Business.com Owner Files for Bankruptcy
R. H. Donnelley files for bankruptcy to get out of debt load.
Yellow pages directory publisher and Business.com owner R.H. Donnelly has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
R.H. Donnelley is a yellow pages publisher that saw the writing on the wall a couple years ago. It decided to grab a bigger piece of the online directory pie by plunking down $345 million for Business.com.
In a press release, the firm cited the weakening economy for necessitating bankruptcy:
Our growth-through-buyout strategy never anticipated the cataclysmic collapse of the U.S. economy and the local advertising market. As a result of these developments, earlier this year we began negotiating with our lenders to restructure our debt and provide the firm with a more sustainable capital structure that reflects the current economic realities,” stated David C. Swanson, chairman and CEO of R.H. Donnelley.
Marc Ostrofsky’s sale of Business.com in 1999 catapulted the domain name aftermarket to the center stage. The press widely noted the sale as $7.5M. But as stated by the buyer, the stock it paid for the domain ended up being redeemed for $2.0M.
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