News from 2018

CentralNic acquired yet another company

Source: Domain Incite, September 7, 2018. http://domainincite.com/23391-centralnic-acquired-yet-another-company

Acquisitive registry/registrar CentralNic has picked up another company, paying up to €2.56 million ($2.95 million) for a small Delaware-based registrar

It will pay €1.5 million up-front for GlobeHosting, with the rest coming in two annual installments.

GlobeHosting may have a US corporate address, but it plays primarily in the Romanian and Brazilian markets.

It’s not ICANN-accredited. Instead, it acts as a Tucows reseller for gTLD domains (though I imagine that arrangement’s days are numbered).

The company had revenue of €849,000 for the 12 months to July 31 2018 and EBITDA of €419,000, CentralNic said.

The timing is arguably opportunistic. Earlier this year, Romanian registry ICI Bucharest (or ROtld) introduced an annual domain registration renewal fee for the first time (for real).

It recently started deleting names that do not pay the fee, a modest €6 per year.

CentralNic said that GlobeHosting, which appears to be notable player in the .ro market, is “expected to benefit” from this change.