Domain registries Donuts and Rightside are combining, with Donuts, Inc. acquiring Rightside Group for a purchase price of $213m. Rightside will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Donuts, which is a privately-held company. Rightside’s common shares will no longer be listed on any public market.
According to a press release, “The Merger Agreement was unanimously approved by Rightside’s Board of Directors following a comprehensive review of strategic and financial alternatives that Rightside announced in the first quarter of 2017.”
Donuts, Inc. is an internet domain name registry, powering “the world’s largest and most diverse group of new, relevant and expressive Internet domain names.” They own hundreds of TLDs (Top Level Domains), including .chat, .construction, and .diamonds. One of the domain name research studies and testing that I did a while back was on the .diamonds TLD.
Rightside is also an internet domain name registry, and they own TLD such as .reviews, .attorney, .mortgage, and .rehab.
J&W Investigates Proposed Sale
In related news, Johnson & Weaver, LLP, has launched an investigation into whether or not Rightside board members “breached their fiduciary duties in connection with the proposed sale…” according to a press release.
I am not a shareholder of Rightside, although I have done business with them in the past. I imagine, though, that J&W’s investigation is pretty “standard” in these types of situations and I’m not concerned at this time.