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NameSilo finds buyer as debt payments loom

by — Domain Registrars 6 Comments

Company enters into non-binding letter of intent to be sold to Dutch operating company building a large presence in Africa.

Namesilo domain registrar logo

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. Nigerian entrepreneur Ayodeji Adewunmi operates WGH.

WGH operates WhoGoHost, which the company says is the market leader in Nigeria. According to a document Ronka shared with DNW:

WGH is now the clear market leader in Nigeria. The mandate is to become #1 in webhosting and domain names in 11 African countries by 2023, tagged P-11 (priority 11 countries). These 11 countries (Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia) are critical for the following reasons: scale of population, growth and economy, combined population of over half a billion (500 million), GDP of over a trillion US dollars (US$1 Trillion), and GDP growth, average of 6.5%. WGH is also pursuing a new line of business in domain Registry and now in an advanced stage of negotiations to take over the DotCV (.CV) Registry for Cape Verde which has the revenue potential to generate between US$65-100m annually within the first 5 years.

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’s in: the latest list of which registrars are top in .Com

by — Domain Registrars 2 Comments

 

The words "top 10 domain registrars" in purple and yellow text

ICANN has published the latest official data from Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN) about the .com namespace. This registrar-by-registrar report covers July 2020.

For the second month in a row, Chinese domain name registrar Xin Net has hemorrhaged domains. I suspect some Chinese domain investors are letting their subpar domains go.

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

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 980,072 (1,019,809 in June)
2. Namecheap Inc. 281,870 (276,463)
3. Tucows** (NASDAQ:TCX) 248,333 (261,936)
4. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 200,407 (198,274)
5. Alibaba (HiChina) 193,608 (160,422)
6. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 169,345 (159,637)
7. Wix (NASDAQ: WIX) 109,552 (118,685)
8. United Internet^ 71,225 (78,001)
9. Dynadot 61,679
9. NameSilo 57,944 (58,967)

Here’s the leaderboard of the top registrars in terms of total .com registrations under management as of the end of July 2020.

1. GoDaddy* 54,055,970 (53,921,563 in June)
2. Tucows** 12,926,699 (12,911,196)
3. Endurance+ 7,123,142 (7,054,410)
4. Web.com++ 7,035,136 (7,036,119)
5. Namecheap 6,177,045 (6,001,568)
6. Alibaba 5,923,722 (5,877,037)
7. United Internet^ 5,552,903 (5,550,769)
8. Google 3,753,882 (3,653,632)
9. Xin Net Technology Corporation 2,793,597 (3,087,400)
10. GMO 2,249,611 (2,270,872)

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

* Includes GoDaddy, Wild West Domains, Uniregistry 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

NameSilo sold $840k of bitcoin before the crash

by — Domain Registrars 5 Comments

Registrar cashed out before market turmoil hit.

cryptocurrency

NameSilo sold bitcoin before the crash.

Like many assets, the value of bitcoin fell precipitously in recent weeks.  The value of a bitcoin has fallen in about half.

One domain name company had the good fortune of selling a cache of bitcoin before the market tumbled: NameSilo (OTC: URLOF) sold over 84 bitcoin at USD $9,957.15 each on February 19.  That gave it gross proceeds of USD $839,000.

At Friday’s price, it would have only been worth about $440,000.

The company collected the bitcoin as payments from its domain name registrar customers. In the earlier days of cryptocurrencies, I believe most companies that accepted cryptocurrency for payment immediately converted them into cash to offload the risk of price changes. That’s clearly not the case with NameSilo.

How domain name stocks fared in stock market rout

by — Domain Registrars 8 Comments

Not well.

Picture of man in front of computer showing falling stock prices

Stock markets were up nearly 10% on Friday, and it was a sigh of relief in a tumultuous period.

Stocks have been pummelled as the world goes into hiding over fears of the COVID-19 outbreak. The Dow 30 is down 22% since its peak on February 12. The S&P 500 and NASDAQ are both down 20% since their peaks on February 19.

And those numbers looked a lot worse the day before.

Here’s how domain name stocks have fared from their 2020 peak through Friday’s close:

Verisign (NASDAQ: VRSN): Verisign is off 16% from its high on February 6. It makes sense that the stock wouldn’t be as hard hit as the overall market. It delivers consistent, subscription-based revenue that is likely to go up as it’s allowed to raise prices.

Tucows (NASDAQ: TCX): Shares in the company that owns Enom have dropped 29% from their peak on January 16.

GoDaddy (NYSE: GDDY): GoDaddy’s value has fallen 30% between February 14 and now. I’m curious about what impact the economic and social changes of the novel coronavirus will have on domain name registrars and hosting companies.

Endurance (NASDAQ: EIGI): It’s a demoralizing time at Endurance, a rollup of domain name and hosting companies. Shares peaked this year on February 6 and have fallen by 57% since then. Is it overdone? Endurance’s management thinks so; it authorized a $40 million share buyback plan on March 10.

CentralNic (London AIM: CNIC): I hesitated to include CentralNic and the next two companies in this post. They are thinly traded so changes might not reflect the current market. But CentralNic’s shares are down 24% from a peak on January 2.

MMX (London AIM: MMX): New top level domain operator MMX (Minds + Machines) has seen its stock fall 25% from its peak on February 7.

NameSilo (OTC: URLOF): Shares in this registrar are down 50% since January 9. You have to give NameSilo some props for this well-timed sale of bitcoin, though.

This might present a buying opportunity if you think the world and market will rebound soon. 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.

.Com Winners & Losers: NameSilo enters top 10 overall

by — Domain Registrars 1 Comment

NameSilo bumps GMO off the list.

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 August 2019.

NameSilo has broken into the top 10 for .com domains under management, pushing GMO off the list. On the monthly charts, there was a bit of place-swapping but the same 10 registrars are the list for August that were on it for July.

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

1. GoDaddy.com* (NYSE: GDDY) 862,732 (854,643 in July)
2. Xin Net Technology Corporation 219,802 (321,742)
3. Tucows** 187,769 (NASDAQ:TCX) (194,581)
4. NameCheap Inc. 161,107 (161,790)
5. Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) 141,014 (134,583)
6. Alibaba (HiChina) 136,895 (126,586)
7. Endurance+ (NASDAQ: EIGI) 126,603 (129,559)
8. Dynadot 87,388 (131,601)
9. NameSilo (CSE:URL) 69,045 (89,027)
10. GMO 66,910 (66,323)

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

1. GoDaddy* 51,098,287 (51,022,025 in July)
2. Tucows** 13,123,695 (13,192,663)
3. Endurance+ 6,886,901 (6,896,718)
4. Web.com++ 6,607,353 (6,599,516)
5. Alibaba 6,189,184 (6,232,572)
6. United Internet^ 5,549,520 (5,550,220)
7. Namecheap 4,978,908 (4,915,798)
8. Xin Net Technology Corporation 4,575,392 (4,469,021)
9. Google 2,755,721 (2,662,532)
10. NameSilo 2,127,096 (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 and Register.com
^ Includes 1&1, PSI, Cronon, United-Domains, Arsys and world4you

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