14 DAY TRIAL // Go Daddy, the world's largest domain name register, is reportedly for sale for the nice round sum of at least $1 billion. The company, Go Daddy Inc. is privately owned and is now shopping itself around to potential buyers, venture capital investors.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Go Daddy has hired Qatalyst Partners to handle the deal.
Go Daddy is owned by Bob Parsons, its founder and CEO. The company is mostly known to the general public for its original advertising methods which involve what can be assumed to be networking and internet experts who also happen to be professional models.
Go Daddy's Super Bowl ads have become a regular event, each featuring a different Go Daddy Girl. Most recently, race driver Danica Patrick has been featured extensively as the company's public face.
The bulk of the business comes from selling internet domain names and GoDaddy.com is the world's largest such company, handling over 43 million domains.
Go Daddy also offers a number of associated services to its domain registry customers.
The company is said to have brought in between $750 million to $800 million last year. There are no details on the profit level, but, based on revenue alone, the $1 billion price tag starts to seem rather modest.
Go Daddy actually wanted to go for an initial public offer back in 2006. It filed for the IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission but later withdrew its application.
The company said that the market conditions were not right to go public at the time.
Apparently, Go Daddy has abandoned plans to go public, at least for now, and instead is looking for private buyers.
Some are saying that the company may make a good choice for Amazon. The e-retailer has been making inroads with its Amazon Web Services and owning the world's largest register may come in handy.