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How domain stocks are faring in 2020

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Endurance leads the way after acquisition.

Picture of stock chart with the words "domain stocks"

It’s been a wild ride in the stock market this year. On March 14, I wrote about how domain name stocks fared during the pandemic market crash up through the close on March 13. I wrote an update in May about how shares had rebounded with the market.

Fast forward to now: The NASDAQ is up 29% for the year, the S&P 500 up 7%, and the Dow is down 2%.

Domain stocks should probably be compared to the tech-heavy NASDAQ.

Here’s a look at how domain stocks have fared this year. Data is based on the closing price on December 31, 2019 and November 4, 2020.

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN): Verisign is up 6% for the year, closing at $203.39 yesterday. The company is seeing a nice uptick in domain registrations as businesses move online during the pandemic. The market is likely also pricing in 7% annual price hikes for the next four years, with the first kicking in before October 2021.

Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX): Shares in the company that owns Enom have increased 23% this year. The market cheered when Tucows divested its lagging mobile phone business.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY): Before announcing earnings yesterday evening, shares were up 17% for the year.  The stock is getting hit today.

Endurance (NASDAQ: EIGI): An acquisition by Clearlake Capital values shares at $9.50 each. They’re currently trading at $9.36, nearly double their closing price on December 31, 2019.

CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC): CentralNic continues its acquisition binge, moving heavily into online advertising. Shares are down 15% for the year.

MMX (London AIM: MMX): An accounting scandal at this top level domain company has pushed shares lower in recent weeks. Shares are down 37% so far this year.

NameSilo (OTC: URLOF): Thinly traded NameSilo is having a rough year on the market. The OTC stock is off 55%.

Clarivate (NYSE: CCC): I didn’t include Clarivate in my analyses earlier this year because domains are just a small part of what it does (it owns MarkMonitor). But it has had a great year on the market; shares are up 80%!

I do not own individual shares in publicly-traded domain name companies to avoid a conflict of interest. Mutual funds I own, including index funds, do hold some of these stocks.

Endurance International Group to go private in $3 billion deal

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

Clearlake Capital to acquire EIGI.

Endurance International Group Logo

Clearlake Capital Group is acquiring Endurance International Group (NASDAQ: EIGI) in a $3 billion deal (including debt).

The private equity company will pay $9.50 per share, a 64% premium over Friday’s closing price of $5.81.

Endurance International Group is a rollup of web hosting and domain name companies. Its brands include BuyDomains, BlueHost, Hostgator, Domain.com, and Constant Contact, among others.

The company has struggled to integrate its systems and brands over the years and has also suffered under a huge debt load. Its revenue has also struggled to tread water; but in Q3 revenue was up 3% year-over-year.

Share peaked above $20 in 2015. But anyone who bought shares this year will be happy with the result. Shares dipped below $2.00 during the Pandemic panic, and the $9.50 acquisition price represents the highest price the stock has hit since October 2018.

Web.com owner takes position in Endurance International Group

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Investment firm accumulates a small stake in Web.com competitor.

Photo of hundred dollar bills

Siris Capital, the private equity company that owns Web.com, has opened a position in Endurance International Group (NASDAQ: EIGI).

The investment firm owned a 2.39% stake in Endurance as of June 29. At today’s closing price, that’s worth about $21 million.

Shares in EIGI have been on a roller coaster this year and represented a great investment if you got in at the bottom. Shares closed at just $1.49 on March 20 during the height of the Covid-19 stock market panic. They closed today at $6.25, a more than 4x return.

Web.com owns domain name registrars Network Solutions and Register.com. Endurance International Group is a rollup of web hosting and domain name companies, including BlueHost, BuyDomains, and Domain.com. It also owns email marketing company Constant Contact.

Top ten domain name registrars, ranked by .com

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

A monthly look at the latest .com data

Image of man running up column chart with words "Top 10 Registrars"

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers December 2019.

Wix landed in the top ten list for new .com registrations for the second month in a row.

As usual, Chinese registrars were in flux. Note that Xin Net fell off the list. After posting 72,991 new .com registrations the prior month, it had only 18,212 in December!

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations:

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 904,896 (946,270 in November)
2. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 165,119 (182,250)
3. Namecheap Inc. 162,806 (163,141)
4. Chengdu West/West.cn 156,630
5. Alibaba (HiChina) 155,992 (163,419)
6. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 154,234 (127,219)
7. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 127,652 (136,518 )
8. Web.com 77,885
9. GMO 66,082 (86,969)
10. Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) 64,869 (62,712)

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations under management as of the end of December 2019.

1. GoDaddy* 51,788,723 (51,629,563 in November)
2. Tucows** 12,837,586 (12,910,915)
3. Web.com++ 7,154,081 (7,096,388)
4. Endurance+ 6,807,222 (6,817,113)
5. Alibaba 6,014,079 (6,013,715)
6. United Internet^ 5,508,700 (5,526,648)
7. Namecheap 5,232,862 (5,182,418)
8. Xin Net Technology Corporation 4,286,667 (4,433,678)
9. Google 3,109,392 (3,032,888)
10. GMO 2,278,000 (2,253,907)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain and Bigrock. There are other Endurance registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes Network Solutions, Register.com, and Crazy Domains/Dreamscape
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you

Shakeup on the .com leader boards, Namecheap tops 5 million

by — Domain Registrars 3 Comments

Lots of shifting and Namecheap hits a milestone.

Image of man running up column chart with words "Top 10 Registrars"

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers September 2019.

There was a lot of shakeup this month.

On the new registrations chart, Xin Net fell out of the top ten after its monthly volume reduced from 220k to 51k. Hosting Concepts B.V. d/b/a OpenProvider, an at-cost registrar, surged into the top 10.

On the total .com leaderboard, GMO replaced NameSilo in the #10 spot after giving it up to NameSilo the month before.

Namecheap hit a big milestone, surging past 5 million .com domains under management.

Finally, on the clerical side, I’ve added Crazy Domains to Web.com’s totals starting this month. Web.com acquired CrazyDomains’ parent company Dreamscape last year.

Here’s how registrars did in terms of new .com registrations:

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 855,287 (862,732 in August)
2. Chengdu West 222,511
3. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 180,825 (187,769)
4. Namecheap Inc. 163,226 (161,107)
5. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 138,929 (141,014 )
6. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 124,810 (126,603)
7. Alibaba (HiChina) 105,294 (136,895)
8. GMO 95,565 (66,910)
9. Web.com++ 71,894
10. OpenProvider 67,647 (n/a)

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations as of the end of September 2019.

1. GoDaddy* 51,253,800 (51,098,287 in August)
2. Tucows** 13,047,695 (13,123,695)
3. Web.com++ 7,031,650 (6,607,353)
4. Endurance+ 6,873,843 (6,886,901)
5. Alibaba 6,118,945 (6,189,184)
6. United Internet^ 5,549,036 (5,549,520)
7. Namecheap 5,051,943 (4,978,908)
8. Xin Net Technology Corporation 4,518,714 (4,575,392)
9. Google 2,845,811 (2,755,721)
10. GMO 2,183,060 (n/a)

Many domain companies have multiple accreditations and I’ve tried to capture the largest ones. See the notes below.

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains and 123 Reg
** Includes Tucows, Enom, Ascio and EPAG
+ Includes PDR, Domain.com, FastDomain and Bigrock. There are other Endurance registrars, but these are the biggest.
++ Includes Network Solutions, Register.com, and Crazy Domains
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you

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