Web hosting and domain name registrar GoDaddy.com has been bought by a consortium of private equity firms – including KKR, SilverLake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures – for US$2.2bn.
GoDaddy is the world’s largest registrar of domain names. Half of the transaction is debt.
The company’s CEO Bob Parsons will retain his position while the private equity firms will become the company’s majority investors.
The deal will prove integral to GoDaddy’s plans to expand overseas and make possible acquisitions.
It also comes at a pivotal time for the domain names business, following ICANN’s decision in recent weeks to expand generic top level domains (gTLDs) from the current 22 to allow future internet address names to end with almost any word in any language.
