SEC filing discloses interest in company.
Some people say the domain name business is an incestuous industry. They might be right.
An SEC filing this afternoon discloses that a company associated with Frank Schilling now owns 5.5% of the company.
The filing was made by FTS, Corp in Grand Cayman. Schilling’s middle name is Taylor, hence FTS are his initials. The filing was made by Ria Scott Blyth, Administrative Assistant of FTS Corp. Her LinkedIn profile shows that she works for Frank Schilling’s Uniregistry.
The SEC 13D filing was necessary because FTS now owns more than 5% of the company.
Schilling’s stake is worth about $8 million at today’s stock price.
Rightside owns a bunch of new top level domain names, eNom, Name.com, and half of NameJet.
(A) Hedging Bets
(B) Calling Shots
(C) Securing favorable terms for Uniregistry
(D) All of the above
(e) going all in on new TLDs
Wouldn’t going “all in” mean liquidating Frank’s vast .COM portfolio?
I’m not calling on him to do so. There’s nothing hypocritical in owning / selling / recommending both established and new TLDs. That’s simply an investor diversifying his holdings, finding new revenue streams to add to those preexisting.
But if Frank Schilling were to sell off his .COMs, then surely his stake in the nTLD program would go far beyond 5% of Rightside. Uniregistry proper would own more and better TLDs than it does, and its marketing budget would be greater. That would be going “all in”.
If Frank has a dollar – as he is rumored to have – then where does he put it? Any number of places:
(1) Registrar (Uniregistry)
(2) Parking platform (InternetTraffic)
(3) Market place (DomainNameSales)
(4) Domain names themselves.
(5) Registries.
Here he is putting the dollar into registries. Why not his own? I’m sure he’s consciously spreading his risk, which is what he ought to be doing. Still, Frank has less control over that $1 if he puts it in another company’s budget. What he gets in exchange is more control over that company’s decisions. Definitely a lot more than what he’d get if he weren’t 1/20th of their backing.
Frank’s intelligent. So if he spends $1, he’s either banking on a direct return or he’s extending his influence. Putting that $1 into Uniregistry marketing contributes to an nTLD publicity arms race.
Meanwhile putting that $1 into partial ownership of Rightside greatly improves Uniregistry’s strategic position. They own competing TLDs, of course. But more importantly, he gains access to prominent registrars and influence over market places.
Much better bang per buck in $1 so allocated.
(f) They are way better at picking new tlds to sell.
(F) DUMBER THAN DIRT AND ABOUT TO LOSE HIS SHIRT!
Why “incestuous”? I see why he would want this. As for the reasons Joseph mentioned. The word “incestuous” is a negative word in my opinion meaning “excessively close and resistant to outside influence.” Don’t see where this information justifies this specific word. (sorry, being nit-picky about one word in an otherwise great news post you made here.)
Great reporting!
I guess I was using it more as a figure of speech. Basically, everything is interconnected.
Taken in perspective, his investment in Rightside is only about the contention set auction price of one or two good TLDs.
If that’s the case, he should stop buying domains through Namejet auctions. 🙂
2 very smart guys involved – Frank and Taryn
For a while there it looked like Frank might own at least 5% of Adam Dicker.