, cheap prices.
Some good sales.
Toys.com was a great deal.
The sales are good – but not very impressive.
I’d have thought some of them would have gone for much more.
Toys.com sold for only $1.25M is very bad news for domain owners.
So there were no buyers willing to pay more than $1.25M?
I would think a domain like toys.com is worth atleast $5M.
This is very sad for sellers and very good for buyers!
I think they made a mistake by not publicly announcing this auction.
Well no one even knew about this auction!!! If they advertised it toys.com would of sold for $2-$6mill.
Agree that they would have sold for a lot more if people knew about it. The law firm was probably used to auctioning off hard assets and didn’t know how the business worked.
The bankruptcy court still has to approve the bids for it to be approved.
It’s actually the debtors creditors that have to approve the sales, not the court.
who do we contact to make a higher bid?
Seems like the law firm did a poor job publicizing the auction.
Did Toys”R”Us pass on the opportunity to bid on Toys.com or were they not informed?
Patrick, my understanding is Toys R Us was there bidding under a different name. I don’t yet know which party they were, perhaps as their private equity backers.
Just emailed the firm.
“my understanding is Toys R Us was there…”
Thanks Andrew.
I still think the law firm did a poor job publicizing the auction as there was no discussion of this auction or the domains
that were being auctioned off in any of the domain forums or blogs…as far as I know.
Had the domaining community picked up on this before hand I’m sure word would have spread quickly.
I’d bet you would have been one of the first.
And Ron Jackson too!
The resulting buzz could only have helped the auction.
Let’s face it. It’s bad economy for everyone. Respective companies were there to bid but they let go at that price.
It’s hard on cash for companies.
“Respective companies were there to bid but they let go at that price.
It’s hard on cash for companies.”
Yes but when you factor in how much it cost
to advertise on TV, newspapers, etc., I think
a domain like Toys.com would be a good investment…NOT a cost.
I’m with you Patrick.
They simply don’t want to spend money now. This is why Live Current selling some of their portfolio to get a liquid cash to stay.
1.2 mill for toys.com is a complete steal.
The ROI on that is 1 – 1.5 years with a small ecommerce site.
Even considering the very poor marketing (not) done, everything considered, Toys sold for it’s full value.
The best deal of these which Andrew got the prices on is Hobbies, which; if properly “niched to death” ; would be a real money maker … forever.
@ Steve – I agree that the Hobbies.com lot was the best deal. I also like the birthdays lot.
Just want to clarify something based on comments over at TechCrunch. The creditor (and perhaps the court) still have to approve the transactions, but saying they can change their minds if they get a higher bid is somewhat misleading. I guess it could happen…but they could deny it for other reasons. My guess is 99.9% of the time these things get approved.
Is it “The Faculty Lounge” who bought it ? I don’t see any other Faculty Lounge website on Google.
Vertical Axis, LLC
LOL Now we know where the $10k bids came from!