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Group NBT, Parent to NetNames and Speednames, Purchased by Private Equity Firm

Tue, 09/27/2011 - 09:20 — Josh Bourne — Permalink

Early last month, I blogged about Web.com’s acquisition of Network Solutions, the oldest domain name registrar in existence. Now, as of last week, Group NBT, a London-based domain name management and web hosting company, has been purchased by private equity firm HgCapital Funds. According to ShareCast, the terms of the purchase value Group NBT at around £153 million, or approximately $237 million.

Whereas Network Solutions boasted a high volume of non-corporate customers, Group NBT specializes in corporate domain name services. It is the parent company of corporate domain registrar NetNames, and also owns various domain name hosting companies. Group NBT does have a smaller non-corporate, or retail, business in the form of Speednames, a Copenhagen-based retail registrar that serves European markets.

In the post about the acquisition of Network Solutions, I speculated that a trend of consolidation within the domain name industry is emerging in anticipation of ICANN’s new gTLD launch, and the potential burst of activity it will yield. Group NBT’s CEO Geoff Wicks commented that the company will continue to look for acquisition opportunities to firm its “position as a market leader for domain name management services in Europe”. It appears that domain companies are indeed steeling themselves to be able to handle a potential influx of new business.

So the question on my mind is, which company will be next? The big companies are, effectively, too big: CSC has a larger business providing services such as “Registered Agent” service that are unrelated to domains, and Melbourne IT is a publicly traded company that offers a variety of domain-related services. On the other hand, many corporate services registrars are much smaller, even smaller than Group NBT’s NetNames. It is unlikely that they would be sufficiently valuable to investors like HgCapital. So that leaves MarkMonitor, which is currently one of the only private, stand alone, corporate services domain name registrars. If I had to put money on it, I would bet that MarkMonitor could be the next acquisition target.

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When the Secret’s Out

Tue, 01/05/2010 - 14:22 — Josh Bourne — Permalink

TechCrunch recently picked up MacRumor’s report on Apple’s assumed possession of the domain name islate.com. MacRumor found that the whois information for the domain name lists “DNStination, Inc.”, a profile often used by corporate registrar MarkMonitor to “mask” domain ownership on behalf of their clients. The article also points out that MarkMonitor is the corporate registrar that Apple is known to work with. 
 
What TechCrunch didn’t include is that MarkMonitor held the name on behalf of a client as far back as October 2006.  Before that time, it was held by Eurobox Ltd.  While we can’t confirm it, chances are the domain was acquired from Eurobox.

The TechCrunch reporter decided to do a little sleuthing and found other iSlate related domains that are registered by MarkMonitor and therefore likely linked to Apple.

So here’s a lesson for brands—no matter what “masked” Whois information a registrar sets up in the Whois profile of a domain you have purchased or registered, if yours is a corporate-only registrar, it’s too easy for the press, the public, competitors and others to guess what’s going on.

If the goal is to avoid media coverage and tipping off the masses, what’s the best way for a brand to go? Definitely use a corporate registrar like MarkMonitor for your registrations.  Registering domains for big companies is their business and they know it well.  However, if you have a new brand in mind and want to keep the press, competitors, and squatters off the trail, make it more anonymous – register through a consumer retail registrar like Network Solutions or GoDaddy and use their privacy service.

Maybe based on this recent article the registrars that service the domain registration needs of brand owners will offer a “super secret” anonymous registration and go outside their own registrar to make registrations.  I think it would be a valuable service.

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