June 16, 2017

Domain name registry Donuts to officially acquire Rightside Group

New gTLD company Donuts has agreed to buy out domain name services competitor Rightside for USD 213 million.

Security firm

Donuts, headquartered in Washington, this week announced that it has agreed to buy fellow Washington based Rightside Group for USD 10.60 per share, in a deal totaling USD 213 million in cash. Rightside is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker NAME, and the acquisition price marks a 12% premium over the average closing price for Rightside over the past 30 days.

For Donuts, the key assets of Rightside that they have acquired include:

  • Rights to an additional 40 top level domain names
  • Rightside’s technical registry system (that currently powers Donuts’ domains)
  • Domain name registrar Name.com
  • Portfolio of about 300,000 (mostly .com) domain names.

Donuts CEO Bruce Jaffe was enthused about the deal, saying:

Donuts and Rightside have a long history of working together, and we are delighted to take the next step with this transaction. We believe that the combined company will be well positioned to serve our registrar customers and the millions of businesses and individuals who are embracing new ways to brand their online identities.

Rightside CEO Taryn Naidu, also commented:

We believe that this agreement offers a substantial cash premium to our shareholders. We look forward to working closely with Donuts to consummate this merger.

Apart from proximity, the two companies share a colorful history. In 2016, Rightside declined what it referred to as an ‘unsolicited and opportunistic’ offer from Donuts to buy its domain registry business for $70 million, which CEO Naidu believed significantly undervalued Rightside’s Registry assets.

Prior to the merger, Rightside provided domain name registration and related value-added services to resellers and domain name registrants in the United States, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and the Cayman Islands.