Controversial deal will boost CNIC annual revenue by about €4 million.
Domain name company CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC) has acquired SK-NIC, A.S., manager of Slovakia’s .sk country code domain name, for about €26 million. The deal is for €21.27 million up front and deferred cash consideration of up to €4.85 million depending on how the namespace performs over the next three years.
The deal has been in the works for a while and faced opposition from some in Slovakia who argued that management of the name was stolen back in 1999.
Opposition to the deal might explain why CentralNic agreed with the Slovak government to donate 5% of revenue from the domain to a fund dedicated to projects that contribute to the Slovakian digital economy.
With 360,000 registered .sk domain names, the purchase price represents a whopping €72.55 per domain if all targets are met. That’s a stiff price, but based on CentralNic’s accounting rules it says the business would have added a profit before tax of €3.58 million last year, so the multiple is about seven.
Seems odd a company could just buy a ccTLD like this.
“Opposition to the deal might explain why CentralNic agreed with the Slovakian government to donate 5% of revenue from the domain to a fund dedicated to projects that contribute to the Slovakian digital economy.”
Those are peanuts … what about future price increase, “mr genius”? … it’s just a game of smoke and mirrors, like some of your “business friends” do.
Hope the deal will be blocked by the Slovak government.
You forgot to mention that here is a Public Petition on http://www.nasadomena.sk., promoted by 17 webhosting companies from Slovakia and the Czech republic and by 13 of the top 15 .SK TLD domain registrars covering more than 73% of all registered .SK domains.
Manipulations, fact omissions … always the same …
BTW, it’s “Slovak”, not “Slovakian”, and people are Slovaks.