It’s the second Australian domain registrar acquisition in two years for Web.com.
Domain name company Web.com is acquiring Webcentral Group (ASX:WCG) for AUS $12.2 million.
Webcentral has about 330,000 customers and focuses on the Australian market. Web.com acquired another Australian domain company, Dreamscape Networks, for $73 million last year.
While WebCentral is not a household name, some of its brands are: Melbourne IT, Netregistry, and WME.
If you’re keeping score at home, this is the third acquisition involving pieces of what was once a dominant player in Melbourne IT. Tucows and CentralNic bought slices of its former reseller network.
Siris Capital owns Web.com. Its other key brands include Network Solutions and Register.com.
Consolidation continues. I’m guessing Dynadot or Namesilo is next. Or maybe some PE will try to unlock the value in epik.
Registrars seem to be a decently safe place for PE to park money right now.
Web Central sold back in early 2000’ way above that amount I think –