PE firms KKR, Silver Lake Partners & TCV acquire Go Daddy
02 Jul 2011
Scottsdale, Arizona-based, Go Daddy Group Inc, the leader in domain registration, has been acquired by a group of private equity firms in a deal valued at $2.25 billion.
Founded in 1997 as Jomax Technologies by Bob Parsons, Arizona-based GoDaddy.com, the company's flagship web property, is the world's largest registrar of internet domain names having more than 45 million domain names under management.
The Go Daddy Group includes three ICANN-accredited domain name registrars. Apart om from GoDaddy.com the company has membership-based 'Blue Razor Domains' and reseller 'Wild West Domains'.
The purchase, which will see the PE firms take up the company's debt, was announced yesterday by Go Daddy and the group of firms, comprising KKR & Co, Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures (See: KKR, Silver Lake close to buying Go Daddy for $2 bn).
According to Bob Parsons, the company's chief executive and founder what the companies were seeing was a lot more potential internationally and added potential to make partnerships and acquisitions.
From 2009 to 2010 the company's sales increased by 25 per cent to $947 million, and the 2011 projections put the figure at $1.1 billion.
