CentralNic purchases SafeBrands for up to €3.6m
CentralNic gobbles up brand-focused registrar with plans to extend its reach beyond French-speaking countries.
CentralNic (AIM: CNIC) disclosed today that it has purchased SafeBrands, a brand/corporate-focused domain registrar based in France.
The firm will pay up to €3.6m ($4.4m) for the business. €3.0 million will be paid upfront and the rest is subject to meeting FY 20 financial objectives. The price is approximately 0.9x SafeBrand’s FY 2019 revenue. The business operates at approximately break-even.
SafeBrands right now caters only to French-speaking clients. CentralNic plans to extend this to other languages, giving the firm upside in the transaction.
CentralNic is renaming its Corporate division as the Enterprise division in conjunction with the deal. This division is made up primarily of brand services. The firm hired Haydn Simpson last year, and he is now the Head of Brand Services. He previously worked for NetNames, CSC and BrandSight (now GoDaddy Corporate Domains).
CentralNic also entered into a reciprocal reseller agreement for domain names and brand protection services with IP protection firm Novagraaf. Additionally, CentralNic sold its minority stake in ThomsenTrampedach, a Swiss-based Online Brand Protection service provider, to Novagraaf.
