Register.com Owner to Acquire Network Solutions

Register.com and Network Solutions to get married.

Two of the highest priced and oldest domain name registrars are getting married.

Web.com, which owns Register.com, will pay $405 million plus 18 million shares of Web.com stock as well as take on Network Solutions’ debt.

The cash portion of the deal will be funded with new debt: $600 million of First Lien Credit Facilities and $150 million of Second Lien Credit Facilities, as well as a $50 million revolver. The new debt will also pay off the remaining $84 million of debt from the Web.com acquisition of Register.com in 2010. After closing, the combined company will have $740 million of net debt.

Network Solutions is owned by a number of investors, primarily General Atlantic LLC.

The two domain name registrars have watched their market share suffer in favor of lower priced rivals such as Go Daddy, but have still managed to keep millions of domain names at higher prices. Typical registration prices at the registrars is about $35 per year. Their customers are less price-sensitive and often purchase full online presence packages.

The message from Web.com is clear: Register.com was a good acquisition for the company, so Network Solutions make sense as well.

I suspect we’ll see more consolidation in the registrar space over the next year.

© DomainNameWire.com 2011.

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Web.com Buys Register.com for $135 Million

Large registrar agrees to be acquired by small business hosting and design company.

Web hosting and design company Web.com has agreed to purchase privately held domain name registrar Register.com for $135 million. The company views domain name registration as a lead generation tool for other services such as setting up web sites and hosting, and also sees cost savings of $10 million by merging the two entities.

Register.com is one of the original higher cost domain name registrars, which has stuck to its $35-a-year pricing similar to Network Solutions. It is the tenth largest domain name registrar with 2.36 million domain names according to RegistrarStats. That places it just behind Moniker.

Register.com also owns its own portfolio of domain names that its customers let expire.

With the acquisition Web.com is also inheriting a lawsuit filed by Chinese search engine Baidu. Baidu’s account was compromised and nameservers changed, apparently due to lax security controls by one of Register.com’s employees.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

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Related posts:

1. European Company Threatens Baidu Search Engine
2. Baidu Sues Register.com Over Hacking Incident
3. Register.com: Baidu Can’t Sue Us for Negligence. Its In Our Contract.