Company enters into non-binding letter of intent to be sold to Dutch operating company building a large presence in Africa.
[Update: the sale did not go through.]
Domain name registrar NameSilo (CSE:URL) has entered into an agreement to be sold to a Dutch company that has grand plans in Africa.
WGH Holdings B.V. has entered into a non-binding letter of intent to acquire the company. It will pay a total of US $30 million for the company, with $15 million upfront and $5 million annually for three years. It has a 60-day due diligence period.
The buyer WGH Holdings B.V. was organized in the Netherlands in November. According to filings with the country’s Chamber of Commerce, it is owned by Roland Vos Beheer BV, which has a sole shareholder, Roland Vos.
NameSilo CEO Kristaps Ronka told Domain Name Wire that this ownership structure is not final and that WGH Holdings was set up to put NameSilo together with the actual business, which is a growing domain name and hosting business in Africa called WhoGoHost. Nigerian entrepreneur Ayodeji Adewunmi operates WGH. Update: WhoGoHost contacted me in April 2021 to say that, while it was in discussions with WGH about an acquisition, the acquisition did not conclude and that WGH Holdings does not own WhoGoHost.
While NameSilo has grown significantly since being acquired by current management in 2018, it has also struggled to make large debt payments. Its parent company NameSilo Technologies Corp includes going concern warnings in its financial statements. It has frequently entered into amended agreements with its creditors to delay payments. As of September, it still owed CAD $7.6 million.
Ronka told Domain Name Wire that the deal was not due to the debt load and that it is selling at 1.2x revenue to a strategic partner. He noted that NameSilo’s current management is staying on with the new company.
NameSilo has over 3.5 million domains under management.
This article has been updated with additional information from NameSilo. It was also updated on April 30, 2021 when WhoGoHost informed Domain Name Wire that it was not acquired and is not owned by WGH.
lets hope its not bounced around year after year and eventually, falls apart.
Buyer beware, as for new Top-Level Domains, they are stuffed with $1 registrations. It’s interesting how Epik and Dynadot, also NamePros sponsors are stacked heavy with .TOP and .XYZ domains particularly too.
NameSilo Registrations:
xyz: 405k 32%
top: 193k 15%
buzz: 153k 12%
monster: 124k 10%
icu: 65k 5%
—
TOTAL = 74% of all their nTLDs
vs. industry averages:
xyz: 10%
top 9%
buzz 2%
monster 0.5%
icu 16%
—
TOTAL = 27%
Something’s a miss. They’ll say they promoted these extensions, perhaps why they are lopsided compared to every other (non namepros) registrar? Well, if they promoted them to get this suspicious registrations, how did that work out? And how honest are these ‘assets’ in the first place?
Tell me savvy domainer investors whom they target with promotions bought all these particular $1 domains?
Anyone know what that translates to the final stock price? I see ticker URLOF is 19 cents right now
@livesavings.online
What a great post with great information, I am going to quote your numbers on my forum. I hope you don’t mind.
Sorry @lifesavings.online
I gave full credit for the statistics both to you and this site.
Just to clarify the situation here – NameSilo LLC, the company being sold, is selling the business to a new holder. The previous holder that owned NameSilo LLC had the debt on its books and that debt has nothing to do with NameSilo LLC. There is no debt concern as the debt is not on NameSilo LLC, the company being sold.
In terms of future operations, our entire team will continue with the new owner and there will be no change in staff. If anything, we will have access to more resources and be able to grow our team further.
With regards to our domain count, there is no need to make up numbers, we have a page that shows our live domain count broken out by TLD: https://www.namesilo.com/domain_count.php
.COM still accounts for the majority of our registered domains (55.5%).
So Namesilo will now be legally a Netherlands registrar and follow Dutch laws or will it still remain U.S. based LLC?
Look at what any reader posted about NameSilo’s top registrations –
NameSilo Registrations:
xyz: 405k 32%
top: 193k 15%
buzz: 153k 12%
monster: 124k 10%
icu: 65k 5%
Don’t these TLDs seem second rate? There are now 1000 TLDs, and some are better than others, in the judgment of the marketplace. Like .xyz, which seems totally generic or bland/anonymous.
And see that Name Silo said it’s being sold for 1.2x revenue. Compared to hot successful firms, that 20% “premium” is no such thing.
They stole my domain that has a value of 5,000 USD.
Scammers, they steal domains. They breach all TOS and can lock domain to forever without any reason. Be aware of this company. Also prices are much higher with a new owner which is pure scammer from the NL – Roland Vos Beheer. Stay away from company Namesilo and owner WGH Holdings B.V. which scam people around a world with their services and LIES! Owner performs PHISHING against clients.
They also refuse to release payments for marketplace sales. They scammed me of more than 1,000 USD from a perfectly legal sale, always looking for reasons to delay payment until I gave up.