GoDaddy.com, one of the oldest and most popular online domain registrars has announced that the company is going up for sale. The company owned by Bob Parsons has hired Qatalyst Partners to manage the auction. The reason for putting itself up for sale is not immediately evident though the auction process itself is expected to fetch a large value – as much as $1 billion – to the owner.
GoDaddy was founded in 1997 and has since then grown to manage close to 43 million domain names. Besides domain name management, GoDaddy is also active on eCommerce, online security and services segment. The company posted revenues of between $750 million and $800 million in 2009. The sale is expected to attract a lot of private equity partners because of the business’ ability to induce a steady cash flow through the sale of monthly subscriptions and also because of the opportunity to upsell additional products and services to customers.