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GoDaddy Sells To Investor Group

Posted by Soulskill on from the find-out-more-at-skeezy-ads-dot-com dept.

wiredmikey writes "Domain name registrar and Web hosting provider GoDaddy, announced it has agreed to receive a strategic investment from private equity firms KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover Ventures. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the Wall Street Journal reported people familiar with the deal saying it could be worth approximately $2.25 billion. The Scottsdale, Arizona based company which has built its marketing around scantly-clad women, manages more than 48 million domain names."

16 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    as an employee -- i cringe to see how our "Unique Corporate Culture" will come crashing down around us. Does this mean no more "Mario-Cart" during our breaks?

  2. Cashout Before Burst by cosm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Cashin' out the chips and going home before the inevitable bubble burst. The press release makes it sound like a 'partnership'. Is that just hipster MBA speak for politely saying that we've just been completely bought and that lots uf employees will be hosed to keep the investors happy? Time will tell...

    --
    'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
    1. Re:Cashout Before Burst by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's KKR.

      The barbarians are at the gate.

      They will pile the company, emit dividends with wherever cash there's in the company, mass layoff employees, break it up in separate divisions and sell it.

    2. Re:Cashout Before Burst by jhoegl · · Score: 2

      Most likely this means support jobs moved to a foreign country or outsourced.

      The Support/Call center for Godaddy is actually in Scottsdale Arizona.

    3. Re:Cashout Before Burst by lucm · · Score: 2

      This makes no sense whatsoever. First of all, Godaddy never completed its IPO and private equity firms rarely invest billions of dollars in a private company just to leech on its cash... As for breaking up the company, exactly how do you suggest KKR would do it (supposing that they are a majority partner, which nobody can confirm)? Separate the registrar and hosting departments? Spin-off the IT department to compete the Geek Squad? Completely ludicrous.

      As for "Barbarians at the gate": it is a bidding war for RJR-Nabisco that KKR won. It occurred in 1988, involved financial instruments that do not exist anymore, and even then KKR was a sound investment firm, not a corporate raider a la Gordon Gekko. What they did with RJR-Nabisco allowed its strongest components (such as Del Monte) to grow and become profitable.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
    4. Re:Cashout Before Burst by makomk · · Score: 2

      Frugal management sucks from the employees perspective, but it usually allow the company to survive, just like the IMF takeovers are unpleasant but can save a country from bankruptcy.

      You mean the IMF takeovers that result in things like large proportions of the population losing access to clean water because the IMF forced the government to sell off their water supplies at a knock-down price to a company that decided it only made financial sense to serve the uber-rich? Those IMF takeovers?

      Actually, it's probably not a bad analogy - both attempt to improve short-term finances and enrich third parties at the expense of the long-term health and stability of the country or business.

  3. Godaddy Alternatives by Compaqt · · Score: 4, Informative

    Namecheap has the best interface I've encountered.

    Moniker is so-so. The interface is somewhat clunky, and it doesn't register domains as fast as Namecheap. For multiple domains, it puts them into a batch job that starts executing a few minutes later.

    Any other good ones?

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
    1. Re:Godaddy Alternatives by Eil · · Score: 2

      I've stuck with namecheap over the years because they offer a lot of services for free that other registrar's charge extra for (DNS hosting, email forwarding, etc).

  4. GoDaddy Girls by DKirk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've used GoDaddy for many years but have started to shy away from them recently due to the girls being just a little over the top for a professional business. I found it awkward too many times dealing with businesses and their comments regarding the plastering of girls everywhere on the site, especially when I'm dealing with a female executive and the awkwardness when the girls display on the screen front and center. Another issue with GoDaddy is their site always feels sluggish, as if they are running their site on 10 year old servers.

  5. Always respected GD because... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To my knowledge they were one of the very few SSL providers which immediately revoked (and redistributed) every SSL certificate made with openssl when the Debian SSL disaster struck in 2008.

    And well; coming from Europe I have to say that the continuous examples as to how prude the US actually is always makes me chuckle. The banned superbowl commercials for example; when looking at those I often have a hard time understanding what the fuss is all about.

    1. Re:Always respected GD because... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      To my knowledge they were one of the very few SSL providers which immediately revoked (and redistributed) every SSL certificate made with openssl when the Debian SSL disaster struck in 2008.

      That is utterly WRONG and FALSE!

      I was one of the people that was affected by Debian OpenSSL screwup. I had an SSL certificate with GoDaddy. I had revoked the certificate and asked if I could reissue another, for the duration of the original at least. I was flatly told NO by GoDaddy support.

      So, it is utterly INCORRECT that GoDaddy reissued every certificate for people affected by Debian OpenSSL security issue.

  6. Re:I have a domain at GoDaddy by pubwvj · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are several, many, other registrars. Namecheap is what I now use. So far, so good. I liked GoDaddy for a long time having been an early customer with them but their sales tactics are very heavy handed and their web site hard to use.

  7. Re:I have a domain at GoDaddy by zonky · · Score: 2
    MarkMonitor. But you probably can't afford it.

    It's good enough for Google, it's good enough for you- but there is a $10-20k minimum annual spend i believe.

  8. Re:I have a domain at GoDaddy by Loconut1389 · · Score: 2

    What a rip off. They change way more for the exact same thing last I checked.

  9. Re:Silver Lake? by DJLuc1d · · Score: 2

    I will actually be glad when silver lake strips the company, fires everyone, takes their 'vested' options, and sells the ravaged carapace of a once awful company to some sucker.

  10. Crappy service, it's a racket; Hope it's disolved. by VortexCortex · · Score: 2

    I've had the displeasure of setting up hosting for people who've purchased their domains from GoDaddy.

    There's always some problem or another; Some basic task will just not work for no reason until you transfer the domain away from their greedy little paws.

    Most recently it was the MX records of a local non-profit's site. The .com MX records would simply not correctly point to the hosting provider's MX records. Thankfully I quickly purchased the .org companion domain in the non-profit's name via their hosting provider, and we used the .org site's mailing instead (until the .com was transferred -- the hosting plan included 3 domain names). GoDaddy tech support said they were aware of the issue, had their techs working on the problem, and would notify me when it was fixed -- It didn't get "fixed" for 6 months.

    I once searched and searched for a short catchy name to use for my software product that wasn't taken yet... I actually came up with a fitting name that didn't turn up any Google results or whois queries. I was already had the GoDaddy site open in a tab -- managing a client's domain -- so I quickly searched with GoDaddy to ensure the domain wasn't taken -- GoDaddy showed the domain was available, and at the lowest standard price too!

    That night, at home, I couldn't register the domain via a different Registrar. I gave up after trying 3 other hosts, frustrated and upset. Two days later, I was at GoDaddy, and just impulsively entered the domain name I wanted -- It was shown as available?! However, the price had risen -- a 10 fold increase! I scratched my head, and a phone call interrupted me.

    About an hour later I tried to register the domain from GoDaddy and it had already sold.

    Apparently if you search for a domain on GoDaddy, they immediately reserve it. This prevents you from using another Registrar to purchase the domain, but it keeps others from snatching it away -- This benefit is utterly destroyed as they then advertise the domain you searched for as a "premium" domain to other shoppers and allow them to "back-order" it in the event that you don't complete your purchase before your "grace period" expires. Thereby ensuring that if you search for your domain on GoDaddy, you must purchase it via GoDaddy. (I've added their site to my hosts file blacklists at home).

    Ultimately I tried contacting the registrant -- They turned out to be domain squatters who auctioned off domains via automated online auction sites, and wanted to sell it to me for even more money than they were auctioning it off at. I refused on principal; I would not fund such a practice.

    As with other items that have a demand and (artificial) scarcity, a market was formed around the domain names. This is why new URIs are typically terrible...

    I suppose I could register WhereHaveAllTheDomainNamesGoneDamnIt.com, but I think I'll just start spam searching crappy names like that to drive up their prices and cause some mischief instead.