The stage is set for website host and Internet domain registrar, GoDaddy, to raise as much as $440 million. On Tuesday, it priced its planned IPO at $20, above the initial range $17 to $19 per share. This gives the company a valuation of $4.5 billion.
GoDaddy is set to offer 22 million Class A shares and plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GDDY beginning today.
After the offering, founder Bob Parsons, who stepped down as executive chairman in June, will hold 40% of GoDaddy's class B shares and nearly 24% of class A shares. The company is presently led by Blake Irving.
The lead underwriters of the IPO are Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Citigroup.
How it all began for GoDaddy?
Jomax Technologies was established in 1997 by Bob Parsons. Two years later, in 1999, a group of employees at Jomax Technologies decided to change the company name. Parsons came up with the name “Go Daddy" as he thought the name made people smile and remember it.
Based in Scottsdale, AZ, Go Daddy is a privately held Internet domain registrar and web hosting company. It also sells e-business related software and services.
The company claims to have 59 million domain names under management (as of 2014), making it the world's largest ICANN-accredited registrar.
This employer of more than 4,000 people serves 12 million customers and is also a NASCAR sponsor. It has however been in the midst of quite a few controversies relating to security and privacy.
Should you have it in your Portfolio?
This is not the first time that GoDaddy is attempting to enter the public market. It made its first attempt to go public way back in 2006. However, it ultimately withdrew. Five years later, in 2011, private equity firms, KKR and Silver Lake Partners, acquired the company for $2.25 billion. In June last year, it filed for an IPO.
Before jumping to buy this latest offering, investors should consider the following points.
GoDaddy deals with a particularly low-margin business of domain registration. What makes things worse is that Google GOOGL now sells domain names directly.
At the same time, it is also involved in the highly competitive business of web hosting. The big names in the cloud business include the likes of Google, Amazon AMZN and Microsoft MSFT.
Along with these big cloud companies, a lot of small hosting companies offer extremely low prices. (For instance - DigitalOcean).
Last year, GoDaddy’s revenues rose 23% to $1.4 billion. However, this wasn’t enough to cover costs, which netted a loss of $143.3 million. This doesn’t speak well ofa mature, 18-year old company.