GoDaddy Sale is Near Completion

KKR & Co. and Silver Lake Partners, and private equity firm Technology Crossover Ventures, are planning to buy GoDaddy Group. The company, which has been made famous by its race driver spokesman Danica Patrick, offers web hosting along with domain name registration.

The sale is expected to go through for between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. The deal is being facilitated by Qatalyst Partners, a boutique investment bank. All potential buyers have a strong history in tech ventures, with KKR, Silver Lake and Technology Crossover all having been investors in Avago Technologies, which delivered a strong return. Technology Crossover was also an investor in the popular deal site Groupon. The company, launched in 1997, is still run by the original founder, Bob Parsons.

GoDaddy.com is the world’s biggest domain registrar; they also sell e-commerce and security services to consumers and small businesses that need to expand their online presence. One of the more attractive things about GoDaddy as an acquisition target-besides its size-is the fact that it generates regular monthly cash flow from its services. The company is also of course, well known for its advertising campaign, which include “Go Daddy Girls” and Super Bowl ads.

The deal has still not closed and Go Daddy and the buyers are still tight-lipped about the acquisition, although Go Daddy has been on the market, at least unofficially, for some time. As an acquisition target, Go Daddy is attractive, and not just because of the Go Daddy girls. The company generated sales of about $950 million in 2010.

Links

• GoDaddy Official Website
• GoDaddy Review
• GoDaddy Coupon Codes