GoDaddy goes on sale
The domain-name registrar and purveyor of sexy Super Bowl ads is putting itself up for auction and could go for more than $1 billion, a report says.
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Citing unnamed sources, The Wall Street Journal said Frank Quattrone's Qatalyst Partners has been hired to shop around the Go Daddy Group, parent company of GoDaddy, which has long been known to the general public for its racy Super Bowl commercials.
GoDaddy is attractive to private equity firms because of the money it makes from monthly subscriptions and from selling Web-site extras to customers, the Journal said. The largest domain-name registrar in the world, GoDaddy posted revenue between $750 million and $800 million in 2009, the Journal said.
Some expected GoDaddy to go public several years back, but the deal never came to pass. Earlier this year, smaller competitor Register.com was sold to Web.com by private equity firm Vector Capital for $135 million, the Journal said.